Badr Jafar is a businessman and social entrepreneur from the United Arab Emirates. He is the CEO of Crescent Enterprises, which operates across nine diverse industry sectors in 15 countries. He is also the Board Chairman of Gulftainer, the largest privately-owned container port operator in the world.
Other than his business interests, Badr is actively involved in a diverse range of organisations and initiatives focused on humanitarian aid and international development, strategic philanthropy, corporate governance, entrepreneurship, education and the arts.
He serves in an advisory role on several humanitarian and development sectors – as a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, a member of the UNESCO International Commission on the Futures of Education, a member of the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and a member of the Board of the International Peace Institute (IPI). He also serves on the Advisory Committee and as a Special Representative for Business & Philanthropy & Private Sector for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In line with his interest in encouraging social entrepreneurship in the MENA Region, Badr co-founded the Arab World Social Entrepreneurship Program (ASEP) in collaboration with Ashoka and is a member of the Synergos Arab World Social Innovators (AWSI) Board of Governors. He is on the Board of Advisors of Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre (Sheraa) and Gaza Sky Geeks, and is a Board member of Endeavor UAE, a network supporting high-impact entrepreneurship.
Badr serves on the Advisory Boards of several educational institutions, such as the Cambridge Judge Business School and MIT Legatum Centre for Development and Entrepreneurship, the International Advisory Council of the American University of Beirut, and the Business Advisory Council of the American University of Sharjah. He is the Founding Patron of the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the Cambridge Judge Business School, which focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of strategic philanthropy in and from the world’s fastest growing economies; and he is the Founding Patron of the first Strategic Philanthropy Initiative in the MENA region at NYU Abu Dhabi, which researches and promotes high-impact philanthropy in the region. He is also an advisor to the Milken Institute for Strategic Philanthropy in the United States.
Badr is passionate about the importance of the arts in fostering innovation economies. He established the non-profit Middle East Theatre Academy in 2011 to support young people in the Region to pursue their talents in writing, directing, producing and acting. He also joined forces with renowned music producer Quincy Jones to create the Global Gumbo Group in the same year to promote cross-cultural understanding through entertainment. He is a member of the Middle East Institute’s International Advisory Council, the Guggenheim Middle Eastern Circle, the Artistic Director’s Circle of The Old Vic Theatre Trust and the Kennedy Center’s Centennial Circle. In 2014, Badr received the Gold Medal in the Arts by the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts for his efforts to connect cultures through music and theatre.
Badr has been a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization since 2005 and was the Chair of the YPO Emirates Chapter. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011 and is now a member of the WEF Stewardship Board on New Economy and Society, the WEF Stewardship Board on Digital Economy and New Value Creation, the WEF Board of Leaders for a Sustainable Middle East and North Africa and the WEF Board Jobs Consortium 2022-2024. He is also Co-Chair of the WEF Family Business Community. Badr is a Champion of the WEF EDISON Alliance, WEF Reskilling Revolution and GAEA – Giving to Amplify Earth Action, a global initiative to fund and grow new and existing public, private and philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) to mobilize the financing needed to reach net zero, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity by 2050. He is member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Advisory Council.
Badr holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering and a Business Degree from the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Judge Business School respectively.
You can connect with Badr Jafar on twitter @BadrJafar and online at badrjafar.com.