The environmental management industry has become increasingly vital as global challenges such as climate change, resource depletion, and ecological degradation demand urgent attention. Organizations worldwide are enhancing their capabilities to respond to environmental crises and maintain continuous operations amidst these challenges.

Business continuity and organizational resilience are at the core of this mission, ensuring that entities can withstand and adapt to unforeseen disruptions while upholding their environmental responsibilities. This strategic focus on resilience is now more critical than ever as the world grapples with an array of environmental threats.

In this context, Suzan Al Ghanem, the Section Head of Organizational Resilience and Business Continuity at Environment Agency–Abu Dhabi (EAD), has been instrumental in advancing the agency’s capabilities, particularly in enhancing preparedness and response mechanisms. Her strategic vision and dedication have not only fortified EAD’s operational resilience but also set a benchmark for excellence within the environmental management sector.

Motivation Behind Organizational Resilience and Business Continuity

Suzan began her journey in the -Hospitality industry in 2008, working in the field of Food Safety, Hygiene, and Environmental Health and Safety at Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi (BRAD). For two years, she specifically responded to food safety and EHS-related emergencies.

Later, Suzan joined the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) in 2010 and worked in the Quality, Environment, Health, and Safety Department, where her focus was on responding to EHS-related emergencies within the organization and Environmental Emergencies in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. This work has led to many successes at strategic and operations levels, in addition to incorporating excellence, creativity, innovation, and sustainability in her work, creating historical data and best practices.

Along with this, Suzan has incorporated her organizational resilience and business continuity through the implementation and application of the Business Continuity Management System, which resulted in the enhancement of the organization’s capabilities and the preparedness of her team.

Suzan and the team’s success resulted in achieving many performance achievements and excellence awards at the local, federal, and international levels. They have continued to strive for excellence for the past 14 years at EAD. This has given her exposure to managing projects and initiatives to enhance the organization’s business continuity with her leadership support and commitment.

Enhancing Capabilities and Preparedness of the Organization

Suzan’s responsibilities encompass the survival of the organization during a crisis by working together with relevant internal and external strategic partnered stakeholders to improve the Business Continuity Management (BCM) and enhance the organization’s capabilities and preparedness.

Suzan also oversees the implementation of Operational Risk Management (ORM) in accordance with the Enterprise Risks Management System Methodology by raising awareness, enhancing risk owners’ capabilities, risk identification, assessment, mitigation of treatment plans, control implementation, and monitoring.

In addition, the organization must anticipate the potential risks and threats to cope with and adapt to the changes resulted from the impact of the crisis through future forecasting and developing the organization’s agility to become more resilient; this includes implementing relevant standards, guidelines, and best practices that help contribute to the BCM and ORM implementation.

Leading with a Strategic Approach

Suzan conducts continuous meetings, awareness and collaboration with internal stakeholders to engage with leadership and management. She tries to keep them up to date with the latest information and historical trends through various internal groups, conferences, summits and workshops—locally and internationally—and incorporates them within the organization’s business continuity and enterprise risk management operations by monitoring team performance, highlighting the team’s achievements, wow factors, success and great efforts.

Embracing Innovation, Ensuring Sustainability

Suzan fosters a modern work culture by engaging and educating employees and promoting the feedback culture to improve their knowledge and skills. She creates opportunities for her team to adapt and change through best practices to enhance work efficiency. Suzan believes, “To implement the excellence culture, you should encourage your team to be more innovative to generate ideas, brainstorm, collaborate, and embrace diversity.”

Suzan also encourages her team to implement and ensure sustainability through setting clear goals, further education, workshops, and seminars in the workplace and within their operations. Sustainability is part of the organization’s vision, mission, and values, as well as its Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR).

Suzan acknowledges industry trends scaling over federal and global levels by engaging and participating in several conferences, whether in-person or virtually, with strategically partnered stakeholders and local and international event organizers.

PDCA: Transformative Tool for Continuous Development

Susan is committed to continuously improving EAD. To achieve this target, she follows the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), which refers to the continuous practice and implementation of local and internal standards and guidelines as part of continuous improvement.

It runs within the organization and at the professional level, developing and upgrading policies and procedures through implementing the Business Continuity Program. PDCA helps to raise awareness, enhance the organization’s capabilities, and validate the organization’s plans and preparedness through continuous testing and exercises.

Suzan promotes monitoring responses, recovery capabilities and mitigation measures. She also emphasizes reporting to top management as part of the management review and going through the cycle again as part of Business Continuity maintenance assurance.

Executing Classroom Theories into Reality

Continuous learning and pursuing higher education made a significant impact on Suzan’s journey. This reflects on her organizational success, where she contributed to and enhanced organizational performance and approach by identifying gaps, tackling challenges, and creating opportunities as part of continuous improvement within the line of work.

Suzan feels that “The UAE leadership and government have given her so much great opportunities that she must always improve and strive for excellence by consistently engaging with the public and sharing her best practices and approach as part of giving back to the public.”

Suzan continues to educate the organizational employees on the several types of risks and how to deal with them based on their critical and non-critical activities. Each employee plays a role in supporting the organization and enhancing business continuity.

Balancing Professional and Personal Roles

Suzan focused on worshipping Allah to maintain a balance between her professional and personal life. Throughout her journey of success, she prioritized mental and physical health by eating healthy and exercising regularly.

She shares, “Always learn to breathe and take a step back when reaching the point of feeling overwhelmed, putting yourself first to manage the business and taking care of others.” “It is also important to take care of yourself,” she added. Having that great support from yourself, family, friends, colleagues, and leadership is also an added value.

Valuable Words for Budding Entrepreneurs

While addressing aspiring individuals willing to enter the Environmental Management Industry, she said, “Stay always positive, strong and confident. Keep motivated yourself, and do not let anyone bring you down or let anyone make you doubt your abilities.” “Think out of the box, be original and creative, push yourselves and work hard to achieve your dreams and aspire to build your career,” she added.

To excel in the industry, consider your education, enroll in vocational courses, and utilize digitalized learning tools that are available globally to gain further knowledge. Eventually, this will support organizational practices. Suzan advised, “Always learn from others, learn from your mistakes, as it is the best way to grow as an individual. Once you have reached your goals, teach others about your successful approach and tools as part of knowledge sharing and leading with example.”

Vision: Enhance Knowledge, Protect Environment

Suzan believes, “As an Emirati citizen, I must continuously serve my country and be dedicated to protecting and preserving the environment by strengthening the organization’s capabilities and preparedness.”

She desires to enhance her knowledge and skills, inspire others to follow her and encourage themselves to do and be better. Suzan prefers to engage with the public by educating and promoting best practices relevant to BCM and ORM as part of Corporate Social Responsibility and continuing to participate in scientific research publications and writing.

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