Souad is Chief Executive Officer of IEL International and Principal Investigator of the LSE Middle East Centre project 'Understanding Barriers and Enablers to Women’s Leadership Development in Sudan'.

She is an interdisciplinary scholar, women's empowerment and youth development expert with over 15 years in learning and development in higher education in the UK. She has led and taught subjects on Doctoral, MSc, MA, MBA programmes. Souad and her team at IEL work closely with government departments, businesses, and universities across the Middle East and North Africa to co-develop programmes and partnerships for executive education, knowledge exchange, and research projects with leading UK universities and world class executive education providers. 

Her multidisciplinary research includes women's leadership development with a focus on top management career trajectories in the MENA region; knowledge management and human and sociotechnical considerations of new technology adoption in multinational companies. She has extensive expertise in social science qualitative research methods and was selected to lead the doctoral research methods collaborative programme for the University of Westminster in London, UK and Haaga-Helia in Helsinki, Finland. 

The LSE Middle East Centre project 'Understanding Barriers and Enablers to Women’s Leadership Development in Sudan' is conducted in collaboration with NGOs, governmental bodies, business leaders, practitioners and academics. Souad has conducted numerous interviews with influential women including Nobel Peace Prize winners, government officials, business leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, scientists, executive deans, and philanthropists across the MENA region to inform this research.