Meet Mouna Mazhar, IWG area manager in Morocco

Meet Mouna Mazhar, IWG area manager in Morocco

After starting as an intern and enjoying a career that’s spanned two continents, there’s no place like home for Mouna Mazhar 

When it comes to inspiring her team to go that extra mile for clients, Mouna Mazhar – IWG’s area manager for Morocco – likes to draw on the wisdom of a literary giant.  

“What I like to quote to the team is Mark Twain, a writer who has been through Tangier: They did not know it was impossible, so they did it. This sentence sums it all up!” 

 Working for IWG in her home country is something of a passion for Mazhar. The Franco-Moroccan took a role with the company in 2001 after starting as a graduate intern, where she learned the ropes and gained some much-needed experience. Since then, her career with the company has taken off  and she’s never looked back.  

 I enjoyed working there, especially when I had to serve and assist customers,” she says. “I quickly felt I was in a good environment and time passed without me being aware of it. Now, it’s been almost 18 years since I began working here and it’s been a great education and I’ve been able to develop my career.” 

Before returning to Morocco, her globetrotting exploits saw her spend her early years with IWG in the City of Lights. “I had the chance to work with the French team in Paris for nine years before joining the Moroccan community in 2012 as an area manager,” she says.  

 It was this stint in the bustling French capital that turned out to be the ideal proving ground for her. “This huge experience allowed me to achieve greater independence in my life and also helped me feel more confident about the work I was producing, she explains. 

With nearly two decades now under her belt at IWG, Mazhar says it’s the diversity not only of the working day, but also of the many different colleagues and clients that keeps things just as exciting as the day she started. On top of that, she also enjoys the teamwork that comes with working with different people, swapping ideas and coming up with new ways to make their area’s operations even more appealing to clients.  

 

What I like most of all is exchanging with the teams, comparing our ideas and strategies to sell our workspaces,” she says. At IWG, there is a diversity of profiles and we work with an international dimension, even if we are asked to be an expert on the local market, in this case Morocco. 

 With Morocco now ranking as the most attractive investment destination in Africa, IWG boasts 14 locations in the country, so it’s no surprise that Mazhar and her team are very much at the sharp end of attracting and retaining new clients, something she says she relishes.  

 “The challenge is to meet the objectives to fill our centres, renew our customers contracts and get new ones,” she says. “This is all with a galvanised team where everyone pulls together and supports each other to get there. Thats the challenge!”  

 Asked what type of personality flourishes best at IWG, Mazhar says it’s people with a tenacious spirit who are totally involved in being the best at what they do – all with one thing in common: The common denominator is the passion that guides us!” 

 One of the most disruptive trends of the modern business world is flexibility. Fast disappearing are the days of people being crammed into high-rise, stuffy office blocks, working set 9-6 hours with rigid schedules. Now more than ever, employers are embracing a way of working that allows them freedom to focus on creativity and productivity, to work around their family time and explore new ways of collaborating. It’s a crucial development not just in terms of how companies operate, but in how they attract would-be recruits, too.    

 “Flexible work is the future,” says Mazhar. “It’s the freedom to break up traditional ways of working, and the end of working hours that are no longer in tune with our ultra-connected era.” 

 

Could IWG be the right career move for you? Find out more 


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