Middle East & North Africa

Cairo, Dubai, Istanbul, Tel Aviv

HBS continues its efforts to build a deep understanding of and expertise in global business practice and innovation around the world, including throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The School opened the MENA Research Center in Istanbul in 2013, followed by offices in Dubai and Cairo. Separately an office was opened in Tel Aviv in 2016 reporting to the Europe Research Center. All play an important role in helping HBS develop and strengthen relationships with business and academic leaders in the Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, and Central Asia. Support for faculty research, student programming, Executive Education, and Harvard Business Publishing are enabled by these HBS locations.

Locations

Middle East and North Africa Research Center Istanbul, Turkey

Cairo Office
Cairo, Egypt

Dubai Office
Dubai Design District
Building 3, 3rd Floor, Unit 341
Dubai, UAE

Tel Aviv Office
Tel Aviv, Israel

News & Highlights

June 2022
CREATING EMERGING MARKETS

Creating Emerging Market Interview: Ouided Bouchamaoui

Ouided Bouchamaoui is CEO of Hédi Bouchamaoui Group (HBG Holding), former President of the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade, and Handicrafts (UTICA), and Co-Founder of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a civil society organization whose leaders won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015. In her interview, Bouchamaoui explains that her childhood was unusual in the broader context of growing up in the Arab and Muslim world a few decades ago. This interview is part of the Creating Emerging Markets project which provides a unique research and teaching resource on business leadership in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East over recent decades.

June 2022
EVENT

Event with Professor Arthur Brooks: From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

This June, the MENARC hosted a virtual event in collaboration with the HBS Clubs of Egypt, GCC, Lebanon, and Turkey featuring Professor Arthur C. Brooks, William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. He shared his findings from his recent book From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. Arthur talked about how his me-search project turned into a research project and how people could find purpose, meaning, and success as they age. More than 120 alumni and friends of HBS attended the webinar.

April 2022
Case Centennial

HBS Case Centennial Celebration: Untold Stories of Entrepreneurs from the Middle East

The MENA region has produced a multitude of entrepreneurial successes, including several unicorns. Over the years, the MENA Research Center has had the honor to turn some of these success stories, many featuring female protagonists, into HBS case studies. In the first part of this video series; Katherine B. Coffman, Associate Professor of Business Administration, talks about her experience with the BulkWhiz: Negotiating as a Startup Founder in the UAE case and Shikhar Ghosh, Professor of Management Practice in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit speaks about what made Instabeat—One More Lap? a great case for students.

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In the second part; Barbaros Özbugutu, Co-Founder and CEO of Iyzico, and Mikhail Lomtadze (MBA 2002), CEO & Chief Ecosystem Officer of Kaspi.kz, shared their experiences being HBS case protagonists.

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Learn more about the case method:
https://www.hbs.edu/case-method-100

March 2022
Executive Education

Senior Executive Leadership Program—Middle East: Participant Perspective

Faced with a slew of challenges inherent to conducting business in a challenging part of the world, Muna Batayneh, director of operations at Engineering Enterprise Company, sought innovative approaches and strategies for addressing complex situations in Iraq. Muna's quest prompted her to apply to our Senior Executive Leadership Program—Middle East (SELPME). While on Harvard Business School campus for the program’s first module, she sat down with us to share her thoughts about her experience thus far.

New Research on the Region

May 2022
Case

Maestro Pizza: Coming in Hot!

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais

Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2014 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of international pizza giants who had been operating in the country for nearly two decades. That was when Maestro found itself locked into a costly, seemingly relentless, multi-year marketing and pricing war with the market leader at the time; Domino’s pizza. This series of cases (from A to H) chronicles Maestro’s journey from inception up to 2020 and the various challenges it faced. This multi-part case study provides students with the opportunity to reflect at key inflection points for Al Omran and his team as a result of the competition with Domino’s and changing market conditions.