"Jordanian Entrepreneur Promotes Future Leadership" 

Palma co-founder Tamara Abdel-Jaber is active in world business forums

By M. Scott Bortot
Staff Writer

Press Release
Washington, 28 April 2010

The 2009 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit included some of the world’s top business and government leaders to discuss the event’s theme: Betting on the Future.

Jordan’s Tamara Abdel-Jaber joined former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, billionaire investor Warren Buffet, Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz and Xerox chief executive Ursula Burns at the three-day event held in San Diego, California.

For her part at the summit, Abdel-Jaber participated in the panel titled “Global Connections: Extraordinary Mentees Help us Navigate the Developing World.” The panel addressed challenges faced by leaders and entrepreneurs in developing countries, especially women.

It turns out that Abdel-Jaber is well-qualified to speak on such a panel.

Abdel-Jaber is a co-founder and an executive board member of business and information technology consulting firm Palma. She oversees strategy, corporate governance, performance management and business development.

The Obama administration invited Abdel-Jaber to attend the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington April 26–27 in recognition of her role in sparking business innovation in Jordan.

Founded in 1997, Amman-based Palma delivers strategic management business consulting services to large and medium organizations in Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Sudan and Qatar. Palma continues to see major growth in its long-term relationships with worldwide companies IDS Scheer, Oracle and SAP.

With more than 10 years of experience in leading an entrepreneurial start-up in Jordan, Abdel-Jaber added a lot to the Fortune panel.

“Ms. Abdel-Jaber emphasized that investors should do their homework in terms of understanding the local culture, history, customs and religion, to realize successful investment,” said an Institute of Management Consultants and Trainers (IMC) press release about Abdel-Jaber’s panel contribution.

Abdel-Jaber is an elected member of the Jordan-based IMC, an organization dedicated to upgrading management consulting and training.

Leading up to the Fortune summit, Abdel-Jaber took part in the 2009 Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. The annual program gathered 32 young women from 23 developing countries to shadow American women leaders.

Abdel-Jaber is active in empowering future generations of Arabs and Jordanians.

As a member of Young Arab Leaders, Abdel-Jaber is helping to promote a more positive future for the region. Young Arab Leaders is a Dubai-based organization with a mandate to spread dynamic leadership values and foster future Arab leaders to contribute to regional development.

Abdel-Jaber is also empowering women business professionals as a member of Amman’s Business and Professional Women’s Association.

Abdel-Jaber played a role in founding Palma Academy in 2005. The academy works with business leaders to offer certification programs in project management, business process re-engineering and the Six Sigma management strategy.

“We are building this academy because we care about our clients’ success and we listen to them,” Abdel-Jaber told AMEInfo.com.
  

"U.S Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship"

Press Release
Amman, April, 2010 

Thirteen Jordanian participants are scheduled to depart for Washington, D.C. in coming days to participate in the April 26-27 Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, hosted by the U.S. departments of State and Commerce.  The summit was announced during President Obama’s June 4, 2009 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.  It underscores the President’s commitment to pursuing a more comprehensive engagement with Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities around the world. 

The Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship will highlight the importance of entrepreneurship, job creation and community development.  It will bring together approximately 250 successful entrepreneurs from more than fifty countries; identify ways to advance economic and social entrepreneurship; build networks among stakeholders in entrepreneurship; and provide an opportunity to establish partnerships that advance entrepreneurship. The Summit emphasizes the President’s broader aims of supporting entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic opportunity at home and abroad.  In addition to remarks by President Obama, the Summit will consist of several moderated plenary sessions on key issues and challenges for advancing entrepreneurship, including: technology and innovation, access to capital, unleashing women and youth entrepreneurship, mentoring and networking, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship, promoting and enabling business, and social entrepreneurship.

The eleven Jordanian delegates are:  Rami Al-Karmi, CEO CDI Arabic Region (SHABAKAT); Tamara Abdel Jaber, co-founder and an executive board member at Palma; Dr. Wissam Rabadi, Executive Director of the Arab Science and Technology Foundation; Iman Mutlaq, Owner & CEO of SIGMA Investments; Anas  Rimawi, Managing Partner – Catalyst Private Equity (Cleantech); Samih Toukan, CEO Jabber Internet Group; Mansour Mansour, the Founder and CEO of Javna Wireless Software Solutions; Munqeth Mehyer, Chairman and Jordanian Director of EcoPeace/ Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME); Reem Bsaiso, CEO of World Links Arab Region and World Links International; Salah El Tayeh, CEO of Terra Vertis; Mohammed Khawaja, Executive Director of Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship; and Omar Hamarneh,  Chief Executive Officer of El Hassan Science City.

Additionally, serving as panelists at the summit are Jordanian participants Soraya Salti, senior vice-president Middle East and North Africa Injaz Al Arab and Fadi Ghandour, founder and CEO, ARAMEX International.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing cost-sharing support to participants for travel. Supporting entrepreneurship is a vital part of USAID’s Economic Growth assistance program, which includes initiatives in microfinance, home-based businesses, support to NGOs, exchange programs, skills and workforce development, and policy work to strengthen the enabling environment of SMEs. USAID’s programs place particular emphasis on increasing opportunities for  women and youth.

