Entrepreneur Russ Rosenzweig is a man on a mission: to use entrepreneurship as a tactical tool to reduce hostility in the Middle East via interfaith business collaborations. His nonprofit, World Ventures Group, with offices in Aliso Viejo and Chicago, operates in Israel and the Palestinian territories, a region historically fraught with conflict.
It facilitates Palestinian marketing professionals’ work with Jewish-American marketing “experts,” and helps Palestinian companies market products and services in the U.S., as well as supports medical missions.
Rosenzweig is Jewish, as are many of World Ventures Group’s American partners.
“An unusual dynamic is created in which business leaders from ‘across the divide’ are collaborating together, creating not just increased prosperity, but also hope and a new era of collaboration and conflict resolution,” he said.
Beginnings
Rosenzweig describes himself as an “intellectual capitalist” and social entrepreneur. He’s founded several companies, including his first, Round Table Group, as a Northwestern University student, growing it into what he said was the largest expert witness search firm in the world before Thomson Reuters acquired it in 2010.
He’s a member of the Orange County chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global nonprofit group whose mission is to engage “leading entrepreneurs to learn and grow.” He said he recently began coaching entrepreneurs and made several contacts in Israel, the Palestinian territories and other parts of the Arab world with the idea of connecting the divided regions.
Rosenzweig was inspired to start World Ventures Group during his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2012, when he said he realized “entrepreneurs across the divide all have exactly the same goals, hopes and dreams.”
He remembers one night of reflection during the trip when, “The idea came to me with thunderous clarity—use my skills that I honed and refined at Round Table Group in connecting people [to] connect Palestinians with American Jews in a business context who would never otherwise get to know each other.”
How It Works
Palestinian marketers, via World Ventures Group, provide marketing services to U.S.-based companies ranging from $1 million to $500 million in sales. Palestinian news agency PalMedia recently hired the group for a global marketing initiative, Rosenzweig said.
The Palestinian professionals work virtually with Jewish-American marketing “experts,” and Rosenzweig visits Ramallah in the West Bank several times a year to make more contacts.
The group also looks for established Palestinian companies in sectors such as IT and social media marketing that have been in business for about five years and want to expand to the U.S. He connects those companies with hundreds of prospective customers in the U.S., “including and especially seeking out my Jewish brothers and sisters.”
If there’s a mutual fit, World Ventures Group facilitates introductions so that companies can close a deal, enabling the Palestinian company to sell its products and services in the U.S.
“It brings more revenue, more hiring, more hope and more economic growth” to the Palestinian companies, Rosenzweig said.
The group has an ally in the U.S. Consulate General’s office in Jerusalem, which provides guidance, expertise and introductions, he said, adding that it’s also received encouragement over the years from Arab and American business executives, the U.S. State Department, professors of Middle East studies, and Israeli entrepreneurs and executives.
The nonprofit is funded through revenue generated from the marketing work and from donations.
Medical Missions
Revenue from the nonprofit is used to fund initiatives, such as Dana Point-based Hope in Sight, which takes interfaith teams of American optometrists, ophthalmologists and opticians to provide free eye care to Israeli and Palestinian children.
Orange County optician Sam Hahn had already been directing free community vision clinics in Orange County for the homeless and for school children in Santa Ana and Garden Grove. He saw a World Venture Group-produced performance by the American Jewish-Palestinian Muslim duet The Pursuit of Harmony, which he said moved him to create an interfaith vision program for children in Israel and the West Bank.
“I feel a very strong commitment to building connections and healing relationships among Jews and Muslims,” said Hahn, who is Jewish. “I am deeply saddened by the hostility and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Rosenzweig was instrumental in helping him navigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to bring the services to the Middle East.
“It is incredibly difficult to be an organization that helps both Israelis and Palestinians,” Hahn said. “The deep conflict between the two sides makes it hard to find partners who are willing to work with us. I was very naive about this divide when I began this project, and several times I came up against obstacles that I did not know how to get through. Russ has helped guide me through these challenges.”
