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.

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.

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.