"Palma Supports Al Hilal Bank with its Business Process Management Using ARIS Platform Products of IDS Scheer"

Press Release
Abu Dhabi, February 1st, 2010

Palma, the Middle East preferred partner of IDS Scheer—the leading provider of business process excellence services and tools—recently announced that Al Hilal Bank has relied on Palma’s consulting experts to design, optimize, and later manage its business process interdependencies.

With the creation of a business process platform, Al Hilal Bank, a leading Islamic bank and financial services provider, has laid the foundation for the standardization of business processes across branches and units, the consolidation of various IT systems and the delivery of Islamic banking products with transparent and effective underlying processes.

Al Hilal Bank aims to raise the positive profile of Islamic banking. It has the vision to set new standards that re-define Islamic banking. This has led the bank's continued growth during the past year. In order to achieve higher levels of standardization and consolidation of business processes and IT systems, the bank made the decision to create a tool and methodology-based Business Process Management system. The project is supported by Palma whose consultants are deploying ARIS Platform tools and the ARIS Value Engineering methodology.

"We are combining all process information into one BPM platform with the aid of ARIS products and method consulting by Palma. This enables the creation and implementation of "best practice" processes, as well as consolidating existing IT systems," explains one of Al Hilal Bank officials. "The creation of our process management framework gives Al Hilal Bank a transparent and effective design, and better management and control of business processes."

A key advantage of Al Hilal Bank’s process orientation is that the bank has a clearly defined BPM method for the introduction of new systems. This ensures synchronization between process design and system implementation, as well as process-oriented documentation, which enables continued traceability even after the end of a project.

"With the ARIS-based products and methodology, Al Hilal Bank has successfully created a cornerstone for the group-wide implementation of BPM," states Tamara Abdel-Jaber, CEO of Palma.
 

“Cairo Amman Bank to rely on Palma and IDS Scheer for Business Process Excellence”

Press Release
Amman, January 10th, 2010

Palma, the Middle East preferred partner of IDS Scheer—the leading provider of business process excellence services and tools—recently announced that Cairo Amman Bank has selected the ‘ARIS Platform’ to design, optimize, and later manage its business process interdependencies.

As one of the leading banks in the Levant region, Cairo Amman Bank will leverage Palma, IDS Scheer and the ARIS Platform, to build its business process management team and document its core business processes throughout the bank. This deal between Cairo Amman Bank and Palma represents an outstanding milestone for both organizations and is considered an important addition to the list of Palma customers—especially in the Banking industry.

The ARIS Platform is used to support today's global businesses, offering a complete suite of Web-based tools to document, analyze, implement, and optimize inter- and intra-company business processes—worldwide. Cairo Amman Bank’s interaction with the ‘ARIS Business Architect’ will identify the bank's process architecture and the organization of its internal business process management team; furthermore, this interaction with such a tool will enable business excellence and build grounds for continuous improvement efforts throughout the Bank’s internal business process management team.

"Today, more than ever, banks such as this large banking institution must use a process-oriented approach to maximize efficiency and ensure the success of new business initiatives," said Khaled Kilani, Chairman of Palma.

“Palma’s CEO Speaks at the 2009 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit”

Press Release
San Diego, USA -  October 2009

After her selection and successful participation in the Fortune/ US State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership in the USA in May 2009, Palma’s CEO Ms. Tamara Abdel-Jaber was invited to take part and speak at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit that was held in San Diego, USA on September 15th.

The Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit is an extraordinary opportunity to spend three days with the most prominent women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, education, and the arts. The premiere gathering of its kind, the Summit is by invitation only and features a unique format: no speeches, all lively panel discussions, on-stage interviews, and interactive breakout sessions. The theme for this year was: Betting on the Future. The Summit discussed ideas about the key challenges—technological, geopolitical, and social—that are reshaping our organizations and our world. The program is built around five pillars: Leadership, Innovation, Finance and the Economy, Global Connections, and The Common Good.

Ms. Abdel-Jaber’s salon was entitled “Global Connections: Extraordinary Mentees Help us Navigate the Developing World”. It addressed some of the key challenges that leaders and entrepreneurs face in developing countries, especially women leaders, and what international investors look for when approaching the markets of the developing countries. Ms. Abdel-Jaber emphasized that investors should do their homework in terms of understanding the local culture, history, customs and religion, to realize successful investment. The session was moderated Pat Mitchell, President and CEO, The Paley Center for Media.

With a record turnout and the lowest cancellation rate ever, in 11 years of convening the Summit (a positive sign for the recovery of the economy), the Summit also have a record number of “list” women; that is, leaders who made the 2009 Most Powerful Women rankings.

Speakers at the Summit included such renowned figures as Carol Bartz – CEO of Yahoo!, Ursula Burns – CEO of XEROX, Warren Buffett – Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Condoleezza Rice – Stanford University, and Sharon Allen – Chairman of the Board at Deloitte.