The Client

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is an international University based on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. It was founded as “a beacon for peace, hope, and reconciliation and shall serve the people of the Kingdom and benefit all the peoples of the world.”

The University is one piece of a much wider national strategy called Vision 2030. This sets out national ambitions to play an important role globally and in the Arab World. The KAUST vision includes broad economic and societal benefits and growing as an international centre of expertise, with a strong emphasis on sustainable technology and the environment.

KAUST has around 12,000 employees, with over 300 world-renowned academic staff and 300 professional support staff.

The Challenge

Stuart Duff, Partner and Head of Development at Pearn Kandola, has been working with the senior leadership team of KAUST since 2018, delivering leadership coaching and development across the University. Continuing from this work, Pearn Kandola were invited to meet with all the Vice Presidents and Deans at KAUST to further understand their business and the unique and potential future challenges they face.

KAUST is an intensively creative environment with leading academics from Universities around the world, including MIT, Harvard, Yale and Cambridge. The research faculty are at the heart of KAUST and enjoy the benefit of world-class facilities. To stay at the forefront of academic research they need to continue to attract and retain leaders from around the world.

Added to the challenges of building a world-class faculty, KAUST exists as an autonomous campus with all the complexity of servicing and supporting a growing community within a challenging physical environment. This means running all the physical infrastructure as well as community services such as schools, leisure facilities, social events and health provision.

KAUST is seeking to deliver maximum impact from this funding and further bolster its long-term future by securing commercial partnerships and investments. The key challenge is achieving these above aims within the context of competition from other global universities.

With these challenges in mind, KAUST asked Pearn Kandola to develop a series of Executive Leadership Development programmes to identify talented future senior leaders and provide personal development support for each leader.

The Solution

The solution was to create a series of Executive Development Programmes (EDP) targeted at high performing senior leaders across KAUST. The EDP offers a “springboard” to support those who are considered to have the potential for either broadening or deepening their impact within their current roles, or to support those who show the potential to succeed within high-level leadership roles.

The EDP is anchored to a leadership framework – the KAUST Leadership Principles – developed by Pearn Kandola through in-depth discussions with KAUST’s senior leaders to understand the behaviours that are needed strategically to meet the current and emerging challenges.

Participants are able to identify their strengths and development priorities against the KAUST Leadership Principles and to develop strategies for increasing their capability and impact as a leader. This delivers long-term success both for the individual and for KAUST. The programme includes:

• Pre-work, which includes online personality profiling, a developmental leadership interview and a 360-degree survey with targeted contributions.
• An off-site development centre in which leaders have opportunities to demonstrate their leadership style and behaviours in handling a range of different senior leadership challenges.
• A development action plan with ongoing support from line manager and HR
• Ongoing group development activities.
• Optional follow on 1:1 Executive coaching.

At the heart of the programme is an ‘assessment for development’ centre where leaders are observed in a variety of exercises and receive feedback from a dedicated Pearn Kandola coach, using the KAUST Leadership Framework to guide the discussions. Participants also take part in leadership skills workshops, have time for self-reflection, feedback and coaching, and can create a development plan to support their long-term leadership growth at KAUST.

The Outcomes

Participants leave the EDP with a detailed report containing feedback and suggestions on how to take their development forward, based on the observations of their coach.  An Executive Summary of the participant report is shared with their line manager for ongoing support, as well as the Head of Talent Management to ensure that they receive the best possible development assistance.

The EDP also provides KAUST with valuable talent management information, enabling their talent team to make the best possible decisions to support career choices and development opportunities for every leader.

And finally, don’t just listen to us – here are some of the comments from EDP participants:

“The fact that it was tailored specifically for KAUST was the key. Everything and everyone is in line with the current status of KAUST and everything around. All leadership principles are from KAUST, so it’s clear the direction we must focus on during the exercises.​”

“The organization and planning were impeccable. Very clear and very professional. ​ The actors were absolutely brilliant and the different exercises really focused on key elements of leadership.​”

“The combination of group sessions, workshops, individual sessions, and immediate feedback, made this course the best development course I’ve ever had at KAUST.​ Extremely useful. ​ I hope all KAUST leadership goes through similar sessions in the very near future.​ This should be a requirement for all aspiring leaders at KAUST.​ ​ Thank you very much for the opportunity!”

“It has been extremely useful. I hope all KAUST leadership goes through similar sessions in the very near future. This should be a requirement for all aspiring leaders at KAUST. Thank you very much for the opportunity!”

“The alignment of the scenarios to the realities of KAUST. The acting was extraordinary. The clarity of the feedback so quickly was very helpful. The interaction with colleagues was also helpful.”