Biography of speakers of the UfM Women Business Forum, 6-7 July 2021

Dr. Marisa Farrugia is the Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean in charge of Social and Civil Affairs since September 2019. Marisa Farrugia is a Maltese diplomat who has held over the years senior positions both at the Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs and abroad. Prior to her secondment as Special Envoy and Ambassador to the Union for the Mediterranean at the Union’s Secretariat in August 2017, she was Deputy Director responsible for External Relations, Mediterranean Affairs, and the MENA Region. Marisa Farrugia holds a PhD in Arabic and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Leeds and a Master’s Degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, majoring in international relations and the socio-political aspects of the Arab world.

Fatou Haidara is Managing Director of the Directorate of Corporate Management and Operations at United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Before UNIDO, she served the Government of Mali for eight years in several ministerial positions, including as Minister of Employment and Vocational Training and Minister of Industry, Trade and Private Sector Development. Ms. Haidara led and coordinated UNIDO’s contribution in a number of multilateral negotiations, setting the foundation for inclusive and sustainable industrial development (ISID); notably, the Istanbul Plan of Action for LDCs and the Lima Declaration. She has promoted and contributed to UNIDO’s programmes in cooperation with Least Developed Countries, as well as initiating and leading programmes for Human Security, Youth Employment and the Economic Empowerment of Women.

Sana Afouaiz is an award-winning, gender expert, women advocate. In 2016, she established Womenpreneur Initiative, an organisation with a community of 15,000 across 23 countries, that aims to advance women’s place in the entrepreneurial scene, technology, innovation & society. Through her work, Sana reached thousands of women, to drive visibility, social impact, and resources for women in the ecosystem and beyond: https://womenpreneur-initiative.com

For the past 7 years, Sana advised the United Nations, European Commission, corporate institutions and organisations on gender issues. She was heavily involved in SDGs discussions, she helped draft several resolutions and recommendations on gender in New York, Bali, Geneva, and Paris and presented them to UN representatives. (Moderator DAY I)

Neila Amara holds a Ph.D. in economics from Paris Dauphine University (France). She first embraced an academic carrier before devoting herself full-time to her work as a Program Development Specialist with a specific focus on women and youth economic empowerment and private sector development. She is work currently as an International Project Management Expert at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), coordinating inter alia the implementation of phase II of the project “Promoting women’s empowerment for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development in the Middle-East and North-Africa region” labelled by The Union for the Mediterranean and implemented by UNIDO jointly with FAO and UN Women.

Chiara Criscuolo is head of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Division in the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation at the OECD.

Chiara’s work focuses on entrepreneurship, enterprise dynamics, productivity and policy evaluation. She has coordinated large cross-country microdata projects on employment dynamics, productivity, as well as research and development. Chiara has played a lead role in advancing the use of firm level data and of microdata projects within the OECD. She co-manages the Global Forum on Productivity. She has contributed to key horizontal and high level projects and publications, including the OECD volumes “Future of Productivity”, “New sources of growth: Knowledge Based capital”, and the “OECD Innovation Strategy”.

She co-manages the Global Forum on Productivity and is a member of the French and Portuguese National Productivity Boards.

Her research on innovation, business dynamics, productivity, policy evaluation and international trade has been published in leading academic journals. She also lectured at the University of Siena, City University and University of Cambridge. Chiara is a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, where she was a research fellow before joining the OECD. She holds a doctoral degree in Economics from University College London.

Member of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Affairs and the foreign affairs Committee of the National Council on Women, Ambassador Wafaa Bassim was permanent representative of Egypt to the UN office and other specialized agencies in Geneva, where she dealt with issues ranging from disarmament, trade negotiations, human rights and labour. She has also been Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief of  Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. During that time, different transformations took place, such as the establishment of the Human Rights Council  in 2006. Additionally, she was chief negotiator of the general framework of cooperation between Egypt and the EU and has represented Egypt as a Senior Official to The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Mediterranean Forum. Ambassador Bassim has also received the decoration of the Grand Cross by the President of Romania in recognition of outstanding services to Egyptian -Romanian relations and won the Romanian Award for Best Foreign Diplomat of the Year.

Maria Helena De Felipe is an active member of the European Economic Social Committee, spokesperson of the SMEs-Family Businesses-Crafts and member of the EUROMED follow up Committee.

Vice-President of SMEunited (Confederation of European Crafts and SMEs)- and President of the Committee of Legal Affairs.

Vice-President of CEPYME (Confederation of Spanish SMEs)

President of FEPIME-CATALUNYA (Catalonian Federation of SMEs)

Vice-President of FOMENT DEL TREBALL (Catalonian Employers Confederation)

Member of the Board of CEOE (Spanish Employers Confederation)

Founder and current President AFAEMME   (Association of Federations and Associations of Women Entrepreneurs from the Mediterranean) in  2002. There are currently 63 Member Associations of Businesswomen from  23  Mediterranean countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Slovenia, Spain, France,  Greece, Italy,  Jordan, Lebanon ,Libya,  Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey)

Co-Chair of Women Commission in ASCAME (Federation of Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce) – and Member of the Advisory Board of ASCAME

Member of the Advisory Board of EMEA (Euro Mediterranean Economists Association

Susan Kaaria is Senior Gender officer and Gender Team Leader, in the Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP), at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  She provides intellectual leadership to the technical work on gender, which focuses on providing policy and technical advice and strengthening capacities of governments and ARD stakeholders to design and implement gender-responsive policies, programmes and strategies. Prior to joining the organization, she served as program officer with the Ford Foundation Office for Eastern Africa managing a diverse portfolio of grants aimed at expanding livelihood opportunities for poor households in East Africa. Susan has also held a position as Senior Scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), where she contributed to the body of knowledge on best practice in catalyzing rural innovation processes and increasing access and benefits from market opportunities by poor rural women and men. She is also co-editor of Innovation Africa: Enriching Farmers’ Livelihoods.

Mr. Amr Soliman holds a B.Sc. in Construction Engineering from the AUC in Cairo, 1993 and a M.Sc. in Project Management for National Development Programs from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, 1995. Mr. Soliman joined the Social Fund for Development, a national program implementing a country wide economic restructuring and social adjustment program from 1993-1999.  A diversified exposure from public works & infrastructure projects, to social community development programs for health & education, to entrepreneurs’ development and SME & micro credit lending programs.

By early 2000, Mr. Soliman was extremely passionate for the advancement of digital payments and established a fintech company to cater for the automation of banking systems and payments at large. Over the last two decades, Mr. Soliman, and his company eVision have strongly contributed to enabling the Egyptian banks advance their straight though processing capabilities within their operational back offices to allow for real time local and cross border payments. Today eVision is a specialized leader in its field across the MEA region.

In January 2016, Mr Soliman was appointed by the President of Egypt as a Board member to The National Council for Women. Currently, He holds the Chair of the Environment committee and Chairs the Economic committee, leading the Women Financial Inclusion chapter and is a member of the National Steering committee for Women Financial Inclusion together with the Central Bank of Egypt and the Federation of Microcredit Finance. Mr Soliman currently leads the National Digital Saving & Lending program for Women Saving Groups in collaboration with the CBE and the 4 public sector banks.

Mr. Soliman has great commitment and enthusiasm towards social work and is both talented and experienced in working and communicating with people on the ground.

