Keynote Speakers

Eng. Redha Al Saleh

Chairman, Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Engineer Redha Al Saleh is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Commercial Arbitration Center for the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf “Dar Al-Qatar” and Vice Chairman of the BOD of Oman Institute for Human Resources Development.  He is a BOD Member of several organizations and companies, including Oman Petrochemical Industries Company (2005-2007), Omani European Company for Food Industries (2001-2005), Amman College of Management and Technology, General Authority for Social Insurance, Al-Zahra College for Girls, and Muscat University.  Eng. Al Saleh has accumulated significant experience in the government and the private sector. He worked for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor from 1981 to 1998. He owns and manages several companies including Liana Engineering Consulting and the Lama Group.  Eng. Al Saleh has a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from Valparaiso University in the USA and is a certified engineering and real estate expert at the Omani Ministry of Justice.

Dr Bruno Casella

Senior Economist, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Senior economist at UNCTAD Division of Investment and Enterprise where he leads the Intellectual Property and Development Section. He is one of the lead authors of the annual World Investment Report. A global expert in foreign direct investment and global value chains, Bruno has also produced influential research and policy papers in the field of international business and economics. Before joining UNCTAD in 2013, he was a manager at strategic consulting company McKinsey & Company where he served a wide range of corporate clients worldwide.  He holds a Ph.D. in Statistics and a degree in Economics from Bocconi University.

Dr. Mena Hassan

Senior Trade Policy and Trade Facilitation Expert, World Trade Organization

For close to 20 years, Dr. Hassan has dedicated her experience to trade policy analysis, trade facilitation, and trade and development as a staff member of the World Trade Organization. Dr. Hassan contributed to the technical assistance pillar of the WTO by conducting close to 60 missions in developing countries, especially in Africa and the MENA region where she delivered training seminars and courses on many WTO Agreements. In the area of trade facilitation, Dr. Hassan contributed to the program of technical assistance on the multilateral negotiations on Trade Facilitation and the National Trade Facilitation Needs Assessment program. She assisted trade and customs officials in many Capitals across Africa, the MENA region, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific to deepen their understanding of the negotiations and anticipate what changes in policies and practices would be needed domestically to implement the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). While she continued to assist in TF, Dr. Hassan expanded her responsibilities within the Trade Policies Review Division of the WTO and has acquired ten years of experience drafting and co-authoring trade policy review reports on over 15 WTO Members. In 2020, Dr. Hassan has joined the Accessions Division of the WTO, where she is responsible for the accession process of Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, and Palestine to the WTO.

Annamarie Lawrence

Senior Consultant, Tribal Group

Based in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Annamarie is a Senior Consultant for Tribal Group, a UK-based global education consultancy. Her global experience includes supporting Bahrain Government by establishing work-integrated teaching and learning models for employers and higher education to work closer together. In the UK, she supported the international expansion of an awarding body looking at international markets for its apprenticeship model. In Sweden, Annamarie supported skills and talent strategy in the steel and pharmaceutical industry, and in New Zealand, she worked for the New Zealand Government contributing to education and skills anticipation on regional economic development strategy in partnership with key employers. Annamarie’s technical and strategic experience has been utilized in her contributions to national policy offering support for an integrated policy that supports both education and labor market interventions. Her policy experience includes contributing to national innovation policy, national research policy, apprenticeships policy, and leading a policy initiative to govern professional standards for applied learning practitioners. In addition to policy documentation, Annamarie has contributed with thought leadership through her British Council publications and book chapters on international education policy, EdTech policy gap for industry 4.0, policy impact assessments, and the integration of skill policy on the labor market. Annamarie holds a Master’s Degree in Human Capital Development from Gothenburg University, Sweden, and a Senior Fellowship from the UK Higher Education Academy. In addition, Annamarie holds credentials in education policy, quality assurance in education, work integrated learning, policy impact assessments, and Theory of Change models.