Tala Al Ansari

Tala Al Ansari is an Executive Advisor at the strategic design & innovation consultancy ATÖLYE & a Board Member at the Center of Excellence in Smart & Sustainable Construction (CESC). She is also a public speaker & certified trainer at international events on the topics of innovation, transformational change, entrepreneurship, employee engagement & mindset.

Back in her time at EXPO2020, Tala was the official spokesperson on innovation & entrepreneurship. She had led the strategy and curation of EXPO2020’s Innovation ecosystem during her time there as a Director. Tala engaged with diverse stakeholders across government, businesses, academia and accelerators which drove 16 strategic partnerships for EXPO2020. She even led the entire implementation of EXPO2020’s global entrepreneur program called Scale2Dubai which attracted 85 scale-ups from 27 countries to grow their businesses in Dubai.

At EXPO2020, Tala also worked with the International Relations department where she secured the participation of 13 strategic countries from Europe, Asia & Africa in the global megaevent as well as the participation of NGOs focused on SDGs such as the UN & GCC council.

Earlier in her career, Tala focused on transformational change. She led the initiation and operation of a group wide Corporate Innovation and Change Management Unit at Emirates National Oil Company Group (ENOC). The Innovation program generated audited gains of AED 68Million as a result of turning 100 ideas into fully implemented projects & was certified as a ‘Model Scheme’ by global accreditors.

Tala has been recognized as one of a few EXPO2020 Mission leaders by the Minister of State; Her Excellency Reem AlHashimy. Additionally, she was one of a few Chief Design Officers selected by the Prime Minister’s Office to get certified on human-centric design in government by IDEO.

Tala is an accredited change practitioner and a USA certified trainer in creative lateral thinking. She conducted several customized innovation workshops & training sessions with an average satisfaction feedback score of 4.6+/ 5. Tala has a Master’s in International Business and HR alongside a Bachelors in Business Finance because she believes success comes from managing both the number side & people side of everything!