World Entrepreneurship Forum Members


Tamara Abdel-Jaber is a co-founder and an executive board member at Palma. As Executive Board Member, she is responsible for strategy, corporate governance, performance management and business development. Tamara is a member of the Young Arab Leaders, a pan-Arab organization with the mandate to spread modern leadership values and fostering the development of future Arab leaders. Additionally, she currently serves on the board of the Institute of Management Consultants and Trainers – Jordan and serves for the second term as the board chairperson.
Tamara was recently selected to take part in the 2009 Fortune/ U.S. State Department Global Women Mentoring Partnership where she was mentored by c-level executives at Accenture in New York and Chicago. She participated and spoke at the 2009 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in San Diego, USA. She also participated as a member of the Official Middle East delegation to the Global Women’s Forum in Deauville, France in Oct 2009. Tamara was recently selected to participate in the Presidential Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington D.C., USA.
In recognition to Tamara’s contribution to spark business innovation and entrepreneurship in the MENA region, she has been ranked at number 39 of 100 Most Powerful Arab Women for 2011.
Tamara participated in many national and international conferences, as a lecturer and key-note speaker on the topics of strategic and operational management, as well as business process management. During the past years, Tamara participated in several business related studies in the fields of business valuations using DCF, design of management and reporting systems, review of strategic planning and management systems, process assessments and optimization, definition of requirements for enterprise applications (ERP and CRM) as well as; setup of Balanced Scorecard systems.
Born on June 21st 1976, Tamara Abdel-Jaber graduated from the University of Jordan in Amman, where she received her bachelor degree in Accounting and Finance with honors. And she was certified as a Public Accountant (CPA) in 1997 from Delaware - USA. She started her professional career in 1997, as an accountant at the Computer and Engineering Bureau (CEB). In 1998, she was assigned the Financial Manager position at the CEB Group of companies where she was responsible for financial management, planning and budgeting. And in 2001, as the Chief Planning Officer (Internal Consultant); Tamara worked on strategic planning and budgeting, project management, corporate re-structuring; as well as; performance measurement and management.
In 2002 Tamara co-founded Palma, and started as a Deputy General Manager, responsible for business development, strategy consulting, process management consulting, pre-sales, in addition to coaching and training. Palma currently employs 20+ consultants, has several international alliances and business partners, and is actively providing its consulting services to large organizations across the Arab region.


FELTA Multi-media inc. turned 45 years old business, founded in 1966 by Mylene's parents, Felicito and Teresita Abiva. Mylene is the President/ CEO, FELTA Multi-Media Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of innovative educational materials for the school Market. FELTA is the ‘Exclusive Distributor’ of LEGO Education and LEGO Early Learning in the Philippines. She is the pioneer in introducing LEGO Robotics in elementary and high schools in the Philippines and the National organizer of the Philippine Robotics Olympiad from 2002 to the present. FELTA is also the trail blazer in introducing Education products.
Mylene is the former president of the Philippine Marketing Association (2009), finalist- ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR Award by Ernst & Young in 2009, finalist in GWAD LIDER Award (Science & Technology) in 2010, first Certified Professional Marketer (CPM) of Marketing Institute of the Philippines in 2011. GO NEGOSYO Movement advocate, she involved in giving talks and mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs in the Philippines. Mylene is also an active member of the Women Business Council of the Philippines.


Dr Nikhil Agarwal is an Entrepreneur himself, Professor of Internet, Policy & Entrepreneurship and co-founder of a NGO working in US/India/Uganda. Dr Agarwal is considered to be international expert on Internet Governance, Technology Policy, Entrepreneurship, ITES & ICT4D. He is currently serving as Founder Director & Professor of Europe Asia Business School (EABS) based out of Pune, India.
Other than his full time responsibilities, he serves on various international & national committees on ICT & IG. He is High-Level-Adviser to United Nation's Global Alliance on ICT & Development ( UNGAID) since 2006. In 2008, he is nominated at council of experts of International Commission on Workforce Development ( ICWD) & Billion Mind Foundation. He is founder board member of ‘World-Entrepreneurship-Forum’. Since 2005, he is serving as Editor-in-Chief of oldest online journal of the world ‘Journal of Internet Banking & Commerce (JIBC)’. He advises several start-ups on business, go-to-market strategies, funding opportunities etc.
He has published more than 35 papers in international journals such as Springer, IEEE & many articles / research notes in various leading business magazines. Dr Agarwal has more than 14 years of teaching experience, having taught in full-time and visiting capacities at various universities world-wide such as University of Cambridge (UK), University of Bradford (UK) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (US).
Dr Agarwal has an M.Phil Technology Policy from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK, and a Doctorate in Management from Institute of Management Technology (IMT), India. He is also the recipient of several awards including Sir Dorabji Tata Trust Award, Cambridge Trust Award and has received grants from Malta-based Diplo Foundation.


