One hundred of the region's leading business influencers are gathering in Dubai next month to knowledge-share innovative approaches to directing future regional growth through people. And disruption is on the agenda.

Dubai, UAE -- (ReleaseWire) -- 04/27/2015 --With the UAE Government's official designation of 2015 as the Year of Innovation, it is apt that the 10th anniversary of the Human Assets Expansion Summit MENA focuses on this agenda. On a practical level, the region is taking the concept to heart, with CEO of Dubai-based Great Place to Work, Ronald Thomas firmly asserting: "Innovation and creativity will be the hallmarks of the future."

Regional C-level executives from the public and private sectors are set to address the Summit in terms of 'disruption' to the way we traditionally recruit, develop and retain personnel, as a route to ultimately innovating corporate prosperity. According to Sophie Le Ray, CEO of Human Assets Expansion Summit host organisation, naseba, the nominations for the MENA HR Excellence Award are showing a more focused desire to retain and develop employees as a means of leading overall growth.

"We have seen some clever and surprising strategies from MENA people managers who understand that developing human assets delivers a solid ROI -- real thought-leadership in action. We will be highlighting cases of MENA-led HR innovations that we expect to be very influential at the Summit next month. One thing is for sure, it works against us to simply repeat old practices. Innovation needs to happen if we want to maintain not only our regional growth, but also our region's commercial reputation."

But why do we need either innovation or disruption in our HR practices? Disruption is needed for two main reasons. Firstly, because innovation comes from people, and applying some disruption to the traditional way of managing human assets can be a real game-changer. Secondly, if we want to maintain our 'firsts' and 'bests' in the region, we need to instill an innovation culture in our people.

The UAE was recently ranked as the most creative country in the MENA region in a report by Bayt.com, and commissioned by Dubai Knowledge Village, one of the headline Knowledge Partners for the Human Assets Expansion Summit this year. Dr. Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director of Dubai International Academic City and Dubai Knowledge Village, comments: "It is an impressive achievement to migrate from a knowledge-based economy to an innovation-led one. It is therefore important that we work together at the Summit to identify the barriers to us furthering this creativity."

While it has been decisively proven that innovative people can shape entire organisations, the Summit will explore the need to see disruption in order to lead to this innovation in the workplace, and also to develop the economic potential GCC nationals, as they are the ambassadors of 'the GCC brand'.

The 10th Annual Human Assets Expansion Summit MENA takes place on May 20th and 21st, at the Sofitel The Palm in Dubai, UAE.

About The 10th Annual Human Assets Expansion Summit MENA
The summit is being supported by CCM Consultancy, Oracle, Sundus Recruitment, Maximum, Pfizer, Gulf Bank, Agthia, Dubai Knowledge Village, Bayt.com, Great Place to Work and MiH Training Academy among others.