November Special Edition 2021

17 Setup inJune2020,theUAE-Israel BusinessCouncil (UIBC) isanassociation of now 4,000 businesses, entrepreneurs, professionals and public sector leaders from the UAE and Israel. The UIBC aims to foster trade, innovation and cooperation between the two countries, signatories to the Abraham Accords signed last September. We caught up with Fleur Hassan-Nahoum , Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, on developments over the past year. From studying law at Kings College, London to the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem for Foreign Relations Economic Development and Tourism at Municipality of Jerusalem. That’s quite the journey! It is! I qualified and practiced as a barrister in London but had always wanted to live in Israel, so I moved here with my husband from London as soon as we could, in 2001. In the early years, I worked as a legal advisor for a non- profit and as a CEO of Tikva Children’s Home, an orphan-and-poverty relief organization. In the UK, I had also worked for World Jewish Relief but one of the things I truly loved was working on content and messaging. It was particularly the skillset developed through my training as a barrister and it was always appealing to me - presenting arguments, articulately expressing messages, and clear communication, all of these things are paramount, especially in politics. Here in Israel, a lot can be lost in either the language or cultural nuances, so I really enjoyed working on this external messaging. I created an international strategic communications firm business and worked in this field for a number of years, working with the private sector, start-ups, VCs and accelerators, academics, helping them to present complex and technical information at the appropriate level. How did you go from your own business into Jerusalem politics? About eight years ago, a small political party in Jerusalem - Yerushalmi - came to me to help them with effective messaging and I realized how exciting and impactful local politics actually is, where day-to-day life is often defined. I grew up in Gibraltar and my father, who founded the law firm Hassans, was also involved in politics. [Sir Joshua Abraham Hassam served as Chief Minister and Mayor of Gibraltar]. It was something deeply familiar to me and I was interested. There was something pulling me, and I wanted to step up to the plate. Fleur Hassan- Nahoum, Co-founder of UAE-Israel Business Council