Houda Ghozzi

Dr. Houda Ghozzi is the Founder and CEO of Open Startup International (OST), an NGO aiming to foster innovation ecosystems with a focus on building linkages with academia. OST works hand in hand with Columbia University to foster innovation ecosystems in the MEA region building bridges with the US and countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal and Jordan. OST focuses on building the foundations of Deep Tech Brain through BRAIN: Bridging Research And Innovation, a program developed in partnership with MIT focusing on Science-based tech.

Houda is actively working in advocacy and policy, involved in developing the Startup Act, the national regulation structuring entrepreneurship. She has developed programs to raise national awareness about the start-up act regulation in Tunisia as well as to develop early-stage training for start-ups and specific programs for unemployed Ph.D.s.

She holds a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from University Paris Dauphine. Her research and teaching focus on business strategy, and business models with a focus on social entrepreneurship, support structures as well as the scaling-up models for social ventures. Houda is also committed to civil society work in financial inclusion as board member of the Tunisian Authority of Microfinance Control (ACM) and has been elected as part of the Collège des Startups, the national committee allocating labels to startups.