Women of Egypt – Reham Farouk
Reham Farouk, Chief Executive Officer of Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation. And recently she was appointed on the Board of Trustees of Sanabel the Microfinance Network of Arab Countries as Vice President.
Reham Farouk is a Professional International Development Practitioner and Microfinance Expert with 20 years of international experience as a Financial and Management international advisor in the domain of Small and Microfinance; building the institutional capacity of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Egypt and the Middle East.
She graduated with high honors in 1997 from the American University in Cairo, AUC, majoring in Business Administration with emphasizes on Marketing, Management Information Systems (MIS), Economics and Accounting. She started her career as a Local Counterpart Consultant for Technopolis – UK. She then held the position of Financial Manager for the Private Sector Development Program, PSDP, an EU-funded project in Egypt.
In the year 2000, she obtained her Master’s Degree of Business in Administration (MBA) from AUC. During the same year, she joined Save the Children – USA-Egypt Field Office as Project Officer.
Since 2003, she became a certified trainer and resource person by Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) – England in providing numerous training courses including Product Development, Delinquency Management and Interest Rate Setting, Making Microfinance Work, and Operational Risk Management at Sanabel, the Microfinance Network of the Arab Countries.
Since 2000 until present, she has been working as Chief Executive Officer of Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation. And recently she was appointed on the Board of Trustees of Sanabel the Microfinance Network of Arab Countries as Vice President.
Farouk truly believes that she has been privileged to work at Al Tadamun and to see the continuous growth of the foundation throughout the years. With a lot of determination and persistence, she set a long term vision for the transformation of a pilot project that was once funded by Save the Children USA into an Egyptian independent self-sustaining entity that is integrated into Egypt’s financial sector. This was carried out in two phases; first into an independent program under the legal umbrella of Women’s Health Improvement Association, WHIA in July 2003, and then into Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation, registered under the Egyptian laws as a non-governmental organization in March 2009.
Al Tadamun, throughout the years has financed more than one million female owned projects. Currently, Al Tadamun has 185 thousand active clients and a working capital of more than 600 million Egyptian pounds. Al Tadamun’s mission is to increase the income of women micro-entrepreneurs in the various governorates in Egypt to improve their quality of life through providing access to sustainable and diversified financial services that suit their needs.
Farouk won the award for the 50 most influential women in business enterprises for the year 2019. In 2016, she also received an award from the Egyptian Federation for Microfinance for her efforts in supporting the Federation. Also in 2013, she won an appreciation award for her contribution to establishing Sanabel, a microfinance network for Arab countries. She participated in many conferences related to microfinance, such as Sanabel Conference, the Microfinance Network for Arab Countries, which is held annually in many countries, including: (Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, Emirates, Sudan and Egypt).
Farouk attended training at the Boulder Institute for Microfinance, which provides specialized training programs in the field of microfinance to people from all over the world. The program provides an opportunity for participants to exchange ideas and strategies in the industry using new tools and a new perspective through courses, workshops and practical case studies.
She also participated in the Microfinance Summit, which includes representatives of microfinance institutions, educational institutions, donor companies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and other entities concerned with microcredit to discuss best practices in this field, exchange experiences together and work towards our goal.
