Shaima AlMuallem, a ZU Graduate, in her own words stated “it was such a good day, I learned a lot and I was very happy to meet Dr. Amina because she has a very different way of thinking unlike many other people that I met”, as she reminisced of her experience at the CEOx1 Day that she spent with Dr. Amina Al Rustamani, the Group Chief Executive Officer of TECOM Group, a member of Dubai Holding.

CEOx1 Day is the brainchild of Odgers Berndtoson, and is organized by the company. Its aim is to to provide final year Bachelor students an experience and insight into a CEO’s working day. After a rigorous qualifying round that consists of group activities, and individual interviews, participants are finally assigned to shadow the CEO.

According to Odgers Berndtoson, CEOx1Day is designed to uncover promising future leaders and give them an opportunity to walk in the shoes of a senior business leader. They hope that by spending a day with the CEO of a well-known organisation, students learn the level of responsibility and the complexities required for today’s modern leading executives, and also the student gets a feel for how these leaders create value in their organisations.

Aliya Saeed Juma Abdulla Al Falasi, current student and business administration assistant at College of Business at Zayed university, spoke to Shaima after she completed the CEOx1 day with Al Rustamani, and below are some key asserts, and learning take-aways that she experienced, and she wanted to pass on to all her peers at Zayed University.

-        When asked about Dr. Amina, Shaima stated that " she was very sweet, very attentive, and very unconventional"

-        What advice she would give to ZU students she replied, "Always take the initiative to learn by yourself and reach out to people, get as much opportunity as you can, nothing is a waste of time, as long as you’re learning one thing from your experience” and “every experience that you go through, you learn something"

-        One question that current students always ask their graduated seniors is, “what is the difference between university and work life?” and this is what Shaima stated about the experience she got, "In the university there’s someone to tell you exactly what you need to do, but in workplace, you are expected to know your responsibilities, they do give you guidelines in the beginning and that’s it"

Shaima AlMuallem currently works for J.P. Morgan Private Bank and her short-term plan is to work on her own project, study to get some certification in her field, and a her long term goal is to get a significant position in a company, and implement what she learned during that one day of CEOx1 at TECOM with Dr. Amina Rostamani.

Finally, interested students foer CEOx1 can register at:

https://www.odgersberndtson.com/en-ae/ceox1day