Team

Tamer N. Makary, Founder

Tamer Makary has held Senior Management and Board of Director positions with some of the world’s largest family groups, multinational companies, global investment banks, private equity platforms and NGOs.  Most recently, Tamer founded Ethica Partners, a specialized advisory, multi-family office platform and business incubator focused on investment services, strategy development, transaction support and capital raising.  Ethica also advises a number of leading US Academic University’s and Foundations (including most recently, the XPRIZE Foundation) on increasing their reach, and supporting partnership strategies. Tamer was also recently hired by Florida International University to solve preeminent social issues in a sustainable and scalable fashion.   

Tamer is a sector agnostic, accomplished strategy advisor and social advocate, with extensive emerging market experience.  He is known most for his magnetic personality, infectious energy and an ability to devise unique and creative solutions, in the face of challenge. 

In 2018, Tamer was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader as an acknowledgement of his passionate focus on the growing intersection between the worlds of commerce and philanthropy.  He is committed to evolving donor dependent programs and advancing standalone, socially sustainable business models. He has long served to deliver sustainable strategies that ensure all people, regardless of their economic means, have access to quality care and equal opportunity.

Tamer currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Samuel S. Fels Foundation, a private independent foundation with a commitment to improving conditions and opportunities for marginalized communities within the City of Philadelphia.  The Fels Fund provides grants to support services, advocacy and activities that move us towards a more socially, racially and economically just society with opportunity for all. 

He also continues to serve as Vice President of Fundraising, at the Africa Eye Foundation, a Geneva based NGO.  The Africa Eye Foundation was created to promote better eyesight and source, train and build local capacity, through the establishment of a network of nonprofit subspecialty eye hospitals (the first of which, in Cameroon), across Sub-Saharan Africa.  Tamer’s fundraising efforts have raised more than US$5 million, from leading eye care NGOs, helping to create a truly collaborative venture and mitigate execution risk of the African startup.  He also championed the first ever Development Impact Bond, in the space of eye care, launched in February 2018. 

Tamer serves as Board Advisor to Impact4All.org, a platform designed to host a multi-level, universally accessible tender, transaction and e-commerce facility (I4A.exchange), built for all participants within the ecosystem of renewable energy and resource management investments.  He is also a member of the Ashoka Support Network and the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Young Leaders Organization.

Tamer previously served as Executive Director of the Magrabi Foundation, the Middle East’s first NGO established for the prevention of needless blindness, committed to providing a sustainable model for comprehensive high-quality eye care and advocating for the inclusion of those living with visual impairment in Egypt.  Through its proprietary cross subsidized operating model, Magrabi Foundation continues to conduct ~7,500 surgeries per year, targeting the marginalized population. 

In a commercial capacity, Tamer recently served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Magrabi Retail, whose principal business, Magrabi Optical, represents one of the world’s largest premium ophthalmic eyewear and sunglass retail chains, totaling more than 220 stores in 9 countries. Tamer was responsible for driving a new brand strategy and store concept, including a ‘state of the art’ digital transformation, working with some of the world’s top strategic advisors to deliver a premium in-store customer experience, across the region.

In his earlier years, as an investment banker, Tamer successfully advised a number of blue-chip families, multi-national corporations and financial sponsor groups on developing and implementing their global strategic acquisition and financing plans.  Of particular relevance, was his focus on originating and executing a number of cross border mid-market transactions, across major frontier and emerging markets.  In 2010, Tamer secured Qatar National Bank as a Standby Buyer in the Rights Issue for a controlling stake in Bank Kesawan, marking the first ever investment by a Middle Eastern bank into the Indonesian conventional banking sector.  He was also recognized for his work in advising Seera Investment Bank on its US$200m buyout of BWA Water Additives, awarded the Financial Times Banker Magazine’s European Islamic Finance Deal of the Year, in 2008.

He graduated in 2001, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & History, from Columbia University.

Alexandra Franzos, Associate

Much to do with her calm disposition, a methodical approach and equipped with an uncanny ability to rally and inspire a diverse set of resources around finding a collective solution, Alexandra is never fearful of jumping headfirst into complex problems.

Alexandra brings 15+ years of global project management, administrative, operational and execution experience, where she has continued to develop and refine her communication, organization, research and supervisory skill set, within the wider investment banking, corporate & entrepreneurial sectors.  Over the span of her career, she has worked in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and more recently, the United States advising and supporting leading multi-nationals, Universities, NGOs and High Net Worth Individuals. 

To date, she has - and continues to - contribute to the establishment and operations of Sub-Saharan Africa’s first ever non-for-profit subspecialty eye hospital (based out of Cameroon), focusing on stakeholder management, reporting and governance.  She also currently spearheads an effort to deliver affordable eye care services to Indonesia’s most marginalized communities.  Alexandra currently actively supports a number of other existing and new landmark projects in key emerging markets, across the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.

She prides herself on growing and preserving long term relationships and is driven by a selfless desire to serve.  Her deep-rooted passion for humanity and sustainable impact underlies her tireless dedication to building social enterprises, which cradle the nexus of commerce and philanthropy.