msbensouda@hotmail.com

Mohammed Bensouda is a business and development executive with 30 years of experience leading private sector Moroccan and international businesses, managing donor-funded economic growth programs, and delivering work readiness trainings.

His private sector, international development and academic sector experience was established in Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrein, Oman, Egypt, Algeria, and United States, including approximately ten years as Chief of Party working with USAID. He developed expertise in youth employability through managing a project on improving employment services for youth and women in the MENA region (including Morocco) financed by GIZ.

His deep understanding of the Moroccan business community and donor organizations is complemented by experience developing and delivering work readiness trainings. As a professor at a number of universities, he taught courses on soft skills, employability readiness, personnel development, leadership, public speaking, communications, strategic marketing, human resources, project management, business negotiations, economics and business administration. During his accomplished private sector career, Mr. Bensouda became aware of the Moroccan market’s constraints, and spent the majority of his career designing and implementing commercial strategies in international trade promotion programs, and building the capacity of firms, individuals, and institutions. In addition, Mr. Bensouda has extensive experience designing and managing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems for USAID. Furthermore, he offers specific expertise in small business growth and corporate relationship building.

As the Chief of Party for the Morocco Fast-Track Trade (MFTT) Program, he provided firm-level technical assistance and various services to more than 500 companies, which accounted for over 73 million dollars in new orders. He also acted as Chief of Party for the Access to International Markets through Information Technology (AIM-IT) Program in Lebanon, where he worked to identify, solidify and nurture creative and beneficial linkages to establish a sustainable community of commonly interested stakeholders as partners and collaborators.

He led a successful value chain agriculture program in Lebanon improving the competiveness of the greenhouse sector through the promotion of best agricultural practices, improved decision making, increased access to markets, market information and international business linkages through trade shows in Germany and Dubai, including access to credit for producers and agriculture enterprises.

Over the course of his career, he has led numerous management initiatives, through which he has proven his ability to manage complex contracts, comply with import requirements related to grades and standards, and seize opportunities to increase trade and exports. Besides the business sector, Mr. Bensouda has an extensive project experience in building managerial capacities of civil society organisations throughout the MENA region providing training in Bahrein, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon. He managed projects aiming at enabling civil society and NGOs in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region to achieve sustainability.

Mr. Bensouda has largely contributed to the government of Morocco ten year strategy for promoting and developing exports. He worked across all the business sectors and all the potential trading markets for the Moroccan export offer.

Mr. Bensouda is also certified Business Edge Trainer and Business Edge Assessor, a training tool developed by IFC, a World Bank group. Additionally, Mr. Bensouda is an ITC (International Trade Center) Certified Trade Advisor with strong ability to provide value-added export advisory services to SMEs.