Profiles of the Diaspora: Mounir Beltaifa

The World Bank
Web Team



There are approximately 20 million citizens of the Middle East and North Africa region living abroad. For their countries of origin and the reign as a whole, they represent a potential goldmine of knowledge, skills and business networks that remain largely untapped. A new World Bank report Mobilizing the Middle East and North Africa Diaspora for Economic Integration and Entrepreneurship makes the case for regional governments to partner with their diaspora as they can be a source of much more than remittances alone. This blog series aims to introduce readers to individual members of the diaspora, to put a human face on the vast potential they represent.

It has been 34 years since Mounir Beltaifa left Tunisia for France even though he spent 5 of those years in Morocco. He was born in Kalâa Kébira in 1964 and attended primary and secondary school in Sousse where he distinguished himself as a brilliant student. In 1981 he packed his bags for Paris where he enrolled in preparatory courses for admission to the grandes écoles (France’s system of elite schools). He completed his academic curriculum brilliantly and graduated from the civil engineering school, École des Ponts/ParisTech in 1988.

Mounir Beltaifa began his career with CGI, a subsidiary of the then Information technologies and communications giant, IBM. His mission for IBM France was to organize the transformation of its commercial staff at a time when IBM was in the process of making a worldwide strategic, organizational and corporate culture transition from a product business to a service business.

In search of new adventures, he continued to climb the corporate ladder at Ernst & Young from 1988 to 2000. He was in charge of the development of Customer Relationship Management consulting and held the position of Senior Manager for e-business. Mounir Beltaifa then accepted an offer to lead e-business development at SAP France, who became a global leader in e-procurement by the end of 2001.

Mounir Beltaifa was eventually entrusted with the implantation and leadership of SAP in North Africa which he managed between 2002 and 2006 before taking charge of their financial sector in Paris and becoming the commercial director for the MENA (Middle-East North Africa) region from 2007.

In 2008, capitalizing on his extensive experience in business transformation and development, Mounir Beltaifa founded Bridgers One to focus on accelerated growth strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises while continuing with transformation programs for larger businesses. Bridgers One’s mission is economic and social to the extent that it is concerned with sustainable development.

Among other clientele, Bridgers One caters to a Middle East solution and service provider wishing to set up in North Africa, such as a a Middle East Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) solution editor wishing to expand distribution into Europe, a worldwide consulting firm wishing to introduce the idea of sustainable development in North Africa, a Western publisher wishing to expand its territory in the Middle East, the Moroccan Interior Ministry, the largest Libyan refinery, and a Moroccan IT consulting firm wishing to double its size every 5 years by developing better value added services and providing services in Africa.

Mounir Beltaifa has also devoted much of his time to voluntary activities on behalf of the Tunisian expatriate community in France. At the beginning of 2011 he created the think tank Emergens/Rabii Tounes, which means "Tunisian Spring", which hosted a number of high level debates between personalities of the Tunisian diaspora in France and members of the French government on a number of economic and social issues. The association organized the first multiparty political debate in September 2011.

Convinced that the economic development of Tunisia is the fuel of its political and social progress, Mounir Beltaifa decided, in 2013, to focus his community activities on economic topics and created the French branch of CONECT, which he now chairs. CONECT brings together French and Tunisian businessmen and entrepreneurs who share Franco-Tunisian economic interests. CONECT France has organized numerous debates with Tunisian leaders and opinion leaders as well as seminars on topics including banks and the investment environment in Tunisia, public-private partnerships and opportunities for mutual development.