Ruth Dance to build HR Tech Abu Dhabi community
Ruth Dance has been named International Director of Community as HR Tech prepares for its Abu Dhabi debut in November 2027.
Sarah Shaw
2 min read
Ruth Dance has been named International Director of Community as HR Tech prepares to launch its Abu Dhabi event in November 2027.
Arc Network announced the appointment alongside Debbie French’s role as International Portfolio Director in a press release published on 3 November 2026. Dance will focus on developing relationships across the HR community, connecting practitioners, business leaders, technology providers, analysts and investors.
Ruth Dance’s community-building remit
Dance’s role centres on developing the professional community around HR Tech Abu Dhabi ahead of its November 2027 launch.
Experience across HR technology and employee engagement
Based in the UAE, Dance has worked across learning and organisational development, HR technology and advisory roles. She co-founded EXE: Employee Experience Exchange, which connects HR, culture, leadership and communications professionals across the GCC, and leads the monthly GCC People Pulse workforce research tracker.
In her own appointment announcement, Dance described a career spent on several sides of the HR technology market: buying systems, implementing them, working with users and bringing people together to share their experience.
She said her new remit would draw those strands together as she builds the Abu Dhabi community, including practitioners, innovators, investors, analysts and journalists working on workforce challenges.
An international event platform
HR Tech Abu Dhabi is planned as a regional extension of the established HR Tech event series. Its first Abu Dhabi edition will bring HR, technology, business and government participants together to discuss workforce transformation and the changing role of technology at work.
Building relationships ahead of the launch
French will lead the Europe and Middle East portfolio, while Dance’s focus is the network of people around it. The two appointments establish complementary responsibilities for the event’s international development and regional community building.
Dance’s announcement places practical experience and sustained professional connections at the centre of that work, ahead of the event’s debut next year.
Read more leadership appointments and hospitality news on WINC Wire.
AI-assisted watercolour illustration of Ruth Dance, based on HR Tech Abu Dhabi’s press photograph and a named speaker portrait.
