Alain Daou

Business & Public administration

Alain Daou is an Assistant Professor in entrepreneurship at the Olayan School of Business (OSB), Director of the Nature Conservation Center at the American University of Beirut and Chair of the SME impact initiative at Khaddit Beirut. Before joining academia, Alain worked for 10 years with several not-for-profit organizations as project manager, country manager, in house advisor and consultant in Canada, Central America, Middle East and Africa. Upon completing his PhD at Laval University in Canada (2014), he moved to KU Leuven in Belgium to complete a post-doctoral research project on social entrepreneurship. Through his research, Alain tries to understand how certain types of enterprises such as social enterprises, not-for-profit and small and medium businesses innovate, scale up and have a positive social, environmental and economic impact on stakeholders and society as a whole. In 2020, he was chosen as part of the #thinklist of racialized thinkers in responsible business, by the University of Bath’s Centre for Business, Organisation and Society (CBOS). In 2021 the SME impact initiative at Khaddit Beirut was recognized as an AACSB International Innovation That Inspires.

Projects