I cover entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa. Longer description A business journalist for 20 years and a freelancer for more than 10 of that, I’ve written about tobacco farmers in Amish Country, immigrants in New York City and venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. In 1997, I traveled to Iraq, writing about the effect of the sanctions. That visit stayed with me through the other turns in my career. When I returned to the region in fall of 2013 on assignment, I found more and more stories to write about, from a woman who started a beauty salon in a refugee camp to a bookseller selling 50 Shades of Gray in Saudi Arabia. I write about the region’s business leaders, many unknown in the States, and cover the deepening ties between the business communities in the Middle East and the United States.