Spotlight: Eleanor ‘Tabi’ Haller-Jorden

Eleanor ‘Tabi’ Haller-Jorden is president and CEO of the Paradigm Forum GmbH (TPF), a global consultancy and think tank operating at the intersection of social justice and workplace innovation.

As part of the Global Ambassadors Program in Belfast, Tabi was matched with her mentee Najah Jaroush Abdouni, the dynamic entrepreneur owner and director of Tassamim, a landscaping and irrigation business in Lebanon.

In each program, the mentor-mentee pairs are introduced through e-mail to each other roughly one week before the program and encouraged to connect in advance. When Tabi and Najah realized that they would be on the same connecting flight into Belfast, they arranged to sit next to each other on the plane and their mentoring relationship had a great head start.

The Belfast GAP program took place in the same week as the International Business Women’s Conference. As a frequent media contributor, speaker and lecturer, Tabi was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Gala and shared her perspectives on the topic of “Women’s Leadership: Much Ado about Stereotypes.”

One of the great assets of the program is that many of the mentors have extensive networks and are willing to make introductions. The Belfast cohort stands out though because they have developed and maintained an incredibly strong and supportive relationship with each other via e-mail.

In September, Libyan mentee Omnia Eteyari was forced to flee her country. Many messages of solidarity have traveled across cyberspace, letting Omnia know that she is not alone.

In late September, Tabi was invited to give two keynote speeches at the 2014 Women’s Forum in Deauville. She requested permission from Omnia to share one of her quotes with the audience at the Forum to “put the audience in a very necessary place with regard to the focus and content.”

Tabi was also able to connect Somali mentee Dr. Deqo Aden Mohamed, CEO of the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation, with important fundraising contacts. She has also shared a number of informational resources such as online business courses, useful websites, professional associations and institutions and relevant books on leadership.

Tabi truly represents a woman leader committed to empowering others. Not only has she generously shared extensive knowledge and experience as well as an impressive rolodex, she also infuses each e-mail with words of positivity, energy and an indelible sense of sisterhood.