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Arab Business leaders
Naguib Sawiris Chairman and CEO, Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E
Mr. Sawiris joined Orascom in 1979, and has contributed to the growth and diversification of the company into what it is today – one of Egypt’s largest and most diversified conglomerates. His father, Onsi Sawiris, founded Orascom Group as a young entrepreneur.
The Orascom Group is Egypt’s largest private sector employer and has the largest market capitalization on the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange. Mr. Sawiris established and built the railway, information technology, and telecommunications sectors of Orascom. The success of these ventures as well as the other sectors of the company led to the management’s decision to split Orascom into separate operating companies in the early 1990s.
As Chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecoms Holding S.A.E (OTH), Mr. Sawiris has built the company into a leading regional telecom giant. OTH operates GSM networks in seven different countries in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, and North Korea) with 78 million subscribers as of December 2008. In addition, it operates a number of leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs), as well as value added services and handset distribution companies.
In January 2003, Orascom Telecom (represented by Mr. Sawiris) was appointed as Board Member of the GSM Association; an acknowledgement of the group’s position as one of the largest ten operators based on subscriber numbers.
Mr. Sawiris also founded Weather Investments in early 2005, where he has led several landmark buyouts of European companies like Wind Telecommunications in Italy and Tim Hellas in Greece.
Mr. Sawiris serves on a number boards, committees and councils at both the regional and international level, including positions such as:
Member of the international advisory committee to the NYSE Board of Directors (IAC)
- Board member of the International Advisory Board to the National Bank of Kuwait
- President of the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce for 2008-2009
- Board member of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Sciences and Technology
- Co-chair, the Egyptian Italian Business Council
- Board member on both the Board of Trustees and the board of Directors of the Arab Thought Foundation
Mr. Sawiris holds a diploma of Mechanical Engineering with a Masters in Technical Administration from the Swiss Institute of Technology, and a Diploma from the German Evangelical School, Cairo, Egypt. Mr. Sawiris is married, with four children and lives in Cairo, Egypt. He speaks Arabic, English, German and French.
Karim Aly Founding partner of Ecobility Energy Solutions
Mr. Karim Aly is a seasoned investment professional with 10 years of investment banking, private equity and project management experience. Mr. Aly co-founded Ecobility Energy Solutions LLC in Dubai in February 2008. A spirited entrepreneur, Mr. Aly wanted to build a company dedicated to catalyzing change in the field of regional sustainable development by working in the origination, development and commercialization of clean technologies across three verticals; renewable energy, resource conservation and sustainable buildings. In just two years Ecobility has seen immense growth throughout the UAE, including the development of Emirates Biodiesel (EmBio), poised to be the first commercial biodiesel producer in the GCC. In addition to being the Chairman of Emirates Biodiesel, Mr. Aly has also built partnerships with government and private entities in order to bring products like PaperStone, the world’s ‘greenest’ architectural surface material, to the UAE.
Prior to establishing the company, Mr. Aly was an investment professional with Istithmar; a private equity and alternative investment firm owned by the Dubai Government. He was the founding member of the Portfolio Operations & Strategy team; a group mandated with overseeing performance, spearheading value creation and optimizing returns for the firm’s investment portfolio. Mr. Aly joined Istithmar after serving in a project sourcing and strategic advisory role at the Dubai Development and Investment Authority (DDIA).
Mr. Aly began his career in Mergers & Acquisitions with Merrill Lynch in North America, where he gained significant corporate experience in the telecom and technologies sector. Also in North America, Mr. Aly founded and architected the acquisition of an innovative mobile marketing firm based on proprietary SMS technology, an achievement for which he was honoured by the Young Entrepreneurs Association. He holds a Bachelor’s degree with great distinction in Management with a major in Finance and a Minor in MIS from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University.
Dr. Usama Fayyad Chief Data Office and Executive VP, Yahoo!
Dr. Usama Fayyad is Yahoo!'s chief data officer and executive vice president of Research & Strategic Data Solutions. Fayyad is responsible for Yahoo!'s overall data strategy, architecting Yahoo!'s data policies and systems, prioritizing data investments, and managing the Company's data analytics and processing infrastructure. Dr. Fayyad also founded and currently oversees the Yahoo! Research organization globally. Fayyad founded Yahoo! Research and hired its key management with the aim of building the premier scientific research organization to develop the new sciences of the Internet, on-line marketing, and innovative interactive applications.
