It all started when a large organization based in the Middle East approached Jeanine Bailey, a global leadership expert, to coach its 45 senior executives. The program’s objective was to act as a conduit between the organization and its executives: identify an executive’s current role in the organization, understand their strengths and career goals, and align them with the organization’s growth aspirations. It involved scoping a tailored career route for each individual, keeping in mind their unique sets of skills and ambitions (not to mention their other qualitative factors like personality quotients and emotional intelligence), and bridging it with the client organization’s overall business objectives and roadmap. The project indeed was challenging to say the least.

To make this massive endeavor a success, Jeanine joined hands with Marie Quigley, another renowned leadership and empowerment specialist. With their combined leadership and coaching experience of more than five decades, Jeanine and Marie began their venture. They created key performance indicators (KPI) for every stakeholder, including the company’s leaders and HR, to identify where the executives were performing well and falling behind. During the course of the program, each of the employees was able to understand what was holding them back from achieving their respective goals. And soon, Jeanine and Marie helped the organization and its executives undergo a significant cultural transformation to encourage a more people-focused business philosophy within the company.

“While working on this project, both Marie and I also realized our cohesiveness to work as a team. We had very similar values, passion, and a sense of purpose,” shares Jeanine. So, witnessing the success of this program, they set out to explore their prospect in the Middle East region, where they felt the presence of evidence-backed leadership coaching programs had meager representation. The duo stood up to the challenge and set the tracks for their company, Empower World.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today, Empower World is carving a niche for itself in the leadership development space by putting forth a diverse range of programs that aim to make the organizations in the Middle East region go that extra mile in aligning their goals with that of its employees. Being Master Certified Coaches and approved by International Coaching Federation (ICF), Empower World provides tailor-made executive coaching and coach mentoring programs that bring about transformational behavioral change and instill key leadership skills within its clients’ workforce.
Currently, Empower World’s assortment of highly interactive and experiential workshops and training support are “empowering” employees, coaches, and leaders across a growing list of locations in the Middle East, Australasia, UK, Europe, and Africa.

At the core of this success, as Marie points out, is their aim to create a long-term sustainable change for organizations instead of quick fixes. “Even after incorporating our programs, we ensure that our clients have the requisite tools embedded in their system to drive the change forward, even when we’re not there,” Marie says. Adding to that, Jeanine mentions, “The magic really lies in being able to decipher employees’ individualized vision, values, purpose, beliefs, interests, and skillsets, and linking them with the company’s shared purpose and growth,” says Jeanine.

The Go-To Partner in the Middle East
Banking on Jeanine and Marie’s zeal and dedication, Empower World’s reputation as the go-to name for leadership coaching and training among organizations only seems like a natural progression. “From the early days, we realized that the Middle East is one of the most colorful cultural hotbeds in the world.

But the downside to it is many premium organizations struggle to manage a multicultural team,” remarks Marie. “And this is the narrative we wanted to change through Empower World. We wanted to aid multicultural companies in effectively managing their workforce,” Marie adds further. And by making that possible, today, Jeanine and Marie indeed can be well regarded as the pioneers of the leadership coaching profession in the Middle East. Through their company, they are able to seamlessly help their Middle East clients build trust and rapport in the multicultural work environments, signifying their competency in delivering effective leadership and coaching programs for diverse workforces.

To that end, Empower World also supports individuals beyond the ‘surface level’ by tapping into their emotional intelligence. “We don’t just do one-to-one executive coaching. We always take a holistic look at what’s suitable for the individuals, their team, and the organization as a whole to create the right kind of ripple effect,” notes Marie. Additionally, Empower World implements a 360-degree feedback process before and after a program. This enables each individual to witness the before and after scenario more evidently. “And it is quite wonderful to see how our efforts are triumphantly supporting people from various cultural backgrounds to build powerful and united teams while also tackling challenges, such as the communication gap or impostor syndrome,” adds Jeanine.

Connecting the Passion with Purpose

Jeanine enthuses that it is their passion for coaching and leadership management that has been driving them to the forefront of the domain. “Our primary objective is to educate organizations about leadership development. And to impart the best knowledge, we constantly strive to update our skills and know-how by adding more certifications and skillsets under our wing that align with our values and purpose,” mentions Jeanine. Through such a proactive stance toward learning and imparting knowledge, Empower World always stays ahead of its game. “It’s fascinating and wonderful to experience in many of the companies we work with to onboard us as an extension of their internal team after having worked with us even once,” says Jeanine. And this has always been a unique value proposition for Empower World.

Broadening the Horizon

Riding on the coattails of such competencies, Empower World is now steadfast at turning the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity for their clients beyond the Middle East. In the wake of the pandemic, the company has moved all the leadership development and training programs online to continue supporting its clients. And interestingly, this has been garnering interest from companies from all corners of the world. Their reputation for excellent leadership training has also been providing them with positive word of mouth, swiftly expanding their client base.

“As for us, we are always delighted to witness life-changing transformation in people. With our clients’ success always inspiring us, we will keep doing what we do best: driving powerful, positive change and empowering the world with better leaders,” conclude the co-founders.