Hawkamah Celebrates 10 Years of Success

Dubai - 13 January 2016: Hawkamah, the Institute for Corporate Governance at the Dubai International Financial Centre and the first centre specialised in Governance in the GCC, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Over the last decade, Hawkamah has successfully established itself as the region's leading Corporate Governance Institute, offering advisory services and courses across the Middle East and North Africa region. The Centre is steadily committed to new initiatives and is therefore marking its 10th anniversary with the launch of several new strategic initiatives.

One of Hawkamah's milestones in the first quarter of 2016 will be the graduation of the first intake of the Women Directors' Program, in collaboration with Dubai Women Establishment. Launched in 2015, the programme provides women with the development and exposure needed to enter boardrooms in government institutions, banks and companies listed in capital markets in the region.

The institute will also launch the Arabic version of its flagship 'Director Development Program', the DDP. The aim of the programme is to build an understanding of corporate governance and increase the capacity of business leaders and top executives in both private and public sectors across the region. The programme consists of four parts covering all aspects of corporate governance, boards of directors, auditing and risk management.

In addition, Hawkamah will organise a study tour to the United Kingdom and France in 2016, to meet practitioners and experts in the field of governance and boards of directors. In 2015, a similar study tour was organized to the United States where participants visited prestigious institutions and met high level government and company directors and business leaders.

As an initiative of the Dubai International Finance Centre, Hawkamah was created in 2006 to work with the companies, governments and regulators to help bridge the corporate governance gap in the region. The Institute grew out of the recognition of a growing need for a regional organisation working on the ground, in order for corporate governance to achieve buy-in of stakeholders. Since then Hawkamah has been at the forefront of the corporate governance debate in the region.