The Australian Arab Business Council monthly dinner was healed at the Waterview in Bicentennial Park on Wednesday, July 15th 2020.

Our Presenter and Facilitator for the evening was Reem Borrows, Assistant Secretary of the Australian Arab Business Council. Our guest speakers for the evening were –

• Joseph Rizk OAM CEO & Managing Director, Arab Bank Australia
• Farid Zaki Managing Director, ATP Accounting & Taxation Professionals
• Sam Taleb General Manager, Tempe Tyres
• Osman Omar Managing Director, Industrial Zone Real Estate

With the COVID-19 outbreak has come increased global business and economic disruption and uncertainty. Analysts indicate that the COVID-19 outbreak will push down the full-year gross domestic product (GDP) globally from the 2.5% that was forecast in January 2020 to 0%. In this crisis management situation, companies are grappling with managing the impact of the outbreak on their ability to meet strategic goals and customer demands.

This pandemic has meant increased workplace regulations and travel restrictions, reduced customer spending, delayed investments, disrupted supply chains, and uncertainty in financial markets. Has there been anything good to come out of it?

We had the pleasure of talking to four of our astute business leaders and AABC members about their initial experience during this period, their ability to pivot their businesses, and some of the great learnings they have had. We also explored what does “normal” look like moving forward to help us all focus on what it is that we want the most for ourselves, families, businesses, clients, colleagues, and teams.

The wealth of experience and the diversity of industry background amongst our speakers provided a broad and objective panel discussion, covering a range of challenges and approaches to dealing with COVIC 19 evolving landscape.

Mr Rizk provided a global/historical and economical overview and how to interpret the current crisis utilising our past experiences, also how to manage risk and seize investment opportunities.

Mr Zaki highlighted the importance of managing and controlling cashflow and adapting business to cope with the new environment while not losing sight of personal health and well-being.

Mr Taleb provided frank insight about the challenges of managing a wholesale and a retail environment, balancing the health and wellbeing of employees while maintaining productivity.

Mr Omar demonstrated the benefits of well-prepared business to meet new challenges, linking the benefits of early planning to the ability to seize great business opportunities.

Towards the end of the night, the AABC was joined by George and Laith from House Rules High Stakes to welcome our first-time guests and new members. Our new bronze members are:

• Maha Payne – Babysafe Narellan
• Joseph Atallah – Zou Zou Cafe
• Ali Hashem – HR Pay Solutions

To everyone’s delight, the evening ended on a great high with one of the most famous Middle Eastern sweets, knefeh, prepared in the Palestinian style, which was sponsored by Jay Sayed from Datcom Cloud.

The knefeh was accompanied with specially brewed Arabic coffee by ZouZou Café. Joseph Attallah from ZouZou Café showcasing his amazing automatic Arabic coffee machine.

If you would like to sponsor the next knefeh then please email info@australianarabbusiness.org.au.

Due to the uncertainty around COVID 19 and the evolving health concerns as well as the regulatory environment, our next dinner will be announced in due course. The AABC Board is currently reviewing our ever-changing environment to best determine the format and date of our next event.