The Most Influential Arab Women in the MENA Region
The Triple Bottom Line
The three pillars of business sustainability today are Profits, People, and Planet. Rama
Chakaki, CEO of Baraka Ventures, is helping organizations to deliver the maximum
positive impact across the board.
By Nina Glinski
Bill Gates spent the first half of
his career building and now the
second half giving. Why not do it si-
multaneously? Live and give at the same
time,” demands Rama Chakaki. As the
captivating Chief Executive Officer of
Baraka Ventures, an umbrella organiza-
tion with a portfolio of businesses and
initiatives that focus on social enter-
prise, Chakaki is living the legacy cham-
pioned by Gates—a prominent business
executive turned force of social change.
But unlike Gates, she didn’t wait to be fa-
mously rich to answer the calling. With
Baraka, she is enabling under-supported
social enterprises to thrive and is driving
the corporate social responsibility (CSR)
discourse within the MENA region.
For Chakaki, measuring success is
not only about turning a profit, though
that is a necessary part of sustainability.
“We really have to start shifting our units
of measurement to match the demands
of today’s world,” says the Syrian-born,
Saudi-raised executive. “Even if you are
making billions, if there are the levels of
IMAGE FROM ISSA ALKINDY - WWW.ISSASK.COM
poverty and environmental degradation,
then we’ve failed as a species. We need to
completely reevaluate that,” she asserts.
Chakaki has driven this reevalua-
tion since 2006, when she relinquished
her executive seat running data centers
For Rama Chakaki, CEO of Baraka Ventures, for EastNets, a 200-employee financial
success is measured by social impact.
services company that was turning an
annual profit of $40 million. Compelled
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by the weak social enterprise support People really don’t three following the spinoff of Zeedna,
system she witnessed in the region, a modular social media publishing
the ambitious businesswoman set want handouts, they platform, which took key company
about creating Baraka, or ‘blessing’. talent with it—a loss that would have
She had only previously dabbled in
want to make their proven debilitating for many small
social ventures, but braved the new own decisions; they organizations. But Chakaki is un-
territory with a sense of purpose. “I flustered; while the team formerly in
really jumped into it head first,” she want to solve their place was very talented, Baraka has
enthuses. consistently relied on a collaborative
Indeed, this inspirational woman
own problems work environment alongside NGOs,
is not averse to challenge. Despite entrepreneurs and consultants. “Small
relying on a battery operated heart is beautiful. It’s a different economic
since the age of 25, Chakaki is an avid of the population, “People really don’t framework but it works well because
cyclist and qualified diving instruc- want handouts, they want to make your overheads are so low,” she says,
tor—a top-level qualification that their own decisions; they want to adding, “We can draw on resources
she earned for the sake of Tawasul, solve their own problems.” internationally. It keeps us agile and
a place-based environmental educa- Patient capital requires making a flexible.”
tion project that Baraka got involved long-term, low return investment in a By staying small and working
with. With enviable optimism drawn social enterprise that can solve prob- collaboratively, Baraka has cre-
from the fact that she is lucky to still lems rather than just alleviate them, ated fruitful relationships with the
be alive, not to mention the skill set with emphasis on social return as a region’s movers and shakers, and
that she brings to the table, the CEO is measure of impact. The challenge in Chakaki has emerged as an influ-
leading this company to a new defini- adopting such a discipline however, encer in the realm of social respon-
tion of success. is longevity; having the corporate sibility. “You can be a very healthy
Today, the region’s largest NGOs strength to ride out the early stages of corporation and you can give some
seek Chakaki’s counsel as an expert in a project in order to fully realize suc- dividends, but you should also adopt
building communication strategies. cess in these investments is a touch- causes and do things in a way that
“While we haven’t made $1 million stone of patient capital—a process benefit your community,” says the
in profit, I’m on the board of a charity of fundamental change that can take CEO, who advises corporates on how
that I’ve helped to achieve a $6 mil- a decade or more depending on the they can do just that.
