What is our Purpose?
WIFB offers an opportunity for women worldwide to share their expertise and insights on, sustainable and practical business practices, discuss pressing issues, and learn from their peers.
We believe women’s economic empowerment needs to happen at all levels – including where women have the opportunity or burden to be born into business-owning families. We believe the women’s empowerment in family-owned firms is key for the individuals to thrive and for the family businesses to face a complex future with inclusive and strong leadership.
Our top priorities are: setting a global agenda for the empowerment of female inheritors and current and future business leaders, strengthening female leaders through access to thought leadership and creating a network of supportive and like-minded women. Female business leaders with long-term vision impact entire communities – we want to be their safe haven.
How it started…
In 2013 we, Ana Maria Matallana, Farida El Agamy, and Ramia El Agamy met in London, UK. We quickly realised that since we all were part of a Family Business, there was much to share and discuss.
Despite being from three very different parts of the world (Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East) we quickly realised that we shared many similar challenges, asked the same questions, and were looking for space for our ideas. Inspired by this first meeting we developed the dream of creating an international platform to connect women with a family business background from all over the world.
Our initiative is supported by the Tharawat Family Business Forum, a non-profit network of family-owned businesses founded in Dubai and “Women in Family Business” was launched in 2014.
The Founders
Ramia M. El Agamy
Ramia Marielle El Agamy is the CEO and Co-Founder of Orbis Terra Media a global content marketing and personal branding agency and award-winning magazine publisher based in Switzerland. She’s the Editor-in-Chief of Tharawat Magazine, the global publication for family businesses and entrepreneurs, a product established by her family, as well as the host of podcasts The Family Business Voice and Women in Family Business. As a Director of her family’s enterprise, she has helped expand its activities globally and works alternately in media, content marketing, and family business. Her role as the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Tharawat Magazine and Podcast Host of The Family Business Voice and Women in Family Business, has allowed her to specialise in topics relevant to business owners and their successors.
Ramia holds a MSc in International Business and Management from Manchester Business School (UK). Born and raised in Switzerland, Ramia M. El Agamy is of Dutch-Egyptian descent and currently lives between Bern, Switzerland, and Dubai, UAE and speaks six languages.
Farida F. El Agamy
Social entrepreneur by conviction, lawyer by passion and profession, Farida has been the General Manager of the Tharawat Family Business Forum, the first knowledge resource and networking hub for family-owned companies in the Middle East and North Africa, since 2008. Farida’s main interests lie in the advancement of corporate and family governance systems, the economic impact of family firms on the economy, and the support of individual family members within the family business context.
Her previous professional experience includes legal positions in the Swiss government and in an international law firm, as well as at the United Nations in Geneva. Farida also works at Target Developments, her family’s firm based in Switzerland.
A global citizen at heart Farida has both a Dutch and Egyptian heritage and was educated in Switzerland and in the UK.
Ana Maria Matallana-Boggio
Ana María has a degree in Management Sciences and Systems Analysis from the University of Miami, USA; and a masters in Non-profit Management at the Kellogg School of Management -Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. She is the co-founder of WIFB, www.womeninfamilybusiness.org , a global initiative that provides an opportunity for women around the world to share their knowledge on family business issues, sustainable business practices, and contribute to the creation of a global female community.
She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cayena Free Trade Zone and Fundación la Cayena. In addition, Ana Maria is a Sustainability Consultant and currently works at Grupo Empresarial Alfa and Zona Franca la Cayena as a sustainability consultant.
Ana María is currently president of the Fundación la Cayena. Since the non profit organization was founded, she has been ambitious and persistent in creating programs that impact social issues in vulnerable communities in Colombia where she was born. Her vision is to be able to have inclusive and shared value initiatives in the companies she works with and be able to create equal education and job opportunities for many inhabitants in Colombia. In the past 5 years, the nonprofit organization with its different programs has positively impacted more then 35,000 people in Colombia.
Founding Partner and Sponsor
The Tharawat Family Business Forum was founded in 2006 as an independent, non-profit, private sector business network for Arabian family-owned companies. With around 80%* of businesses in the Arab world being family-owned, their sustainability and growth is crucial for the region and its economy.
Tharawat supports the family business community by providing educational programs, thought leadership, networking opportunities, and a platform for the inter-generational and inter-regional exchange of knowledge and experience. The Tharawat Family Business Forum is an exclusive membership organisation, with activities both for its members, as well as for the wider business community.
www.tharawat.org
Women in Family Business is an Orbis Terra Media platform.