A Day In The Life Of...
Stephan Melchior, MD
Tell Us More About Your Background?
My name is Stephan. I am from Germany and I work as the Managing Partner for Wilson Learning in the Middle East and all the GCC countries. For most of my life, I worked for Caterpillar in the area of sales and marketing in Germany. At Caterpillar I was involved in some of the training and development functions and my interest in this led to my arrival in Dubai at the end of 2007 to open Wilson Learning offices here.
Tell Us More Wilson Learning ME?
Wilson learning is a global provider for services in the area of learning and development. We also offer a consultancy service through which we work with organizations on productivity levels, strategic planning, overcoming business issues and business challenges to make them stronger in the market. We do this through skills development and enhancing the skills of their people.
Why Did You Choose Dubai?
Back in 2007 when Dubai was booming, I felt there was a strong need for an organization with a global mindset, a global viewpoint and a global product and service that we could customise for the market. We have helped the market become more sustainable and more professional.
How Do You Help Organizations?
We are proud to say that we integrate at a very deep level with client organizations. This means we fully understand how they work, their staff, their clients and what they want to achieve in the market in terms of their strategic goals. With this information we can create learning solutions or tailor learning solutions, making them measurable and clearly seeing the impact of those learning solutions on their bottom line over time.
What Interesting HR Projects Have You Implemented at Wilson Learning ME?
Well we been involved in a number of interesting projects. We have a couple of clients who are really serious about training and improving the productivity levels of their people.
We also have learning journeys,where we support the client throughout their improvement process within their organization. This could be for two months or six months or even two years. During this time, we measure the improvements periodically.
Tell Us More About Your Background?
Beofre moving to Dubai, I worked in sales for an advertising agency in London. My background is predominantly in Telesales.
Tell Us More About Biz-Group
Biz Group started two decades ago when I first came to Dubai. We are a training and development company, predominantly like your magazine. We also have a team building division and a strategy division that helps small businesses.
Everything we do is about improving performance. For example, how do we improve the performance of teams, the performance of people and the performance of businesses?
What Made You Originally Set Up A Training Business In Dubai?
I originally came here two decades ago to launch a product for a client from the training industry and just fell in love with Dubai in early 1992. Dubai was entrepreneurial, optimistic and sunny. Every time I landed back in the UK it wasn't sunny and the 90's was quite a depressing time for UK business.
So, I looked at an opportunity to start a new business. I didn’t have enough funds to start an advertising agency, so I started a training company which grew from an initial idea and a passion, to what you see today, with 46 people in the company and a very passionate team helping companies improve performance.
How Do You Help Companies?
From a training and development perspective, traditionally we work with an organizationt o find out what their business objectives are, what strategic issues they want to improve and how we can provide training and development solutions tailor made for them, or alternatively implement some of the international programs we have that help get companies from A to B. We also help individuals, whether it’s leaders, front line customer service employees or the general population through professional development. We help companies improve their business results.
Take Us Through A Typical Day As CEO?
Having just read Arianna Huffington’s new book 'Thrive', what I shouldn’t be doing first thing in the morning is checking my iphone to find out what emails have come in overnight from our overseas partners, but I’m still doing that.
Then my day is pretty much mapped out intensively, sometimes I think I’m like a doctor, my PA manages to fill in appointments back to back. If im not in the office, I am in a training room first thing in the morning .
So, a typical day of mine may start with introducing a new concept, like multipliers for senior leaders, followed by running an 8 hour workshop.
But. I don’t think there really is a typical day in my diary, I could either be in the office supporting the team, I could be delivering business keynotes internationally or even delivering a training
Wilson Learning ME
50 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST NOV 2014