Prior to joining Yahoo!, Dr. Fayyad co-founded and led the DMX Group, a data mining and data strategy company. DMX Group addressed data mining problems for some of the world’s largest companies in automotive, financial services, and telecommunications. Fayyad joined Yahoo!’s senior executive team as part of an acquisition of DMX Group by Yahoo! Inc. in 2004.
In early 2000, Dr. Fayyad co-founded and served as CEO of digiMine Inc. (now Revenue Science, Inc.), a data analysis and data mining company that built, operated and hosted data warehouses. As CEO, Dr. Fayyad raised over $45 million in venture capital from top VC firms and led the growth of the company from 3 employees to over 120 employees.
Fayyad's professional experience also includes five years spent leading the data mining and exploration group at Microsoft Research. From 1989 to 1996 Fayyad held a leadership role at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where his work in the analysis and exploration of scientific databases garnered him the top research excellence award that Caltech awards to JPL scientists, as well as a U.S. Government medal from NASA.
Fayyad earned his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1991), and also holds BSE's in both electrical and computer engineering (1984); MSE in computer science and engineering (1986); and M.Sc. in mathematics (1989). He has published over 100 technical articles and holds over 20 patents.
Dr. Heba Handoussa Research Director for the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis (GERPA)
Dr. Heba Handoussa is currently the Research Director for the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis (GERPA), a MENA regional initiative to promote high-level research on gender issues across the Middle East. Dr. Handoussa is also a member of the Higher Coordinating Committee for Monetary Policy, Egypt, and is an advisor to the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey (ERF).
Prior to her recent positions, Dr. Handoussa was Managing Director of ERF, which is a non-government, non-profit institution established in 1993 to promote policy-relevant research on the MENA region. She is also a former member of the Shura Council, Egypt's Upper House of Parliament, and a former member of the Board of the Central Bank of Egypt.
An economist by training, Dr. Handoussa obtained her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of London in 1974 and taught at the American University in Cairo where she was twice elected as Chairperson of the Economics and Political Science Department (subsequently appointed as Vice Provost). She has also served as an advisor to the Egyptian government and consultant to the World Bank.
Her numerous research publications cover the areas of structural adjustment, industrial policy and foreign aid, institutional reform, and comparative development models. In total she has edited more than ten widely circulated books on economic development in the Middle East and North Africa, and is one of the most highly regarded experts in her field.
Mohamed ElBaradei Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental organization that is part of the United Nations system. He was appointed to the office in December 1997 and reappointed to a third term in September 2005.
From 1984, Dr. ElBaradei was a senior staff member of the IAEA Secretariat, holding a number of high-level policy positions, including that of the Agency´s Legal Adviser and subsequently the Assistant Director General for External Relations.
Dr. ElBaradei was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1942, son of the late Mostafa ElBaradei, a lawyer and former President of the Egyptian Bar Association. He gained a Bachelor´s degree in Law in 1962 at the University of Cairo, and a Doctorate in International Law at the New York University School of Law in 1974.
He began his career in the Egyptian Diplomatic Service in 1964, serving in the Permanent Missions of Egypt to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, in charge of political, legal and arms control issues. During this period, Dr. ElBaradei participated in the activities of many international and regional organizations, including: the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council, the World Health Organization and the League of Arab States.
From 1974 to 1978 Dr. ElBaradei was a special assistant to the Foreign Minister of Egypt. During this period, Dr. ElBaradei was a member of the negotiating team that led to the conclusion of the disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel. In 1980 he left the Diplomatic Service to join the United Nations and became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law Program at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. From 1981 to 1987 he was also an Adjunct Professor of International Law at the New York University School of Law.
In October 2005, Dr. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way." In its citation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee referred to the IAEA´s work as being of "incalculable importance", and referred to Dr. ElBaradei as an "unafraid advocate" of new measures to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Dr. ElBaradei has received multiple other awards for his work as a public servant and as an advocate of tolerance, humanity and freedom. These include:
- Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal;
- PR of Achievement Golden Plate Award;
- Raymond "Jit" Trainor Award from Georgetown University for distinction in the conduct of diplomacy;
- Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) Human Security Award;
- "Golden Dove of Peace" prize from the President of Italy;
- 2008 "Peacebuilding Award" of the EastWest Institute;
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