Digital coaching unveiled as game-changer in UAE’s workforce transformation at SPARK Dubai 2025

As governments and employers across the Gulf prioritise workforce development, digital coaching is becoming part of the region’s strategic infrastructure. That shift was in sharp focus at SPARK Dubai 2025 on Tuesday, where WeAce launched its new whitepaper, Powering Talent and Growth in the GCC.

Held at The St. Regis Downtown Dubai, the invite-only forum brought together senior HR leaders, policymakers, and leadership futurists. Curated by WeAce in collaboration with SDA Bocconi School of Management, the evening examined how leadership itself is being reshaped  not just by technology, but by shifting expectations around inclusion, capability-building, and nationalisation.

The WeAce whitepaper highlighted a pattern already emerging across the region: coaching and mentoring, once seen as elite or executive-only, are now being reengineered into scalable, AI-enabled systems. With multilingual interfaces, culturally localised modules, and real-time analytics, digital platforms like WeAce are enabling more inclusive leadership pipelines - and giving employers a clearer view of outcomes.

“The future of leadership is neuro-personalised, life-centric, and deeply human - even when guided by AI,” said Anuranjita Kumar, CEO & Co-founder of WeAce. “Coaching must move beyond performance management to support purpose, wellbeing, and long-term growth.”

The whitepaper outlined five trends shaping talent development in the GCC:

• AI-driven coaching is scaling fast: By 2030, 75% of Dubai-based Fortune 500 subsidiaries are expected to adopt AI-powered leadership tools.
• Digital Coaching at Scale: The UAE’s digital coaching market is set to grow from $44.6M in 2023 to $189.3M by 2034, at a 14.1% annual growth rate.
• Coaching ROI is no longer abstract: Global benchmarks suggest coaching can yield a 788% return on investment, driven by gains in productivity and retention.
• ESG is entering the curriculum: By 2030, 60% of UAE-based leadership development programs are expected to include ESG-related modules.
  
   

The paper also underscored the role of digital coaching in advancing nationalisation initiatives like Emiratisation, helping organisations build agile, future-ready leadership pipelines and attract global and regional talent into hybrid working models that prioritise flexibility and growth.

“In a region as dynamic as the Middle East, the intersection of talent, technology, and trust will define competitive advantage,” said Alessandro Giuliani, Managing Director at SDA Bocconi Asia Center. “Our role as leaders is to ensure that people - not just systems - remain at the heart of transformation.”

“The Middle East is not just adapting to change - it’s shaping it,” added Nader Haffar, former Chairman and CEO of KPMG Lower Gulf. “Our future will be defined by how boldly we invest in talent, how wisely we deploy technology, and how deeply we build trust across business and society.”

WeAce - now active across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East - is among the companies leading this shift. Its platform blends behavioural coaching, structured mentoring, and AI-driven development tools, delivered in both English and Arabic by a network of global business practitioners. With more than 20 enterprise clients already in the region, the company is scaling its solutions to support long-term workforce transformation.

About WeAce

WeAce is a global digital coaching and mentoring platform transforming people potential into performance through goal-driven coaching, mentoring, and learning solutions. Founded in 2020 by a team of practitioners with over 120 years of collective industry experience, WeAce addresses the growing need for measurable, ROI-driven talent development.

With presence in over 11 countries, WeAce supports over 50 organizations through a network of over 800 global coaches and mentors. It offers customisable tech-enabled solutions which are a blend of assessments, coaching, mentoring and training - to drive measurable growth and efficiency.