Beverly Dawn Metcalfe is a professor and Senior Research Fellow at ESA in Beirut which is a central knowledge and think tank that brings business and development solutions to territories that are impacted by economic crisis, a global health pandemic, and areas where migrants and refugees are located.

Born in the UK, Professor Metcalfe spent most of her academic career at the Global Development Institute at Manchester, which addresses many economic and social policy challenges in the global economy. Beverly’s expertise is in developing women’s leadership capacity, expanding women’s empowerment skills and to build women’s knowledge and expertise about governance and economic development. Professor Metcalfe is also an advocate of Islamic feminism as many women have been enabled by religious values to pursue education, work and family. These views are representative of the customs and values of contemporary lives, and these have changed for the UK Church of England, and so have evolved in the scriptures associated with Islam. Consequently, Professor Metcalfe has proffered policy decisions that value ethical decision making has been guided by religious practices.

Professor Metcalfe has been honoured at being a Visiting Professor in Monash and Griffiths Universities in Australia, Helwan University in Egypt, St Petersburg State University and Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Professor Metcalfe received the AD Scientific Index in 2023, which ranked her Number 1 in Lebanon, 21, in Asia, and 145 globally for her research work in HRM and women. This is an amazing achievement considering the number of faculty in this area.

Beverly Metcalfe has worked in many countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Bahrain, Pakistan, Iran, UAE, and also Russia, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore.

She feels her most valued work is chapter 13 in Leadership Development in the Middle East (Metcalfe Fmouni, 2011,2012) which explores the constraints many believe hinder women, as well as illustrate how the Muslim religion has very high regards for women. A good example is that in the Bible, mostly only men are named. Women are mentioned as wives, mothers, sisters and cousins. Throughout the Quran, however, the recognition of men and women are valued and named. For example, women are represented as businesswomen, and as a leader in the Batlle of the Camel. She shows that Reinterpretations of Sunnah and hadith provide clear evidence of women’s role in leadership. This is followed today as many nations are using the SDGs to help empower women, and several countries have introduced only recently, quotas for women in governance systems, for example, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain.

Her second paper (Metcalfe, B.D. (2011)) is entitled ‘Women, empowerment and development: A critical appraisal of governance, culture and national HRD frameworks in Arab Gulf States’, examines aspects of Islamic gender regimes and how institutions are varied across MENA. This illustrates the growth in women’s organizations that have helped establish governance strategies, the importance of skills and education upgrading, and where this may impact tradition women only workspaces are being created. In this paper she illustrates that MENA countries are planning social change in accordance to their countries value systems, that is disconnecting from imperial and colonial, and injecting a decolonial ethic.