Mana Alkhamsan, Director General, Financial Academy • Interview
The Financial Academy leadership believes that while demand for online courses may drop post COVID-19, it will remain a key source of interest.
How has Financial Academy reacted to the pandemic?
There is no doubt that COVID-19 took the world by surprise and changed the way businesses operate today. The Financial Academy is no exception. We had to suddenly alter some of our operations. Prior to the pandemic, all of our programs relied on the personal attendance of participants. We changed that afterwards to online platforms. It was challenging, to say the least, particularly to our exams since we have specific criteria for them. We had to postpone the dates for our professional certificate examination until we were allowed to return to office. When we returned, we introduced procedures for social distancing between examinees as a precautionary health measure.
What are the top priorities on the agenda?
We updated our strategy to focus on developing local talent and content that reflects the needs of Saudi Arabia’s markets. Previously, our aim was to increase partnerships with international schools. The new strategy aims at developing more local Saudi content with special focus on education materials, content of training materials, and case studies. Our intention is to collaborate as much as possible with independent practitioners to deliver training and prepare study materials and examination questions. We have also changed some of our KPIs. However, our mission has not changed as we continue to set standards for ongoing professional training and qualifying trainers in the financial sector, conduct exams, as well as host regional and international events that enhance the development of best practices of the financial sector.
How does Financial Academy select the independent experts who assist in formulating your training programs and exams?
We have two types of collaborations at the Academy: local and international. We collaborate with international parties in areas that local experts do not cover. To better prepare future generations, and since TASI is now among the top-ten markets in the world with foreigners having direct access to the market, we believe it is imperative to reflect the expertise of international experts in the academy's training sessions. At the same time, we will have international speakers for some of our workshops wherever needed. We are currently in the final phase of a study that should provide us with a model for choosing the types of experts we want to collaborate with at the Financial Academy. We have also established a new department for online learning to promote online programs. Now that normality has returned after the authorities lifted curfews, we will still need online programs, but not to the extent we see now. People like to have face-to-face interaction. We cannot accurately measure people’s needs for online programs because at the moment they are obliged to attend online courses. In the future, when we offer both normal and online courses, we believe the percentage will be 70% for attendance in classrooms and 30% for online programs.
Vision 2030 has an ambitious reform agenda, including many KPIs around the finance sector. How does Financial Academy fit into this broader agenda of reform and growth for the Kingdom’s financial sector?
The Financial Academy is one of the initiatives of the Financial Sector Development Program of Saudi Vision 2030. Its main goal is developing and enhancing the capabilities of human cadres in the sub-sectors of the financial sector: banking, financing, insurance, and capital markets. To develop the sector, you need to develop the people. You must have experts, knowledge, and training. In collaboration with regulators SAMA and CMA, the Financial Academy has set up standards and qualifications required to work in the financial sector to ensure the efficiency of people working at each level in the sector. This will help organize the financial sector and establish competencies for each job so that regulators can be certain that the people applying for jobs in the sector have the right knowledge for the job. The success of our nation's vision relies on the success of its people, and the Financial Academy plays a vital role in setting the standards for ongoing professional training and qualifying trainers in the financial sector.
BIO
Mana Alkhamsan has been Director General of the Financial Academy since June 2020. He was previously the director general of the Institute of Finance at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and also held many positions at the Institute of Public Administration. He has a master’s degree in computer science from the University of New England in Australia.