MY INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE WITH CEO WWF-PAK (Sir Hammad Naqi Khan)

The interview session with CEO/DG of Pakistan’s largest environmental and wildlife NGO, WWF-PAK was a tremendous experience for me. Sir Hammad Naqi khan possesses more than thirty years of professional experience in climate change adaptations, water management especially in greening supply chain and sustainable agriculture and serving his spectacular and breath-taking expertise at WWF-PAK as a CEO. We were given a task of CEO/DG outreach in the fourth week of the Flagship training program at Foster learning Pakistan. This activity was basically designed for developing our leadership and interpersonal communication skills. Here I’ll tell you my incredible experience of this interview.

APPROACHING HIM WAS A CHALLENGE INDEED:

It all started when I wrote an email to Novara Mahmood; senior officer for cooperate partnerships, marketing, and fundraising at WWF-PAK. She is truly a polite, humble and sincere person. I discussed my project with her and she forwarded my email to sir Hammad. As you know CEOs are very busy personalities and they have many irons in the fire at the same time. It was a great task to book an appointment with him in a short duration. But Almighty ALLAH blessed me with His endless blessings and he agreed for an interview. We had a commitment to conclude it within half an hour. It took more than 10 days to book an appointment and that day I learned four golden principles:

1. Be positive
2. Be original
3. Be persistent
4. Be courteous

By following the above-mentioned rules I arranged the meeting on Tuesday 19th of January 2021 at 11 am. I showed persistency for 10 days and remained to prompt her to confirm time and date from Sir Hammad Naqi. Indeed it was a very enlightening and explanatory meeting.

CHALLENGES I FACED DURING THIS MEETING:

As said by Bo Sanchez:

“Behind every problem in your life is a rich blessing”

When we were fixed with the meeting then there was the first challenge to coordinate with my team members and to also check their availability. Proper task division was also need of an hour. Unfortunately, one of them was occupied at her family and having a genuine issue. And the other one was sick enough that he was unable to participate in the meeting. so, the whole responsibility was on my shoulders. This was the test of my leadership and teamwork capabilities. Now I was liable for this meeting. As a solution for this, I invited some of my class-fellows so that the meeting shouldn’t look deserted and they really enjoyed the session.

KEYNOTES OF THE MEETING:

I loved the way he treated us. He was very polite, courteous and humble. We talked about leadership qualities and he as the CEO of Pakistan’s largest environmental and wildlife NGO is a great leader indeed. He told us that “ A great leader is always ready with all possible alternatives”. When he took charge as a CEO, he asked all the employees and staff of WWF-PAK three breathtaking questions, these were:

1. The practices and procedures we have opted for in our organization are appropriate or not?
2. If yes then what should we can do with current policies and procedures to improve them?
3. Is there any policy that is inappropriate or damaging to the dignity of the organization or anything that we can abscond?

These golden rules were really exhilarating for me and also proved a great superpower for him to manage all the affairs tactfully. As said by MaxDeePree:

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUR JOB IS MOST IMPORTANT:

Sir Hammad Naqi told us that you should know about the nature of your job. Fresh graduates came with lots of potentials and scores for the job but they even don’t know to whom they are writing their resume. Unfortunately, our institutions gave us degrees but they don’t train their students about their soft skills development. A good person is an amalgam of many decent attitudes e.g. he is not only good in his work but also he is a good team player, he is also a good communicator and a good leader, he is responsible and answerable for his deeds. He manages the stress and always has a positive approach towards life and is a problem solver. Fortunately, all these qualities we have learned during our two months of rigorous activity-based learning at Foster learning Pakistan

In a nutshell, it was indeed a great session with him. He told all the possible queries that we want to ask from him in a single answer. His talk was succinct and in a completely precise manner.We had a commitment to complete this session within half an hour, so we did so. This session will occupy a great memory within my mind. Thanks to foster learning, which provided us such a tremendous opportunity. I will highly suggest all of you to join new flagship sessions and will love to see your learning from this blog below. Thanks for your time.