Israel and Palestine are the home to historical sites revered by believers of faith traditions across the world. The region is also home to a growing tech industry, diverse industries represented by multinational corporations, and a community of entrepreneurs, NGO leaders, and educators working every day to foster peaceful prosperity. With our colleagues at the Notre Dame Jerusalem Global Gateway, our NDDCEL faculty director, colleagues, and graduate students visited the region with a special focus on ethical business. Now in its second year, NDDCEL partners with Notre Dame Jerusalem and the Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development to present Reimagining Business Excellence in the MENA Region as we collaborate to shine a light on the good work being done.
For a lens from business leadership, we also connected with Irena Ben Yakar, Chief Purpose Officer, Partner, and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Leader of Deloitte Israel. Irena shared her insights on business’s role in communities.
We asked Irena to tell us what she would most like our NDDCEL community to know about business in the region.
Israel is a highly developed economy, which is constantly developing. Led by hi-tech innovation, other sectors of the market become more and more sophisticated in terms of management practices, including among others – developed corporate governance practices, innovation embedded into corporate culture, and bold and creative approaches as a driver for growth. As a professional services organization [her company, Deloitte, has to] be on top of all of this in order to be able to provide professional advice to the most advanced businesses. This reality is raising the bar for us in the need for top talent and best in class knowledge and capabilities.
Irena shared her views on the critical importance of ethical leadership:
Ethical leadership is making day-to-day decisions with integrity and values in mind, even when it is hard. I believe that putting people's interests ahead of the business’s interests is sometimes the right thing to do and a focus on people creates business benefits in the long run. To do the right thing even when no one is watching is an ethical leadership for me.
Irena goes on to note, “businesses are to provide answers to all grand challenges we are seeing in the world by integrating sustainable practices, promoting social responsibility, and advocating for policy changes, including in the areas of climate and human rights. In recent years regulation has importantly become more specific and more substantial on certain ESG issues such as climate and human rights. To show the return on investment in ESG-related issues, leaders must align organizational goals and positive impacts on stakeholders. Only when efforts and resources are invested into activities bearing tangible business results are these investments meaningful and sustainable.”
We are always interested in ethical leaders’ reflections on their own journey. So what is a “Chief Purpose Officer”? Irena describes her role as making sure her company lives its purpose in its day-to-day operations, and converts its commitments from the purpose statement into actionable plans and actions.” Irena notes that the most inspiring successes she has seen in her work are related to people. She notes, “I have a privilege to lead young people in their early career steps. Most of them come to our company because of its impact, believing they can make their own. I understand and cherish this opportunity to impact their lives and to help them grow. I am inspired as they grow into better professionals and hopefully better people. The ability to make a positive impact on society and on the planet while helping businesses create value is key.”
“Of all of the services I have led in my 24-year career with Deloitte, ESG is the one that makes me most proud”
Dr. Daniel Schwake, Executive Director of the Notre Dame Jerusalem Global Gateway, led the inaugural Reimagining Business Excellence in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) Region program in June 2023 and welcomed a second cohort in 2024. Daniel joined Notre Dame after a decade in the consulting industry with firms including Oliver Wyman and Deloitte.
We spoke with Daniel to hear his his thoughts on this important region:
Participants in the 2024 Reimagining Business Excellence program were leaders from industries around the region. Here, a business leader offer reflections on business in MENA:
Notre Dame MBA and Master of Global Affairs (MGA) student Lydia Knoll, MBA/MGA ‘25, was one of two graduate students invited to participate in the inaugural Reimagining Business Excellence Program in 2023 alongside business leaders and faculty. Her field of study focusing on both business administration and global affairs positioned her well to join this cohort of learners. Lydia offers her reflections on the 2023 program at Notre Dame’s Jerusalem campus below.
This summer I was graciously given the opportunity to participate in the inaugural Reimagining Business Excellence program. The University of Notre Dame Global Gateway of Jerusalem was kind enough to host our cohort during the eight day immersion into business of the MENA (Middle Eastern Northern Africa) region.
This diverse cohort consisted of entrepreneurs, nonprofit and for-profit leaders, academic researchers, and students hailing from Israel, Palestine, Italy, Germany, and America.
Over the course of the week, Notre Dame faculty taught on the intersection of human rights and business, touching on topics like ethics, climate change, design thinking, and so much more. As a dual degree student pursuing an MBA with a Master in Global Affairs, I’m learning in the classroom about managerial decision making, ethical dilemmas in business, and economic development. To see and continue learning of these concepts in real-world applications across the MENA region brought theory to life in a new way.
This trip was my first time traveling to the MENA region. Prior to arrival, I had limited knowledge of business across the region and a shallow understanding of the political environment. . I was enlightened over the week to see many universal perspectives and goals. I met many people who were passionate about using business for good and were actively doing so within their own roles. I listened to challenging conversations of the locals in regards to ethnicity and equity. And I admired the work ethic of everyone in the cohort who took time out of their busy work and life schedules to be present for the week. Whether sitting alongside an Italian nun in the classroom or sharing a glass of wine with an Israeli-Palestinian in his lovely home, I reconciled preconceived notions and lived experience to realize we are all much more similar than we are different. While the context of the program ensured its uniqueness and importance to the region and cannot be understated, these experiences were a heartening reminder of our shared human experience.
Over the course of the program, it was invaluable to learn of the various experiences across the cohort of successful (and unsuccessful) ethical leadership. Hearing personal stories of how decision makers impacted participants really brought the material into perspective. We discussed misconceptions of leaders who choose profits over protection of people and the planet and what actions, as ethical leaders, we can each take to educate and influence others, such as voicing our values taught by Jessica McManus Warnell (inspired by Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values curriculum). We also learned of the limitations our own dominant economic model presents in capturing the true value of business – both positive and negative. In reviewing alternate approaches, Georges Enderle presented wealth creation through four different types of capital: economic, human, natural, and social. The week culminated in a practical application exercise where we split into groups to collaboratively address a business venture that intended to support a marginalized community but had been experiencing significant challenges.
The gained knowledge and experience of the week equipped me with tools and skills to be a stronger ethical leader in my own career. With entrepreneurial pursuits, I am actively seeking innovative ways to ethically build and scale a business that will look different from most corporations today by centering human rights and planetary health at its core. Reimagining Business Excellence helped me do just that… reimagine ways in which business operates in the future. We exchanged ideas about a world where businesses were created to do more than make money but to solve critical human problems. A world where wealth was measured by the health of the land and community in which a company operates. A world in which poverty, disease, access to education, inequity, and more are actively being addressed by thriving businesses.
I am grateful to attend a university that believes in “growing the good in business” and education in service “toward a flourishing community.” I am grateful for the commitment the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership has made to inspiring and equipping ethical leaders. Initiatives such as the NDDCEL and the Reimagining Business Excellence program are clear examples of Notre Dame’s commitment to inspire and equip a different type of leader – one that is driven by their values and by empathy.
What type of world would it be if more leaders were taught this way?
The Reimaging Business Excellence in the MENA Region program will be offered again in summer 2025. Contact the Jerusalem Global Gateway (jerusalem@nd.edu) for more information.
Further Reading on the MENA Region and Business::
"Why Business Leaders Should Be Looking to the Middle East and North Africa for Opportunities" (Forbes, 2023)
"Giving Voice to Values Ways of Thinking About Our Values in the Workplace (Arabic translation)" (University of Virginia, 2022)
For More on Notre Dame in Jerusalem: