Emirates NBD announces fifth cohort of Ruwad, accelerating the leadership journey of Emirati talent

2 Min | 19 September 2025

Dubai, UAE, 19 September 2025: Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye (MENAT) region, announced the launch of the fifth cohort of its flagship Ruwad graduate leadership programme. Since its inception in September 2021, Ruwad has been central to the bank’s Emiratisation agenda, designed to accelerate the progression of high-potential UAE National graduates into management and ultimately executive roles.

The two-year programme combines exposure to Emirates NBD’s strategic projects with its hallmark feature - secondments with 15 leading partner organisations such as KPMG, Plug & Play, Visa and Dell. Increasingly, participants are also gaining global experience through placements in Emirates NBD’s international offices and those of its secondment partners, complemented by world-class training, performance management and mentoring.

Eman Abdulrazzaq, Group Chief Human Resources Officer at Emirates NBD, said: “Now in its fifth year, Ruwad has become strategically important to our Emiratisation agenda and to Emirates NBD’s wider growth strategy. As our bank expands internationally, this programme is preparing Emiratis not only for leadership roles here in the UAE but also for opportunities across our growing global network in markets such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India and Türkiye.”

Since launching, Ruwad has delivered strong results with close to 100% of participants progressing into managerial roles well ahead of the typical timeframe. Each cohort has also sustained an approximate 50-50 gender balance, reinforcing Emirates NBD’s commitment to developing diverse leadership and achieving long-term female leadership targets.

May AlMansoori, Head of Group Emiratisation at Emirates NBD, said: “Ruwad’s unique structure is what makes it stand out. It combines elite secondments, exposure to strategic projects, and world-class training and mentoring that has enabled participants to reach managerial positions at twice the speed of traditional career paths. With equal gender representation across the programme and an expanding network of global secondment partners, Ruwad is creating confident, capable Emirati leaders who will shape the future of banking.”

Together with Bedaya, Ruwad forms the foundation of Emirates NBD’s investment in young Emirati talent. Beyond these entry pathways, the bank continues to accelerate the career progression of each Emirati through sponsored MBA programmes, executive education at Oxford University and other world-class institutions, and both domestic and international career mobility opportunities.

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