Ayman El Tarabishy wears two hats at the GW School of Business. He is a teaching professor of management and president and CEO of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), which is housed at the school. El Tarabishy discusses the state of entrepreneurship today, his work highlighting micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and his upcoming book.
Q. Every June 27, the United Nations marks MSME Day to recognize the global contributions of small businesses. How did you persuade the UN to create the day?
A. Ten years ago, I was invited to the UN as a GW professor and as president of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) for the announcement of the Sustainable Development Goals—the SDGs. While there, I was shocked that they never mentioned small businesses in the SDGs. It was all about big firms and multinationals. Small businesses matter—90 percent of all companies in the economy are small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and they generate 60 to 70 percent of all employment and 50 percent of GDP.
So, I started urging the UN to focus on small businesses and their impact on the SDGs. It felt like David vs. Goliath at first, but after nine months of hard work and support from many partners, I got the UN to create MSMEs Day. I selected June 27 as the day to galvanize a global movement highlighting the critical role of MSMEs in the economy. MSMEs Day is my legacy, the most important accomplishment of my career.
Q. We think of the U.S. as an entrepreneurial powerhouse. But earlier this year, Forbes reported that it is becoming a harder place to start a business.
A. The United States is still one of the most entrepreneurial places on earth, and Americans are still starting businesses in large numbers. What has changed is not the will to start but the conditions a business has to survive in once it opens. And this is not only a U.S. story.
Small businesses everywhere are now operating in what our ICSB 2025 Annual Global MSMEs Report calls “permanent white water.” Forbes cited that report just last month for exactly that framing, which comes from Peter Vaill, a former dean of the GW Business School. He used it to describe a world of nonstop turbulence. For small businesses today, that turbulence is tariffs, geopolitical fragmentation, supply chains that reroute overnight, and an AI transformation moving faster than most firms can absorb. The water never settles. You learn to navigate it.
The real question is not whether it is harder to start a business. It is whether businesses are built to keep going. The firms that thrive are the ones that diversify their markets and suppliers, stay close to their customers, and use technology without losing the human connection that earned them those customers in the first place. That is exactly why MSMEs are worth watching. They feel every one of these shifts first, and they adapt before anyone else does.
Q. What can we expect from this year’s MSME Day?
The theme is Human-Centered Entrepreneurship in an AI-Driven Future: Economic Empowerment for the Next Generation of MSMEs. Part of this year’s programming is the Human-Centered Entrepreneurship Forum, which involves GW Business and ICSB. And, as every year, the UN website will publish the ICSB Annual Global MSMEs Report with its analysis of emerging trends, opportunities, and pain points for small businesses worldwide.
We are also developing the Guiding Principles for MSMEs. In 2026, the United States marks its 250th anniversary, and just as Thomas Jefferson and the founders set forth the rights of individuals in the Declaration of Independence, we want to set forth a bill of rights for the world’s smallest enterprises. MSMEs Day was the start.
Q. What made you focus your teaching and research on U.S. and global entrepreneurship?
A. I grew up in Italy and Kuwait in an international family—my mom is Italian, and my dad is Egyptian. My father owned a small business, and my mother was his partner. I lived in an environment of small businesses. At dinner, we talked about the family business, whether sales were up or down. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time.
Q. You are working on a book about entrepreneurs and innovation.
A. I am finishing up Human-Centered Entrepreneurship. There are many things AI can do … but people don’t trust AI. They trust other people. We’ll use AI in business to become more efficient and effective, but there will also be a need for the human side of the equation, the human touch, the human connection. That is where the beauty is.