IAEA Profile: Rola Ghneim Khreis, the IAEA’s Initially Female Director of Details Know-how

Khreis’s to start with mentor was her father. He was a university principal who fostered a supportive tutorial environment at house. “He generally gave me the same prospects as my brothers. He strived to aid me create competencies relevant to any willpower, such as important thinking, analysis and self-expression,” she stated. “He designed me who I am.”

As in quite a few STEM fields, there had been number of women learning technology at her university, and Khreis was usually the only girl in her class. “It was generally challenging, but I would just develop into much more decided, and this made me more powerful,” she remembers.

Just after a few several years doing the job in the non-public sector in Lebanon, Khreis moved to Austria the place she had her initially specialist experience in an international business as an IT Specialist at the Organization for Protection and Co-procedure in Europe (OSCE). She embraced the multicultural atmosphere.  

Inspired by the IAEA’s effect on several facets of people’s lives, Khreis joined the Company in 1998 as IT Coordinator and Project Supervisor. Later, as IT Assistance Manager and then Device Head of IT Providers Style and design, she worked on the implementation of IT service administration greatest practices to aid Agency staff members. In 2014, she turned Head of the Consumer Services Area, a placement she held for 10 decades. “Through this position, I had the privilege of working directly with all departments to recognize their requirements and make your mind up how to greatest provide them,” she stated.

Now, Khreis manages 120 personnel and leads the use of digital abilities at the IAEA to increase price via IT. Khreis describes her function as “an enabler, leveraging technology to help small business outcomes and to generate operational performance.” By collaborating closely with colleagues across the corporation, she makes use of her comprehending of their distinct wants to be certain that IT investments are aligned with the organization’s strategic plans. “My goal is to make a change to the Agency’s work by being familiar with how we can assistance stakeholders from an IT perspective to do their get the job done a lot more quickly and a lot more competently, to allow them to be much more effective in what they do,” she mentioned.

Going ahead, Khreis aims to discover locations wherever digital transformation initiatives and innovation can even more boost work processes and over-all effectiveness, focusing on regions these kinds of as synthetic intelligence, information administration, analytics, visualization and conclusion producing abilities.

When asked about her qualified achievements so much, she claimed, “Being the IAEA’s 1st girl Chief Facts Officer and Director of Info Technological innovation is a great accomplishment, and I am also especially proud of acquiring built very determined groups all through my occupation.”

Khreis attributes much of her career success to her persistence and the means to realize alternatives. In her see, a supportive environment for ladies depends really much on an organization’s leadership and insurance policies that aid gender equality, diversity and the elimination of bias. “I actually believe that that range creates excellence,” she stated.

Khreis advocates for girls and younger girls to go after experiments in IT and thinks this desires to start off at property by encouraging them to explore scientific fields and constructing self confidence in their talents with a ‘you can do it’ mindset. “Women have constantly confronted problems in STEM-similar fields, and that consists of ladies in IT,” she stated. Khreis coaches young colleagues and frequently promotes the industry by way of IT workshops for 11- to 16-year-old girls for the duration of the once-a-year Vienna Daughters’ Day party.

Khreis’s information to younger ladies beginning their qualified journey in this evolving discipline is to “embrace your passion and be resilient. Obstructions and setbacks are natural in any vocation, but don’t allow anyone prevent you. Be self-confident and try to remember that problems typically make fantastic prospects.”