“The collaborative power of digital group savings & lending is a game changer for financial inclusion and economic empowerment for women in rural Egypt”

Jihen Boutiba, General Secretary of BUSINESSMED since 2014, has led the International Relations of the organization for more than 15 years. Previously, she worked at the U.S Department of States in Tunisia within the Political and Economic section for foreign grants assistance on the Economic Support funds. Mrs. Boutiba has an extensive experience in managing large programs at international levels and is responsible for partnership and networking relations with diplomatic Institutions in the Euromed/MENA Regions. She holds several Expert Positions: she is currently the Executive Director of the EU-project “Enhancing Business Support Organizations-EBSOMED”,  Director of the ENI-CBC Investmed project, Consultant in Euro-Mediterranean diplomatic trainings with ENA “Ecole Nationale d’Administration” & Deputy Director of the South Mediterranean Social Dialogue Project “SOLiD II” and liason manager with ILO project component. Mrs. Boutiba is also a member of the MENA-OECD Business Advisory Board, board member of HOMERe project, member of the Policy for development and Instituto Eurispes. She is member of the Italian B20 coalition under the chairmanship of Confindustria on Trade and Investment, Digitalisation and Women. Besides her international career, she is also a holder of a family business in the mining sector.

Abigail Mamo has occupied the position of Malta Chamber of SMEs CEO for the last 7 years. Her experience and expertise revolve around economic topics of competitiveness and sustainability of enterprises, especially SMEs. She is an experienced lobbyist and represents the interest of businesses coming from various economic sectors on a number of high level fora.

Luisa Prista is the Head of Department of Innovation Ecosystems, SMP/COSME and Consumers, European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency in Brussels, responsible for the implementation of European programmes, including parts of the Single Market programme and Horizon Europe. She is a Mechanical engineer in Applied Thermodynamics. She has 16 years of industrial private sector experienceand she has been a manager at the Commision for more than 20 years. She has worked in different management positions at DG R&I and DG GROW related to research, innovation and legislation in a wide variety of industrial sectors (materials and nanotechnologies, transports, security and space, circular economy, ecoinnovation and chemicals). Gender iss-ues and women entrepreneurship have been mainstream topics across her life and career. She is a co-author of the report ‘Stengthening Canada’s Research capacity in the Gender Dimension’, while working in 2012 for the Council of Canadian Academies.

“This is not  a women’s issue. It is a societal and  economic case. Women do not need fixing. The systems need changing.”

Mr Majdi Chargui, Digital Advisor Consultant

Sarah Carroll is the Founder of Grow Global, an UN E-commerce Expert and the author of ‘Grow Fast, Grow Global: 6 steps to unstoppable growth in the international digital age’. She is a world-leading expert on how to grow a business globally using digital strategies. Everyone can now seize the opportunity to sell to customers all around the world online. Over the last 10 years, she has propelled over 5,000 companies on their international digital journey and helped them to achieve up to 10x growth by translating her depth of knowledge of digital trade into simple, clear actions to follow.

“Everyone deserves a digital livelihood to allow their businesses and families to flourish.”

Jawhar Jocelyne (Italian, Lebanese citizen) is an Agricultural engineer, Master of Science and PhD.in plant protection. Collaborating with CIHEAM Bari since 2009 mainly in the Innovation and Youth knowledge unit. Mainly active in supporting the Innovation Support Organizations and the networking activities. Co-coordinating since 2016 the Network (MIP) Mediterranean Innovation Partnership  for youth entrepreneurship and technology transfer in the agrifood sector. She is the facilitator among the different MIP partners.Project manager of international project supporting knowledge transfer, youth entrepreneurship and knowledge management.

Giordano Dichter (Italian, US citizen) is specialized in supporting actors worldwide in creating and delivering entrepreneurship support services to startups and SMEs. He provides workshops on entrepreneurial ecosystem development, on business models for sustainable incubators and accelerators, and on entrepreneurship service design. From 2009 to 2018 Giordano headed the EU|BIC Services team at the European Business and Innovation Center Network where he designed and managed the EUBIC trademark and assessed a multitude of innovation and entrepreneurship center, ensuring the alignment with the EU|BIC Criteria. Since 2019 Giordano is collaborating with CIHEAM Bari in youth entrepreneurship and innovation  projects.

