From TC Friends to Business Partners

Showcasing the power of the connections we make in college and graduate school, these two sets of friends all attended TC before going on to found companies that are making a real difference in their communities.

Crafting dynamic public health solutions

Meet Ranelle Brew (M.A. ’04, M.S. ’05, Ed.D. ’06) and Diana Yassanye (M.S. ’05) who co-founded Parasol Health Consulting

How They Started: Nineteen years after first meeting during a TC nutrition class, public health experts Brew and Yassanye teamed up at the height of the COVID pandemic to take action on the issues they’ve long noticed in their fields. Yassanye — a CDC veteran and expert on youth sexual health — and Brew — who founded and directs the nationally-accredited public health graduate program at Grand Valley State University — began work on Parasol, a boutique health consulting firm with more than 30 subject matter experts — including clinicians, epidemiologists, preparedness and response coordinators, and even U.S. military veterans — who advise on individual projects.

“​​In the midst of all the emergency response and pandemic response work that Ranelle was doing at the community and university level, that I was doing at the national level, we started building a company,” says Yassanye.

Their Impact: In just two years, Parasol has taken on many impactful projects that leverage the agility and broad expertise of the founders. “We are diverse,” says Brew. “Just as public health and health education is.” The dynamic company has worked on everything from curriculum development, to speaking engagements to emergency preparedness plans. “Our projects are focused on very intelligent, driven companies and people who just don’t have the time and need help with the visioning and project implementation,” adds Yassanye. “​​We trust that the work that we do for these clients will lead to new and better things.” 

Some particularly notable projects include developing cohort recruitment and retention strategies for a long-term study, creating a series of educational webinars for more than 60 health care centers across West Virginia, as well as designing and implementing a workforce development workshop for the Region V Public Health Training Center summer scholars program in Michigan. Looking toward the future, the founders want to continue to expand their reach and network nationally and globally. “We aim to help as many organizations as we can by including our public health and health education networks ” says Brew.

As mothers, Brew and Yassanye are also considering the impact this new venture is having on their daughters. “We want to be strong, amazing working professionals, but we also want to be great mothers, role models and leaders,” says Brew.

Their Advice to Young Entrepreneurs: “Find your network and a supportive group,” says Yassanye, who utilized her expansive network to help build Parasol. “They’re willing to share and they’re open to teaching.”

Brew notes the importance of gaining experience in your field before starting a niche business like Parasol Health Consulting. “If I were hiring for a contract, I would want an expert with the most years of experience and the most field work experience,” she says.

Improving the quality of education on the policy and classroom levels

Meet Mounira Jamjoom (M.A. ’05) and Sara Zaini (M.A. ’08), who created Emkan Education, an education consulting firm based in Saudi Arabia. 

How They Started: Emkan Education began over a dinner discussion about education between long-time friends and education policy consultants, Jamjoom and Zaini. The women, alongside their business partner ​​Basma Bushnak, built an agile consulting company that focuses on improving education in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on all levels. “We wanted to create something that connects [policy, schools and higher education] and make sure that communication and decision-making is centered around student wellbeing,” says Zaini.

Attending TC was a transformational experience that influenced both Zaini and Jamjoom’s career trajectories. “I really found myself there and found my values aligning with a lot of the values at TC,” says Jamjoom, who went on to attain a Ph.D. from Oxford University before returning to Saudi Arabia and working in management consulting which introduced her to education policy development. For Zaini, an elective Organizational Psychology course on consulting completely changed her career trajectory. “I got excited to introduce that framework for the advancement of education and institutions in Saudi Arabia, because education in my country is underdeveloped,” she says.

Their Impact: In the 10 years since Emkan was established, the company has had a profound impact on education in Saudi Arabia, working at the school and government level. Emkan has supported the development of Saudi Arabia’s national teacher licensing standards and created a national strategy for integrating arts and culture into K -12 education with the Ministry of Culture, creating curriculum for seven new subjects, among many other projects. Recently, Emkan established Aanaab, an Arabic-language online teaching platform led by Jamjoom serving more than 200,000 teachers and 130 schools.

Looking to the future, Zaini and Jamjoom are hoping to expand and improve education services throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. “There is so much room for education development in the MENA region, we’re only scratching the surface with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE),” says Jamjoom. “So many countries in MENA can benefit from what we do.”

Their Advice to Young Entrepreneurs: For Zaini, entrepreneurs in a post-COVID world need to “operate with extreme agility and flexibility and don’t get emotionally attached to a business model or a service,” she says. At the same time, “She also advises future founders to reflect on their ability to withstand stress and overcome failure as the “entrepreneurship journey is designed in a way where it stresses you out to an extent where you just want to quit.”

Jamjoom echoes a similar sentiment, “if you are able to balance your passion and endure pain, I think you’re able to sustain your entrepreneurship journey,” she says. Jamjoon also emphasizes the importance of finding a gap that your company can fill, being patient and “stick[ing] with your early believers.”

— Sherri Gardner