Huda Al-Ghoson has spent more than 30 years working for the Middle East’s largest company. She has been executive director of human resources (HR) at Saudi Aramco since 2012, making her the first Saudi woman to take on a leadership role at the company.  Before that, she was HR director of policies & planning between 2006 and 2009 and headed the training and development division later that year. Al-Ghoson graduated from King Saud University with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1980. She then attended the American University in Washington, DC for a Master’s degree in business administration, which she completed in 1986. She also attended several training programs at leading universities, including Cornell and the University of Michigan in the US and Oxford University in the UK. Al-Ghoson is a member in the board of trustees at the Arabian Society for Human Resource Management and a member of two consultation committees at the Saudi Electricity Company. She also sits on the board of directors of the General Organization for Social Insurance. Al-Ghoson ranked fourth in a Forbes list of the most powerful Arab women in the field of executive management. She came seventh in a 2015 Arabian Business list of the most influential figures in the energy domain and won its Arab Woman Award in 2014. She will discuss the companies efforts in training and empowering women at the 33rd Janadriyah Festival, an annual celebration of Saudi heritage and culture that kicked off on Thursday.  The festival will host a series of seminars and other events in Riyadh featuring guest speakers from the Kingdom and around the world.