Tamara Hasan Abed is the Managing Director of BRAC Enterprises heading BRAC’s ten social enterprises including Aarong, BRAC Dairy, and BRAC Seed and Agro.
Ms. Abed brings with her extensive experience in investment banking, entrepreneurship and social enterprise, with a career spanning two and a half decades. She is passionate about driving value-based business models, operating at the intersection of social good, sustainable business and inclusive growth.
Ms. Abed began her career in investment banking in 1995, at Peregrine Capital Ltd, a Hong Kong based investment bank in Dhaka. Later she moved to New York and worked for Goldman Sachs in Mergers and Strategic Advisory.
She joined Aarong as the general manager for design and product development in 2002. She later took charge of its export division and established the marketing department. In 2005, she was promoted as the head of Aarong and Ayesha Abed Foundation. Under her leadership, Aarong has gone from strength to strength, celebrating 40 years in 2018 as Bangladesh’s most popular lifestyle retail chain. She has been instrumental in driving the expansion of Aarong to 25 national outlets, multiple brands, e-commerce and digital platforms.
In 2006, Ms. Abed was also given charge of BRAC Dairy, and since then has built a strong team to take the dairy business to new heights. BRAC Dairy is currently the second-highest dairy processor in Bangladesh with a diverse portfolio of products. In 2014, she took charge of all BRAC’s social enterprises. Ms. Abed served on the board of directors of BRAC Bank for eight years from 2008 to 2016. She currently serves on the boards of IPDC Finance, BRAC EPL Investments, BRAC EPL Stock Brokerage, Mayalogy Ltd. and edotco Bangladesh.
Ms. Abed was elected as Chairperson of the BRAC University Board of Trustees in 2019, of which she was a member from January 2011. She chaired the board finance committee from December 2016 to June 2019, and was a member of the BU Syndicate from March 2011 to June 2019. She currently chairs the Board of BRAC Services Limited and is the executive trustee of Ayesha Abed Foundation. She also chairs the board of BRAC Tea Estate since August 2019.
Ms. Abed has represented Bangladesh globally and was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a ‘Young Global Leader’ in 2010. Ms. Abed is an Asia 21 Young Leader. She received the Outstanding Women Leadership Award from the World Women Leadership Congress in 2014. Ms. Abed also received The Exceptional Women of Excellence Award from the Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI) in November, 2021.
Ms. Abed has an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York. She completed her BSC in Economics from the London School of Economics. In 2014, Ms. Abed completed an executive course on Transformational Leadership at Oxford University’s Said Business School.
