Souad Leghnider joins Artelia as Regional Head of HR – Middle East

Souad Leghnider has joined Artelia Group as Regional Head of HR – Middle East, taking on the role with immediate effect.

Leghnider announced the appointment on LinkedIn, saying she is looking forward to supporting Artelia’s growth in the region, strengthening the organisation, developing talent and aligning people priorities with the company’s broader ambitions.

She brings more than 15 years of experience across regional HR, talent management, recruitment, organisational transformation and leadership development, with experience spanning the pharmaceutical, engineering, energy and technology sectors.

Before joining Artelia, Leghnider served as Group Talent Management & Leadership Development Lead for EMEA at SysAid Group, where she advised the CEO and senior leadership team on enterprise talent strategy. Her remit included workforce planning, succession, leadership development, capability building, career pathways, internal mobility and organisational effectiveness across a workforce of around 800 employees.

During the role, she established succession governance for around 45 critical positions and reported achieving 85% succession readiness for leadership-critical roles. She also led initiatives that increased critical-skill pipelines by 25% and internal mobility by 15%.

Leghnider previously spent more than two years at AbbVie as Regional HR Business Partner for Pharma & Aesthetics across the Middle East, covering the Gulf, Levant, North Africa and Egypt. She supported around 350 employees across 10 countries, partnering with regional leadership on workforce planning, organisational design, talent, performance, engagement and culture.

At AbbVie, she reported a 45% increase in internal mobility and a 9% uplift in engagement, while also supporting the integration of Allergan Aesthetics following its acquisition. She also led Emiratisation initiatives that resulted in 17 national hires over 18 months.

Earlier, Leghnider was Regional HR Manager & Head of Talent Acquisition at Akka Technologies, where she led HR strategy and operations across eight countries in the Middle East and Africa. She helped scale the regional workforce from 80 to 250 employees and led a five-member HR team.

Her earlier career includes roles in career coaching, learning and development and recruitment in France, including at Montpellier Business School, Rivière Consulting and Dell.

In her new role at Artelia, Leghnider’s experience in multi-country HR leadership, talent strategy, organisational scaling and leadership development is expected to support the engineering and consultancy group's regional people agenda.

Leghnider holds dual master's degrees in management and business administration with a specialisation in HR, along with CIPD Level 5 certification in Human Resources Management. She is also an ICF-certified coach.