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Coalition of the Iranian Entrepreneurs
(AKA Iranian American
Chamber of Commerce) is a non-political, non-profit and
non-religious organization, founded in
1986. It is composed of professionals,
business and community activists,
volunteers, and leaders who live and
work in Southern California. COALITION
OF IRANIAN ENTREPRENEURS (CIE) is
dedicated to promote networking among
Iranian entrepreneurs in order to become
a more cohesive, productive and
civically active community.
A Message From
The President
 When
the distinguished members of the CIE
offered me the honor of the
presidency of this organization, I did
not think that I was the right
person
for the position. The fact is that,
despite all the sincere
efforts and
hard work of the previous capable and
highly qualified
presidents and the
Board members of the CIE, the Iranian
business owners
and managers are not
yet participating in the activities of
the organization to the extent that
they should, and do not volunteer to
work together to make the CIE more
popular and attractive, specifically to
hundreds of young successful Iranian
entrepreneurs, business owners,
managers, and professionals that are
active just in California, and in
particular in the metropolitan Los
Angeles.
There is not a day that
we do not hear or read a news about, or
observe first hand, successful
Iranian business owners and managers who
own/manage multimillion dollar
organizations around the world. In
today's economy, when networking is the
key element of any business and
has a
proven record, why has the CIE with over
2 decades of hard work and
effort not
succeeded to the extent that it should
to achieve its goals?
Thinking
about such issues, starting by myself, I
arrived at the following conclusion:
most of us, thousand miles away from our
native land, are still thinking,
acting and functioning in the
environment of Iran of 31 years ago.
We have been detached not only from
changes in our country, but have also
not accepted and adapted to the rules of
our new home, traditions and life
style. While a majority of our children
have been born here and understand
their surroundings ways much better than
us, on numerous occasions, knowingly or
unknowingly, we not only do
not
respect their opinion and demands, but
also brag about our past
high
positions, the so-called experience and,
often, with Iranian-style
sarcasm we
put them down and unfairly criticize
them.
So, what we should
do?
(1) First and
foremost, we must listen to our children
and try to create
trust in them by offering them our
unconditional help and advice
and
refrain from imposing on them what they
find unacceptable.
(2) We must
recognize and respect the ideas and
intuition of our youngpeople.
Tolerance plays a fundamental role in
this matter.
(3) We must offer
them incentives: provide them with
vigorous networking,
offer them legal
advice, hold professional workshops and
conferences, give them financial aid
if need be, write referrals and
recommendation letters, and more.
(4) It is about time for us to
recognize the fact that the new
generation of Iranians are smart,
innovative and intelligent and, above
all different from the previous
generations. The time for such
recognition is, in fact, long overdue.
If we follow the aforementioned
proposals and similar ideas, we will be
closer to creating more respect and
popularity for the CIE and, hence,
will be able to attract managers and
owners of multimillion dollar
corporations to the Board.
Obviously, in absence of cooperation and
input by our distinguished
members
and, specifically the Board members, as
well serious team work,
we cannot
create any momentum for change or
accomplishment.
Hossein Hedjazi
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