Rama Chakaki is the CEO of Baraka Ventures, an organization that focuses on social enterprises in the MENA region. For Chakaki, success is measured by social impact, not just profits. She established Baraka Ventures in 2006 to provide support to social enterprises in the region. Baraka Ventures takes a "patient capital" approach, making long-term investments in social enterprises to solve social problems. While Baraka Ventures has not made large profits, Chakaki believes they have significantly improved people's lives and communities through their work.
Working from Within-Board of Directors ewing_brown
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This is a fresh look at board development. It is organizes in light of the various stages of a nonprofit. Heather Burton of Sage Consulting was the presenter.
All too often, a nonprofitâs board of directors is detached from the organization. They are even less involved in the organizationâs fundraising processes. At the same time, they are volunteers. This session is based on the chapter âAll A-Boardâ in CharityChannel Press book, YOU and Your Nonprofit, published in 2011, and will provide you with some great tips and tools to help invigorate board members, working from within.
Wendy Lewis is one of the most influential women in direct selling
She is Founder and CEO ,Jeunesse Global
Every thing you need to know about the Jeunesse global klik link below:
www.skinproduct.jeunesseglobal.com
Working from Within-Board of Directors ewing_brown
Â
This is a fresh look at board development. It is organizes in light of the various stages of a nonprofit. Heather Burton of Sage Consulting was the presenter.
All too often, a nonprofitâs board of directors is detached from the organization. They are even less involved in the organizationâs fundraising processes. At the same time, they are volunteers. This session is based on the chapter âAll A-Boardâ in CharityChannel Press book, YOU and Your Nonprofit, published in 2011, and will provide you with some great tips and tools to help invigorate board members, working from within.
Wendy Lewis is one of the most influential women in direct selling
She is Founder and CEO ,Jeunesse Global
Every thing you need to know about the Jeunesse global klik link below:
www.skinproduct.jeunesseglobal.com
This is a presentation of The Triple Bottom Line by Alexis Dogwe, Camille Eusebio, Maurice Gonzales, Leslee May Tandoc and Al Marie Tating as part of the requirements in the subject: Marketing and Commercialization of High Technology Products.
University of the Philippines, Technology Management Center
An online presentation to a group of 100 Syrian Freelancers. What customers expect, essentials freelancers should consider, reasons to become a freelancer.
This is a presentation of The Triple Bottom Line by Alexis Dogwe, Camille Eusebio, Maurice Gonzales, Leslee May Tandoc and Al Marie Tating as part of the requirements in the subject: Marketing and Commercialization of High Technology Products.
University of the Philippines, Technology Management Center
An online presentation to a group of 100 Syrian Freelancers. What customers expect, essentials freelancers should consider, reasons to become a freelancer.
1. 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,â 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 Gatesâa prominent business
executive turned force of social change.
But unlike Gates, she didnât 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.
âWe really have to start shifting our units
of measurement to match the demands
of todayâs world,â says the Syrian-born,
Saudi-raised executive. âEven if you are
making billions, if there are the levels of
IMAGE FROM ISSA ALKINDY - WWW.ISSASK.COM
poverty and environmental degradation,
then weâve failed as a species. We need to
completely reevaluate that,â 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
82 FORBES MIDDLE EAST MARCH 2013
2. by the weak social enterprise support People really donât 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 âblessingâ. talent with itâa 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. âI flustered; while the team formerly in
really jumped into it head first,â 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. âSmall
relying on a battery operated heart is beautiful. Itâs a different economic
since the age of 25, Chakaki is an avid of the population, âPeople really donât framework but it works well because
cyclist and qualified diving instruc- want handouts, they want to make your overheads are so low,â she says,
torâa top-level qualification that their own decisions; they want to adding, âWe can draw on resources
she earned for the sake of Tawasul, solve their own problems.â internationally. It keeps us agile and
a place-based environmental educa- Patient capital requires making a flexible.â
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 regionâs 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. âYou can be a very healthy
Today, the regionâs largest NGOs strength to ride out the early stages of corporation and you can give some
seek Chakakiâs 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
âWhile we havenât made $1 million stone of patient capitalâa process benefit your community,â says the
in profit, Iâm on the board of a charity of fundamental change that can take CEO, who advises corporates on how
that Iâve 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,â she cites, clarifying how the bot- While she believes that âsocial Chakaki recoils, a seeming contradic-
tom line goes well beyond the balance enterprises must be non-profits,â 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 teamâs digital prowess. âWe struggled to see how we could a marketing strategy rather than part
Barakaâs business approach is drive revenue in the early years,â she of their corporate makeup. âThe 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 Chakakiâs it, that it just becomes part of their
ing, social advocacy and advisory tech experience and straddling the DNA,â she remarks.
services. The movement among pio- line between non-profit and for- Chakakiâs view is shared by
neering social advocates has been to- profit. Leena Al Olaimy, Co-Founder and
wards a paradigm of âpatient capitalâ, On the for-profit side, Barakaâs Managing Director Triple Bottom
a long-term market-based approach revenue comes from investments Line (3BL) AssociatesâBahrainâs 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. âWhatever terms you choose
Novogratz, Founder and CEO of the tech space has proven such a strong to label itâŠsocial 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
MARCH 2013 FORBES MIDDLE EAST 83
3. The Most Influential Arab Women in the MENA Region
Rama Chakaki leading a round table
discussion in Palestine at the Wel-
fare Associationâs 30th Anniversary
Campaign Planning Event.
with its profits, but rather how it Even if you are practice and keeping Baraka local.
makes them,â she writes in the orga- âWeâve taken our time in decid-
nizationâs 2012 Bahrain Responsible making billions, ing which niches we want to focus
Business Survey. on,â 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 âcomplicated social fabric.â
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 regionâs largest NGOs and non-
guise of doing good. After the global
degradation, then profit institutions, it will prove an
financial crisis, multinational com- weâve 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,â various partnerships and collabora-
Harvard Business Review, âthe 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.â 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- regionâs problems will be addressed
unifying message for social entre- panyâs 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. âWe canât develop ate progressively stronger revenue, grams in a way that benefits people,
if weâre 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 storiesâand there ing an distinctly non-profit advisory company founderâs vision.
84 FORBES MIDDLE EAST MARCH 2013