NEWS

The Family Business Histories Project has reached a new milestone, marked by its historical flagship project Spotlights Series achieving 100 profiles, each documenting the history of regional family businesses. Published in English and, newly, in Arabic, these articles capture the founders’ life stories tracing the origins of their early entrepreneurial ventures and the evolution of their companies over decades of operation. By making these stories accessible in Arabic, the project strengthens its mission of preserving regional heritage.

Building on nearly a decade of research experience, the Spotlight Series collection highlights the various ways in which regional business families were able to thrive in periods of growth, as well as during seasons of economic and political instability. Given that family businesses account for 60% of GDP and 80% of employment in the Middle East, their continued contribution to the economic, cultural, and social development of their homelands remains significant.

The continuously expanding collection of articles offers multiple entry points for researchers and entrepreneurs to explore these founders’ personal journeys and the opportunities they seized across different environments at the time. It features the profiles of family businesses founded in 1830 to as recent as 1994 and shares the stories of families such as Al Fahim from the UAE, Olayan from Saudi Arabia, and Fattal from Lebanon. The articles are available through this web portal and can be accessed via a sophisticated navigation system, making it easy for readers to find the stories they are looking for.

Published on May 11, 2026