lion endowment in a three-year peri- scale of the problem. When she hears the term CSR,
od,” she cites, clarifying how the bot- While she believes that “social Chakaki recoils, a seeming contradic-
tom line goes well beyond the balance enterprises must be non-profits,” and tion from the quintessential social re-
sheet. The aforementioned endow- that all earnings need to be reinvest- sponsibility advocate. For her, doing
ment managed to raise $1 million on- ed, Chakaki is also conscious of the good is an inherent duty for individu-
line in one year, something unheard fact that any viable business model als and corporates alike; too many
of in the region, and owes thanks to needs its bread and butter to survive. companies use CSR efforts as part of
her team’s digital prowess. “We struggled to see how we could a marketing strategy rather than part
Baraka’s business approach is drive revenue in the early years,” she of their corporate makeup. “The aim
necessarily diversified among tech confesses. But Baraka eventually did is for companies not to have to label
ventures, social enterprise consult- find a way by leveraging Chakaki’s it, that it just becomes part of their
ing, social advocacy and advisory tech experience and straddling the DNA,” she remarks.
services. The movement among pio- line between non-profit and for- Chakaki’s view is shared by
neering social advocates has been to- profit. Leena Al Olaimy, Co-Founder and
wards a paradigm of “patient capital”, On the for-profit side, Baraka’s Managing Director Triple Bottom
a long-term market-based approach revenue comes from investments Line (3BL) Associates—Bahrain’s first
to philanthropy, which Chakaki sub- in digital technology and consult- social impact and sustainability con-
scribes to wholeheartedly. Jacqueline ing work for social enterprises. The sultancy. “Whatever terms you choose
Novogratz, Founder and CEO of the tech space has proven such a strong to label it…social responsibility is not
Acumen Fund championed the con- point for the company that the em- something you do; it is something you
cept, which focuses on empowerment ployee base has dwindled from 10 to are. It is not what an organization does
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The Most Influential Arab Women in the MENA Region
Rama Chakaki leading a round table
discussion in Palestine at the Wel-
fare Association’s 30th Anniversary
Campaign Planning Event.
with its profits, but rather how it Even if you are practice and keeping Baraka local.
makes them,” she writes in the orga- “We’ve taken our time in decid-
nization’s 2012 Bahrain Responsible making billions, ing which niches we want to focus
Business Survey. on,” she says, adding that a local ap-
Amongst its critics, the term
if there are the proach is necessary in a region with
CSR has become synonymous with levels of poverty such a “complicated social fabric.”
marketing, an exploitive ploy used As the social venture company
by corporations seeking to improve and environmental broadens its reputation among the
image or drive profits under the region’s largest NGOs and non-
guise of doing good. After the global
degradation, then profit institutions, it will prove an
financial crisis, multinational com- we’ve failed as a invaluable resource. Sponsoring
panies experienced raging pressure thought leadership events like TEDx
to offer more transparency and re- species conferences in Dubai, Bahrain,
sponsibility for a society whose trust and Ramallah has helped to gener-
was broken. Today, corporations ate hype around the company and
are coming under fire for basically driven new business; so have its
missing the point. According to the are plenty of them in our history,” various partnerships and collabora-
Harvard Business Review, “the pre- says the driven executive, who is tions with the World Bank and other
vailing approaches to CSR are so no stranger to adversity. Despite renowned organizations.
disconnected from business as to her own personal circumstances Baraka Ventures has helped to
obscure many of the greatest op- and perhaps even because of them, carve a narrow avenue for social
portunities for companies to benefit Chakaki demonstrates that there is enterprises to drive their initia-
society.” no excuse for social antipathy. tives forward with the promise of
Though Chakaki shares these Moving from the success of the sustainability. With patience, the
frustrations, she expresses that her past to the promise of her com- region’s problems will be addressed
unifying message for social entre- pany’s future, the CEO expects that with well-advised and increasingly
preneurs in the region is still intel- technology investments will gener- better funded entrepreneurial pro-
IMAGE FROM ASHRAF DOWANI
ligent optimism. “We can’t develop ate progressively stronger revenue, grams in a way that benefits people,
if we’re always beating ourselves and that the consultancy will take the planet, and profitability, thanks
with a stick...We have to take stock off, but she is intent on maintain- to the infrastructure created by the
of all the success stories—and there ing an distinctly non-profit advisory company founder’s vision.
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