Dr. Shima Barakat, MBA

Food Enterprise Manager and Director of the Entrepreneurship for Sustainability Programme

Centre for Industrial Sustainability.

Background

Her experience is in how the environment (planet) as a strategic issue is understood and integrated into organization strategy through how people understand and interact with it. Shima has spent the last 25 years helping companies (from startups to MNEs) as well as governments and international funding agencies to improve their performance on sustainability.  Shima is one of the founders and Director of Value in Enterprise, the responsible business consultancy company.  She has also been among the founders of several organisations that aim at engaging communities in their own development in Egypt and the US. One of these ventures (Nahdet El Mahrousa) became the first and arguably most successfully Social Enterprise Incubator in the Middle East. She most recently co-founded the Impact Women’s Network to raise the visibility of enterprising women globally and enabling the creation of greater impact through the power of the collective. Shima is an experienced board member and chair, and has been a Trustee of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Academically, Shima has held an appointment at the University of Cambridge since 2007. Before joining IfM, she was the Head of Entrepreneurial Learning Programmes at the Entrepreneurship Centre of the Judge Business School until 2017 then as the Entrepreneurship Education Advisor for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and the Department of Plant Science.

University contributions

Chair of the Women’s Staff Network

Gender Equality Steering Group

UC Board representative on the EIT Food NW CLC Company

Research Interests

Shima has a particular interest in exploring how and why people do or don’t do things, especially in terms of mindset and competences. Recently her work focuses on global challenges, and the networks and education/training needs of entrepreneurs in providing solutions to such big challenges. Her work explores and supports the diversity of leadership, impact and success that women bring to entrepreneurial endeavor. Shima brings with her to IfM a portfolio of EIT Food funded Entrepreneurship activities that offer opportunities for research as well as routes to impact through commercialization, venture creation and venture growth.

Leadership of EIT Food Projects and other collaborations

Venture schools

Professional development training

Food Accelerator Network UK Hub

WE Lead Food

MAKEit

RisingWISE: an EPSRC funded collaboration in partnership with University of Oxford around the development of entrepreneurial competences of women STEM postdocs.”

Select Publications

Ismail, A, Tolba, A, S. Barakat and Meshreki, H. 2018, 2017, 2016. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Egypt National Report. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Annual report. 2019 forthcoming.

Boddington, M and Barakat, S. (2018) “Exploring alternative gendered social structures within entrepreneurship education – notes from a women’s only enterprise programme” in Yousafzai, S. (ed) Women Entrepreneurship and the Myth of 'Underperformance: A New Look Women’s Entrepreneurship Research. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK.

Barakat, S. (2016) “Stimulating and Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in Egypt for Innovation and Prosperity” El Malaf al Masry Strategy and Policy Journal, 25^th September, 2016 edition.

Vyakarnam, S. and Barakat, S. (2016) “Facilitating Entrepreneurship as a Catalyst for Social Change” in Risk, N. and Azzazy, H. (eds), Entrepreneurship & Innovation: Shaping the future of Egypt. AUC Press, Cairo, Egypt.

Barakat, S., Rigozzi, M. K. & Boddington, M. 2015. “Making enterprise training and education more accessible to women in science and engineering: the case of EnterpriseWISE.” Women Entrepreneurship Conference 2015, Bangkok [Received Best Paper Award]

Barakat, S. 2015 “Entrepreneurship for a changing world.” AUC Business Review.

Barakat, S., Boddington, M & Vyakarnam, S. 2014. “Measuring entrepreneurial self-efficacy to understand the impact of creative activities for learning innovation” International Journal of Management Education.

McCammon, M.G. Pio, E. Barakat, S. and Vyakarnam, S. 2014. “A Modern Science Alliance: The case for hybrid entrepreneurship in the Cambridge Cluster” Nature Biotechnology.

Boddington, M. and Barakat, S. 2013. “Measuring Creative Learning Activities: A Methodological Guide to the many Pitfalls”. Interdisciplinary Studies Journal, vol2 (3) 195-206.

Taatila, V. (interviewer) 2012. "Interview with Shima Barakat", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 26 Iss: 6, pp.37 – 39 (Interview questions answered in writing and published)

2010. Hyclak. and Barakat, S. 2010. “Entrepreneurship education in an entrepreneurial community.” Higher Education and Industry, December 2010.