Meet a charismatic woman, Dr. Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj, who integrates change, commitment, and cognizance to empower individuals and organizations to embrace diversity and foster innovation in their teams, cultures, and strategies. With over 20 years of extensive experience in teaching, researching, and advising on diversity, innovation, and leadership, Shaheena is currently an Associate Professor and Academic Director at HEC Paris in Qatar.
Today, she is a Forbes Contributor, Keynote Speaker, and Author sharing leadership insights and best practices with a global audience.
Shaheena is a disruptive academic, weaving research and knowledge into practical applications and creating new ways to consider leadership and performance in organizations.
Hailing from a business family, there was never a time she wasn’t involved in business. When she started working in academia, teaching entrepreneurship, she wanted to ensure her students understood the realities and complexities of establishing a startup. Justifying her position,she explains, “I emphasised the pain points rather than presenting a sterile oversimplistic view of moving from business ideas to plans to launch and whatever followed. This approach underpinned the thinking behind the Entrepreneurship Centres I was involved in setting up with UK Business Schools.”
Shaheena’s work was ground-breaking at the time as she created a program of Entrepreneurial teaching for students from different degree programs.. This was considered disruptive to the faculties and how they taught their students. What she witnessed was the immense shift in the quality of innovative ideas emerging from the students, and this was her journey into understanding the value of cognitive diversity as the driver for higher-quality thinking.
Living the Entrepreneurial Dream
Shaheena felt she needed to have the experience of setting up her business, for herself and her teaching. She set up a business with two friends, they had aligned on wanting to bring different leadership training for women. The programs comprised research and evidence, entrepreneurial mindsets, drama and performance, and techniques to encourage sustainable change through challenging self-limiting beliefs. In true entrepreneurial style – the three founders said yes to opportunities, even before they had formally incorporated the company, their first client was a global technology company, Cisco, and it was a thrill to be working and implementing at speed and experiencing a very steep learning curve.
The company’s work grew and at the time its unique perspective was ensuring everything they did came from an evidence base. Their USP meant they attracted clients from across the world as well as having the credibility to work with Governments on policy recommendations. While running the business Shaheena was a very part-time academic, one day a week which is virtually unheard of, but absolute credit to her manager at the time, who worked hard not to let her go and gave her the freedom she needed to create a role that was fulfilling for her intellectually and also provided the flexibility to be around for her three sons.
Stepping into a New Role, New Country, New Goals
During the COVID-19 pandemic, life took a radically different turn. Shaheena and her husband made a huge decision to relocate and seek new adventures – it was a case of if not now then when?
Opening the new doors of opportunities, Shaheena accepted a role at HEC Paris based in Qatar and moved with her family to Qatar in August 2021. Now firmly back in Academia, her work focuses on leadership development for diverse teams and for women. In the last twelve months she has delivered six Women’s Leadership programs in in the Middle East and Europe.
Shaheena couldn’t be prouder to be part of the drive to strengthen leadership capacity amongst women in these regions and create opportunities for them to create international connections. Of course, one can’t move the dial for women without male allyship, and an equal amount of her time is spent delivering programs on diversity and innovation for managers and leaders s. The conversations in the sessions are fascinating and fulfilling, and it’s a privilege to build the trust of participants, to be honest and share their perspectives on this challenging and sensitive area. Shaheena is also an academic director for HEC Paris in Qatar’s new EMBA for Emerging Leaders and she is keen to buck the global trend and have equal representation of women in the program.
A True Example of a Leader
Shaheena has been an ardent supporter of community engagement. Since the age of eighteen, she has been involved in voluntary work in one form or another. This is a huge part of her core values and her faith to keep giving back with humility.
Some of the most rewarding and inspiring experiences have been focusing on integrating refugee community members from Syria and Afghanistan into Europe through language and cultural adaptation programs, establishing a space camp for primary school kids (where half of the participants were girls), and evolving this into a global virtual STEM camp during the pandemic with involvement from Northern Pakistan to North America and everywhere in between. In the end, Shaheena adds, “We often think voluntary work is about what we give, but we forget just how much we learn from the groups we serve and the colleagues we work with.”
The Top Three Qualities of a Leader
One needs to be careful about idealizing leadership, every leader is a human being and they need to have the space to make mistakes if they want to innovate – we also need to remember the best learning comes from failure.