Mr. Rajesh Agrawal (34) is the founder of RationalFX, Europe’s leading online foreign exchange and international payments company.
RationalFX was started as a two-man business in 2005, and is now one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. With offices in UK, France and Italy, it provides foreign exchange and international payments services to thousands of businesses across Europe. RationalFX recently launched its online money transfer service called Xendpay which enables users to send money to almost any bank account in the world, for no fees and great exchange rates. RationalFXis also the principal sponsor for Birmingham City Football Club for the season 2011-2012.
Rajesh has over ten years of experience in IT, currency risk management and commercial foreign exchange. He has been nominated for several awards including Asian Achievers Awards and Lloyds TSB KPMG Awards for Business and Commerce. Rajesh holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance & Marketing, and an MBA in IT & Marketing. Rajesh is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragements of Arts, manufacturers and Commerce (FRSA) and a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
Rajesh is also an adept speaker and writer on foreign exchange markets, work philosophy and entrepreneurship.


Hikari Akizawa is a faculty member of Chuo University, a private university in Tokyo, established in 1885, teaching entrepreneurship and knowledge management for nine years. Her research interests are in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial family business. Dr. Akizawa also has broad professional experiences in the field of entrepreneurship, organizational learning, and knowledge management.


Talal Al Zain is CEO of Mumtalakat since 2008, Chairman of Gulf Air and Board member for Bahrain’s Economic Development Board. Prior to his appointment as CEO of Mumtalakat, Mr. Al Zain worked at Investcorp for 18 years as a Managing Director and Co-Head of Placement and Relationship Management and Investment Banking, Middle East. Before this he was a Vice President of Private Banking International with The Chase Manhattan Bank, Geneva as well as a corporate banker for Citibank Corporate Banking Division in Bahrain.
Mr. Talal Al Zain is also Chairman of Gulf Air, the Kingdom’s national airline, and is a member of the Board of Directors in:
Mr. Al-Zain holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Oglethorpe University at Atlanta, and holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Mercer University, Atlanta. Further, he attended several training programs in both the credit and investment areas. Mr. Al Zain has also attended the Program of Management Development at Harvard University


Appointed CEO of the Fondation de l’entrepreneurshipin January 2011, Alain Aubut is a respected member of the business community with over 25 years of experience in the IT sector. He started up two CD-ROM marketing and distribution companies, including DM Diffusion Multimédia that by 1997 had become the country’s largest distributor of Quebec-developed French-language software. After selling DM Diffusion Multimédia to Quebecor Media, Alain worked as a consultant and coach for more than 50 businesses in Canada and around the world and took part in 25 missions to North Africa in conjunction with CIDA and the World Bank (2003–2008).
Between 2006 and 2009, Alain consulted on the implementation of the École nationale en divertissement interactif (ENDI). He subsequently became the Executive Director of the school, a position he held until joining the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship as Vice-President of Réseau M.
Alain is regularly asked to act as a judge at prestigious awards ceremonies, such as the OCTAS information technology awards, and to speak on business mentoring at such events as the Salon des entrepreneurs de Paris (January 2009). Over the years, he has served on a number of boards for such associations as the Conseil de l'industrie du logiciel éducatif et de formation, the Société documentaire multimédia and Alliance NumériQC (for which he was the president from 2002 to 2003). Alain has been a mentor with SAGE, a Quebec City–area business mentoring group affiliated with Réseau M, since 2005. He served as a member of the SAGE Board of Directors between 2006 and 2008 and Chairman of the Board from 2008 to 2009.
In June 2011, Alain was named Person of the Month by Réseau Action TI, an honour given to individuals who have made their mark on the Quebec IT industry, in recognition of his dedication to promoting entrepreneurial culture within the province.


Ayuru Beatrice Byaruhanga was born in a polygamous family in Northern Uganda. She studied in the rural part of the country and emerged as the first girl of the sub region to go to the University since that institution was opened in 1955. She obtained a degree in Education.
She had an inspiration to improve on the education of people of Northern Uganda, above all the girls who were denied education due to bride price demand according to the tradition. With the gift of entrepreneur skills, she started growing cassava. Then she used the profits to buy and rent out wheelbarrows to local workers, reinvested her profits in a canteen. Later she used the profits as collateral to obtain a loan to establish the Lira Integrated Nursery, Primary and Secondary School. The school is funded, in part, by agricultural and aquaculture ventures that have been undertaken in an effort to teach entrepreneurship skills to students and members of the Lira community.
Currently, she has opened a savings and credit institution to support staff and community development so as to improve on their family livelihood. Lira Integrated University is underway to be opened in August 2011 on the same land where the Nursery, Primary, and Secondary schools now sit.


Mr Bakoc has been running Algotech since its foundation in 1992 and leaded the company to be one of the largest Contact Center system integrator companies in Centre Europe. During this period, he was also a shareholder and Executive Director of Trizma one of the first Serbian contact center and outsourcing company from 2002 - 2006.