{"id":372368,"date":"2024-08-16T14:25:31","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T17:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=372368"},"modified":"2024-08-16T14:26:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T17:26:29","slug":"arab-brazilian-chamber-names-new-secretary-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-brazilian-chamber-names-new-secretary-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab-Brazilian Chamber names new secretary-general"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> (ABCC<\/a>) appointed a new secretary-general in early August: entrepreneur and business manager Mohamad Orra Mourad. A Brazilian that descends from Palestinians and Lebanese and the vice president for international relations of the ABCC, Mourad was invited by the current leadership of the institution to become its secretary-general.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Arab-Brazilian
Arab-Brazilian Chamber board had meeting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Already in office, on Friday (16) the new secretary-general was presented to the ABCC\u2019s Board of Directors by it\u2019s president, Osmar Chohfi, at a meeting in the head office in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holding a degree in Business Administration with concentration in Finance from the Santa Clara University in the United States, Mourad takes on the role after coming from the real estate sector, with operations in industrial and logistic warehouses. Before that, he\u2019d had business in the textile industry, which was how his family first settled in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new secretary-general is the son of a Lebanese immigrant father \u2013 Moustafa Mourad, who came from Lebanon to Brazil in 1949 \u2013 but his mother\u2019s family has older immigration stories, from Lebanon, Palestine and Italy. \u201cMy father came to Brazil like every immigrant, in search of an opportunity, of making it in life,\u201d says Mourad, adding that his mother\u2019s ancestors, despite from another time, came looking for the same thing: a better life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unaware of the ties he\u2019d later establish there, Mourad\u2019s father knocked on the door of his would-be father-in-law in S\u00e3o Paulo upon arriving in Brazil through the Port of Santos. Moustafa and his father-in-law were distantly connected. \u201cMy grandfather said, \u2018you\u2019ll be staying with me,\u2019\u201d says Mourad. So Moustafa started peddling and building the family business \u2013 from door-to-door sales to wholesale and then weaving in the bed, table and bath industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Lebanon and Brazil<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mohamad Orra Mourad is the second of three children and grew up between Brazil and Lebanon. His family even decided to actually return to their country of origin but saw the plan collapse due to the war in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. Mourad lived in Lebanese lands for short periods in his childhood, first when he was a baby and then for approximately five years. \u201cThere were some attempts at moving back to Lebanon, and they all failed because of the war, but we still never stopped going,\u201d hey says, stressing that this was maintained in the family he himself raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining the ABCC was a legacy from his father. Moustafa was a board member and called a meeting to which Mourad went without knowing what it\u2019d mean. He was supposed to become a board member himself, which happened in 2013. Mourad was later invited to become its administrative vice president in 2019 and then international relations vice president in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere you\u2019re invited to dedicate yourself and everyone does what they can,\u201d says Mourad. What drives him to work for the ABCC is the mission to bring Arabs and Brazilians closer together in the social, cultural and commercial spheres. \u201cWe\u2019re a nation of immigrants, and I identify as a Palestinian Lebanese, but I\u2019m also Brazilian, born and raised in Brazil, so I believe this rapprochement is important for both the Arab countries and Brazil,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New mission<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A believer in the equal value of all regardless of position and social circumstances, very open to dialogue and seeing the ABCC as a construction of every and each one of its stakeholders, Mourad says he\u2019s tackling the new challenge with ease, showing confidence in the staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He notes the ABCC has played a very relevant institutional role connecting different sides of the Arab-Brazil relations these past years. His goal is to preserve and increase that. \u201cThis institutional support is very important, so we have to keep improving it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Osmar
Osmar Chohfi presented the new secretary-general<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

ABCC incumbent president Osmar Chohfi sees in Mourad a leadership that\u2019ll continue the process of technological modernization the institution has gone through, like the entrance into operation of the Ellos Platform, which is digitizing Arab-Brazil customs clearance procedures. \u201cThis is a transition towards a new way of doing business, without neglecting more traditional ways that remain strong and very efficient,\u201d explains Chohfi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Chohfi says the institution will rely on Mourad\u2019s experience at this time. \u201cMohamad Mourad comes from a business background, is a cultured man, a man who\u2019s very knowledgeable of the world\u2019s leading current trends, both in politics and trade, and I\u2019m certain he\u2019ll bring a great contribution to the ABCC activities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Sallum
Sallum spoke of the progress of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

During the first ABCC board meeting featuring Mourad as secretary-general, the institution\u2019s several departments were presented with their current work fronts and strategies. The meeting was led by Chohfi and board chair Marcello Sallum, a businessman and former ABCC president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chohfi and Sallum expounded on the history of the ABCC, its recent progresses, and prospects for modernization projects underway. Mourad stressed in the meeting the ABCC\u2019s mission to connect Arabs and Brazilians wherever they are, and the importance of the work developed by the Brazilian and Arab startups via its innovation laboratory CCAB Lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:<\/em>
Arab Chamber an exhibitor at Startup Summit 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marcelo Brammer\/Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/div>
Marcelo Brammer\/Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/div>
Marcelo Brammer\/Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/div>
Marcelo Brammer\/Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Businessman Mohamad Orra Mourad took over as secretary-general of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce earlier this month. A descendant from Palestinians and Lebanese, he comes from the real estate sector to run the institution\u2019s projects at an executive level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1455,"featured_media":372353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46537],"tags":[50587,48478,39679,22166],"class_list":{"0":"post-372368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arab-brazilian-chamber","8":"tag-abcc-secretary-general","9":"tag-arab-brazilian-chamber-of-commerce-2","10":"tag-mohamad-mourad-en","11":"tag-mohamad-orra-mourad-en"},"wps_subtitle":"Businessman Mohamad Orra Mourad took over as secretary-general of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce earlier this month. A descendant from Palestinians and Lebanese, he comes from the real estate sector to run the institution\u2019s projects at an executive level.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}