Farid Shokrieh

Managing Director / Educator

Farid Shokrieh is the Managing Director of an advertising agency that went from a start-up company in 2008 to a grown-up SME by 2017.

Before co-founding this company, Farid studied and practiced teaching methodologies and was an educational advisor and teacher trainer besides teaching himself. He only later understood to what extent this background had shaped his management style, and that as a Managing Director, he essentially never stopped being a teacher.

Once he understood this, he started to consciously apply educational methods in a business environment and witnessed results that he will share in his TED Talk. As the world is changing fast, and in particular Iranian business culture changes even faster, he discusses how the needs of a new global generation are not fulfilled with classic organizational culture and bureaucracy, and how methods derived from teaching can bring the drastic changes that need to be applied in leadership and management.

When Farid looks at his role as a manager like the function of a teacher, it transforms the organization he's heading. Management is ultimately the job of encouraging, developing, empowering and growing people to be the best they can possibly become, to grow confidence, to embrace responsibility, to work without supervision and to take their own decisions. Hence if we think of business organizations more like we think of educational institutions, the mission is to identify every individual's unique talents and to nourish and develop these.