Damiano Petruzzella (M) is graduated in Agricultural Sciences and PHD in Engineering, Architecture and Economics for Urban and Rural Environment Sustainability. Collaborates since 2000 with CIHEAM BARI and he is the responsible of Knowledge unit “youth&innovation”. Coordinates: i) the MEDAB – Mediterranean Incubator  for the Business Creation and Change of CIHEAM BARI for start-ups in agro-food sector;  ii) the MIP – Mediterranean Innovation Partnership, network among 10 countries and coordinate the master on youth entrepreunership in agrifood, since 2016.  Scientific coordinator of the Master I Level on open innovation and yputh entrepreunership in the Mediterranean agrifood sector . Project Manager of several national and international projects aimed at promoting innovation, knowledge transfer, youth empowerment, creation and strengthening of Innovation Support organizations, cross innovation and rural social innovation.

Keywords: innovation, youth employment; social innovation; knowledge transfer; participatory approaches

CEO and Founder of Actifs Precieux and Aeshab, Hajer Derouiche is a chemical engineer. During her oil and gas industry experience, she worked on process optimization, and became aware of the environmental and health impact of petrochemicals. She decided to develop a green, ecological process for producing innovative Mediterranean active ingredients. She founded her first company, Actifs Précieux, located in Zaghouan, in 2016.  After five years of research and development, with her team of engineers and doctors,  they launched Aeshab.  A holistic approach for health and wellness connection, offering unparalleled quality and efficacy, inspired by our founder Hajer family backgrounds in the world of luxury spa therapy and its uncompromising standards.

Founder of Phytoessentia and holder of 2 Masters in Biotechnologies DIPL.-ING in Environnemental Engineering, Hela Touhami worked on various projects in different countries in Europe and Africa, especially in marginalised areas of North Africa. She has over 20 years  progressive experience and core competences in natural resources management, sustainable development, energy issues, climate change, environmental engineering and project management.

CEO of NAKAWA BIO, Dr Lobna Dems holds a doctorate in applied organic chemistry. A path marked by success, she has been recognized with numerous awards, such as the Best Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2018 in the agribusiness sector
The main characteristic of NAKAWA BIO: everything is 100% organic!

Amel is an entrepreneur, ecosystem builder and digital transformation expert. She is president of TunisianStartups, the association giving a voice to Tunisian startups. She is the co-founder of BetaCube a venture builder in Fintech and mobility solutions. She also the co-founder of Digital2Value an SME digital transformation platform.

She acts as management consultant specialising in digital transformation and business strategy. She is an innovation and digital transformation activist acting for instance as a board member for the Digital Center of Excellence of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and as Tunisia steering committee member for Digital Arabia Network, a platform supporting the digital transformation in the Arab world. She is a member of the StartupAct “College of Startups”. She also a member of the BMW Responsible Leaders Network, and a fellow of the BMW Ready-Go program.

Prior to that she has acted in different sales and client relationship management roles.  Working in Tunisia for some of the largest multinationals (Microsoft, Siemens, Nokia Siemens), Amel has an extensive knowledge of the Tunisian market and sales and marketing management practices.

Amel is an engineer in electro-technics, qualified from the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, she also holds a Master’s of Science in Business in Digital Economy from the University of Maryland.

Anna Thomlinson is Managing Director Start it @KBC, Belgium’s largest and one of its oldest accelerators. Before she committed herself to Start it @KBC, Anna worked in the UK for accelerators, incubators, a government fund for startups, and a university department for entrepreneurship. Her international experience gives her a great perspective for startups looking to do business across borders, and her work of selling to corporate innovation teams whilst in accelerators enables her to work in both large and small business teams. Alongside her different roles in the European startup ecosystem, she has given guest lectures at several higher education institutions including at VUB in Brussels and Imperial College in London. She has also engaged in consulting roles to deliver sections of entrepreneurship courses or internal projects with Ciheam in Italy, Triveriance Fund in Luxembourg and Capital Enterprise in London.

I help my customers to find the best way to optimize the process and develop their companies.

I know there is no single approach  for each business activity, That’s why I use  Lean Six Sigma Black Belt methodology combined with Digital transformation core tools.

My Educational background includes  an MBA and Engineer degree.

I have more than 15 years of experiences working deeply with industrial, service and recently with startup companies.