The 2024-2026 ISOC Lebanon Chapter board meeting elections have taken place on the 12th of March 2024 in the presence of the ISOC Lebanon chapter general assembly, with the appointment of Me. Charbel Chbeir as president and Ms. Zakie Karam as vice president, Mr. Jacques Bakaev as secretary, and Mr. Antoine Assaf as treasurer.
The newly elected president Me. Charbel Chbeir expressed the intention to build upon the legacy of the late founding members of ISOC Lebanon chapter, the late Nabil Bu Khalid and Gaby Deek, and to continue in the spirit of teamwork, and public interest for the internet infrastructure in Lebanon and involved stakeholders.
Me. Charbel Chbeir is a lawyer and a member of the Beirut Bar Association (BBA). Me. Chbeir is a partner and managing director at @ttorneys Law Firm. He is an international ICT expert, advisor, instructor, policy-maker, and speaker in cyber security, and cybercrime working with the private and public sectors and international organizations such as UNDP and the BBA. In line with his commitment and expertise in ICT, Me. Chbeir has chaired ISOC’s Lebanon chapter governance committee and LMAG-IGF, was an active member of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) committee and vice-president of ICT at the BBA. He has made a remarkable contribution to Lebanon’s ICT sector regulations by representing the BBA at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers contributing to the electronic Commercial Registry Project “One-Stop-Shop”, and being a member of the Lebanese Parliament’s special committee drafting, enacting, and revising amendments to Lebanon’s e-transaction law.
Ms. Zakie Karam is the co-founder & general manager of DON TELECOM since 2011. She is passionate about business development & growth and believes that a talented motivated team can only have the sky as limit for their achievements. She was able to increase the annual revenue by 40% in almost all the firms she worked at in the last 30 years. This has attracted many international organizations and companies, small to big, to seek her mentorship and consultancy. She is currently active on many boards in her community such as Fabric Aid and Geek Express and has been an angel investor with IM capital for the last couple of years. She is a certified corporate director by IFC and a certified business angel and Deal Leader by Go Beyond. She has computer science background, and is an MBA graduate from ESA, affiliated to ESCP-EAP in Paris. She is passionate about technology, telecom and IT industries, and therefore her vast experience with the most leading tech companies in the region such as ABS LTD. where she was the senior sales director for Middle East & Africa, Yahsat where she was the business director for YahCarrier, IDM international where she was the general manager and many more. She believes that youth and women have an important role in driving positive change in our community, and consequently volunteers as mentor with Confideo Lebanon Venture Mentoring based on MIT VMS and acts as active committee member at the Lebanese League for Women in Business organization.
