Middle East & North Africa

The Creating Emerging Markets project provides a unique research and teaching resource on business leadership in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East over recent decades. At its core are over 180 interviews by Harvard faculty with high impact leaders in business and social enterprise. Read the interview with Naguib Sawiris, Chairman, Orascom TMT Investments.

FIELD Global Immersion gives students the opportunity to make an impact on business abroad. To put what they have learned in the classroom to the test in the field, more than 900 HBS first-year students embarked in May on the FIELD Global Capstone, a cornerstone of the MBA Program since 2012. This experiential learning opportunity dispatches students across the globe to collaborate with local business partners, tackling real-world challenges through intensive project work for up to 10 days. For their project, the six HBS students assigned to work with BMCE Bank (now Bank of Africa) were asked to create a digital product to attract 18 to 24-year-olds to the bank’s services. Since BMCE already had existing university partnerships, the FIELD team conducted more than 100 interviews with students in Casablanca, which informed the team’s extensive design thinking process. During their final presentation to their project partner, the HBS students proposed that rather than introduce a digital product, the bank should create a financial education hub where classes and access to financial advisors would be offered to the city’s young people. Click here for the full article.

The Creating Emerging Markets project provides a unique research and teaching resource on business leadership in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East over recent decades. At its core are over 180 interviews by Harvard faculty with high impact leaders in business and social enterprise. Read the interview with Neveen El Tahri (PPL 2013), Chairperson of Delta Shield for Investment and Advisory Board Member of the MENA Research Center.

Loujaine AlMoallim (MBA 2024) from Saudi Arabia shares her perspectives as a student. ‘’Being part of a large community trying to solve a never-ending brain teaser that makes us reevaluate our approach to problem solving.’’ She serves as co-president of the MENA Club and is actively engaged in the Women’s Student Association. Read more about Loujaine here.

To mark its 10 year anniversary milestone, the MENA Research Center unveils a video series aimed at shining a spotlight on the significant diversity of enterprises in our region and the important role played by family businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit shaping local economies. The Center has had the honor of turning some of the powerful stories into HBS case studies, and the videos feature a distinguished lineup of speakers, including faculty members, subject matter experts, and the case protagonists. In addition to those themes, the Research & More segment introduces perspectives from leaders representing key departments at HBS with which the MENA Research Center collaborates: Executive Education, External Relations, Global Initiative, Global Experience Office, and MBA Admissions. Watch the videos here.