Badr Jafar is CEO of Crescent Enterprises, a diversified global business headquartered in the UAE and operating across six industry sectors. He is also President of Crescent Petroleum, the Middle East’s largest privately-owned petroleum company. Badr is active in a variety of other industries including ports and logistics, serving as Chair of the Executive Board of Gulftainer, the world’s largest private container terminal operator. In 2010, Badr founded the Pearl Initiative, a non-profit organisation in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Partnerships to promote a corporate culture of transparency and accountability across the Gulf Region of the Middle East. Badr is active with higher education institutions, serving as a member of the Advisory Boards of Cambridge University Judge Business School, American University of Beirut and American University of Sharjah. In 2019, he was appointed to UNESCO’s Future of Education International Commission, which aims to re-examine and reimagine how knowledge and learning can contribute to the global common good.