Leadership qualities are the same for men and women; meritocracy and experience are a given. However, for Shaheen, the top three qualities are vision, curiosity, and empathy. She adds, “What I see is women often have these qualities but the institutional barriers and attitudes undermine their belief in their capabilities and diminish their leadership potential.”
As a team leader, Shaheena aims to ensure productivity and stability during tough times. She states, “With your team, you need to do the groundwork when things are more stable, this gives you the trust and confidence to stretch when you and your team are working under pressure.. Honesty is integral as is, walking the talk, I have never asked my colleagues to do anything I won’t do.”
Learning to Say “NO” at the Right Time
Shaheena’s biggest challenge is probably trying to do too much at any one point! Due to the benefit of fantastic champions at a very early stage in her career, she began to see herself through their eyes and just developed this insatiable appetite in relation to her career.. Over time, she has learned to become more disciplined about what she says “YES” to – but she admits it’s not easy she sees numerous opportunities Saying NO is a skill that has had to developed with a lot of disciple.
Additionally, as a women leader and entrepreneur, Shaheena has faced numerous challenges in her long-standing career and one of the many challenges also included facing gender biases. She recalls an experience in her early thirties when she was head-hunted for a trustee role for a large charity, the role was a big stretch, and the embedded attitudes and organizational culture made the experience very uncomfortable. Summoning up the incident, she states, “When I resigned I blamed my family and work demands and reinforced their stereotypes. At that point I was determined I would never do that again and not let any women go through that same experience.”
Breaking the Ice Around Work-Life Balance
Shaheena is not a supporter of the “work-life balance” concept. The notion trying to achieve a balance, remains a gendered question and sets one up for failure in trying to achieve an impossible ideal .
Hence, she believes in giving either professional roles or domestic responsibilities needed at a given time,There are periods when work needs more attention and other times when family demands are the priority. If you think about it more like a compass, you navigate paying attention to the current but keeping an eye on what is on the horizon.
Shaheena thinks of life as a series of moments, requiring different gear shifts and focus and one becomes better at recognizing what one needs to do and when. And of course, an amazing partner makes the difference. Shaheena acknowledges the immense support from her husband, who has the same mantra as her in navigating work and family responsibilities – “we are a team and we need to play to our strengths”.
Integrating a Significant Change in Business Schools in Europe
Shaheena aims to make a simple difference – having a strong DEI agenda at the heart of every course. This means understanding, how international students respond to the curriculum, increasing the diversity of speakers and case studies. Today’s young minds are going to be the future leaders of tomorrow hence ensuring that they are well versed in DEI as a core competency is a must. This way they will know how to harness the best talent and be rigorous in the value they seek from DEI initiatives to ensure progress aligned with business performance.
The Only Way to Success is Hard Work and Luck.
Shaheena lives by her favorite saying, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. Hard work is the cornerstone of her success, along with a clear sense of wanting to make a difference. “I wasn’t always the brightest star, but I knew the value of working hard.”
She recognises her privilege of being born into a wonderful family that prioritized education and hard work Having a partner and children who value and respect her work create a strong foundation.
Meet Shaheena, the Author
Shaheena has successfully published four books; her most recent one is “Take the Lead How Women are Driving Success through Innovation” co-authored with colleagues from HEC Paris. She has co-authored three books with different collaborators. Writing with others brings a unique set of challenges Especially when the co-authors are as busy and managing various roles and demands. For Shaheena, success is not just about producing the books is huge but having great friendships emerging from these projects
A Future of Many Firsts
Shaheena’s career is notabe for many firsts, from personal achievements to carving out a different role as an academic. The most wonderful thing about moving into a new role and a new country is that Shaheena is open to new opportunities and challenges she hadn’t considered before. Her excitement and passion emerge from continued purpose and curiosity to keep asking questions leading to many new adventures.
Shaheen a’s Golden Advice to Budding Entrepreneurs
“Just do it! Of course, you will do your planning– but don’t overthink, don’t second guess, keep the spark alive and try, fail, get up again, and keep going. Stay curious and stay humble. Cultivate your tribe – – your people who will question and challenge you but will have your back no matter what.”
