Saudi Sustainability Stars: A Meeting with Dr. Fatih Mehmet Gul
Prominent among the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) community in the Middle East are the people who have been involved in various projects in the region over the last couple of years and most of these people, including myself were here to ride the wave when it rose. Very rarely do we see someone who was spearheading the CSR message long before it became a part of the business lexicon. Dr. Fatih Mehmet GULof CSR Middle East is one of those people. Dr. GUL is the Country Manager for Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives and Bab Rizq Jameel in Turkey and Founding Director of CSR Middle East. Last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with this dynamic yet oddly modest person. A medical doctor by profession, Dr. Gul is clearly one of the pioneers of the concept in the region and is respected name for not just his web portal but his continued efforts to make a palpable change in the mindset of local businesses about ethic and responsibility. Below is a summary of our talk:
Why and when did you start CSR Middle East?
Back in 2004 when I started working with ALJ Group and got involved in community service programs, I started to research for best practices in the region but found nothing. There was no website or a portal that gave information or highlighted CSR and Sustainability practices from the region. This was an eye opener and I decided to take the initiative and launch something which will serve the purpose. What started as a simple website that tracked news pieces about CSR in the region has now developed into a full-fledged forum with 850 active members and almost 6000 unique visitors a month.
How does CSR landscape differ from when you started?
When we started back in 2005, it was very rare to find solid CSR initiatives from within the region. In a good week, we would find 1-2 pieces and those were mostly community based initiatives. Over the past few years, the interest has literally exploded in regional media & business community with a lot of foreign companies working in the field, companies hiring CSR specialists and setting up CSR departments. The focus is also getting more strategic and more diversified. We still see a lot of community initiatives but companies have started experimenting with other avenues and the focus on the other aspects of CSR has heightened.
