Speakers

Dr Shima Barakat is the founder and CEO of Cambridge BAST Ltd. Until spring 2024 she was an Associate Professor and Director of the Entrepreneurship for Sustainability Programme at the University of Cambridge. She has personally supported over 200 start-ups and 650 entrepreneurial women. Her work for the last 30 years has focused on helping organisations ‘start right’ or develop their practices to embed sustainability at the heart of what they do. Shima is an experienced board member and chair, including as a Trustees of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the UK and currently sits on the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team (SAT). She is the founder of several organisations in the Middle East and Europe including Nahdet El Mahrousa and Egyptian Business Juniors (EJB). Shima has a particular interest in exploring how and why entrepreneurial people do or don’t do things, especially in terms of mindset and competences. Recently her work focuses on global challenges, and the ecosystem and education/training needs of entrepreneurs and their ventures in providing solutions to such big challenges.