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Podcast with Nayla: A Declaration of Love to Lebanon

"Abundance is not in what we receive, but in what we give."

After a career in asset management spanning more than four decades - from New York and London to Geneva - Philippe Jabre returned to Lebanon with a clear focus: to reinvest in the country's people. In a recent interview on Podcast With Nayla, he shared the motivations behind his return and the philosophy that drives his ongoing commitment to the nation.

Far from a simple philanthropic endeavour, his actions amount to a true declaration of love to Lebanon, structured around three fundamental pillars: education, the local economy, and cultural heritage.

Education: Empowering the Next Generation

For 27 years, the Philippe Jabre Association has treated education as the cornerstone of social stability and justice. Across that time, more than 3,400 university students have been supported, some two to three hundred each year, with perfect gender parity and across every community.

Yet this commitment extends far beyond financial assistance. Philippe Jabre follows each year's students individually - answering every one of them himself, taking an interest in their path, drawing them out. Because helping one person, he notes, means helping the fifty behind them: family, friends, an entire circle. Support becomes a structure, and it snowballs: those who were helped go on to help others in turn.

What strikes him most is that this small country produces minds found nowhere else, talents who go on to reach the world's greatest universities. The system gave them the means to rise, but the talent was always there.

The Local Economy: Protecting Jobs and Legacies

A thriving nation requires a functioning economy. Philippe Jabre's decision to take over and revitalise Almaza, the historic family brewery, founded by his own family and brought back under its control after decades, was driven by this conviction: to protect a national legacy, keep local industry alive, and create immediate employment.

Around ten permanent positions and some forty young people taken on as a springboard make the initiative a direct investment in the country's economic resilience - and give young graduates a concrete reason to stay and build their careers in Lebanon.

Art and Heritage: Preserving Cultural Memory

To rise above daily geopolitical struggles, it helps to remember what Lebanon truly represents. Early in his career, Philippe Jabre began collecting works by local artists - many lost to theft during the war. On his curator's suggestion, he turned to foreign artists who had depicted Lebanon, drawn as much by their emotional resonance as by their value as memory.

For him, the purpose is to give the country a different image: a place of culture that cannot be reduced to its geopolitics, a way to transcend both the everyday and the passage of time. The collection stands as a reminder that Lebanon's history and beauty reach far beyond its periods of conflict - a quiet, symbolic relaunch of the idea of Lebanon itself.

A Message for the Future

Turning to today's youth and a world reshaped by artificial intelligence, Philippe Jabre's advice runs against easy formulas. AI, he argues, is to be embraced rather than endured - a tool to master, not a threat to fear. Above all, he places critical thinking first: stay curious, read between the lines, refuse to settle into a single track. Seen this way, even large language models become an opportunity, they sharpen the questioning mind rather than dull it. The rest is patience, openness, and a readiness for the unexpected.

Through these three pillars, the goal remains constant: to empower individuals, steady the present, and build a brighter tomorrow for Lebanon.

Philippe Jabre, Patron of the Class of 2026 at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour

An alumnus and patron of the Class of 2026 at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour, Philippe Jabre returned to address the graduates. The man who had left Lebanon in 1975, at the outbreak of the war, with no celebration to mark his departure, now speaks to a class he sees "shining over the next fifty years, in Lebanon and abroad."

"In our country, it is hard to speak of the future with certainty," he acknowledges. "But it is precisely in such difficult times that deep convictions take on their full meaning." His address was built around five ideas.

1. "No great dream has ever begun anywhere but on a school bench." Jamhour is not merely a school - it is a lifelong fellowship, an experience, a way of being, one felt all the more keenly once you are far from it. On leaving its benches, the graduates carry with them an education, a method, values and a remarkable human network. That bond is a rare strength.

2. "Expect the unexpected." Quoting Edgar Morin, Jabre recalls that his generation changed careers two or three times in a lifetime - theirs will do so far more often. What matters, then, is to have learned how to learn, and to stay that way: to become lifelong learners, to surround oneself with curious people - curiosity is contagious - and to remain humble before knowledge. "Whoever believes they have finished learning has already begun to fall behind."

3. "True abundance is measured not by what we possess, but by what we bring to others." Success does not rest on intelligence and knowledge alone. It also depends on courtesy, humility, integrity, and the ability to work together and honour one's commitments: "We work with reliable people, people we trust, whose word carries weight." Helping someone back to their feet, supporting a friend, opening a door: these are acts that shape a life more deeply than material things.

4. "Mastering it is a game changer; dismissing it, a game over." Technology must be made an ally - accompanied, questioned, turned into a tool in the service of one's judgement. Jabre has watched the revolutions follow one another: chemical engineering in his early days, the telephone in the 1990s, the internet and computing, coding, today artificial intelligence and robotics, tomorrow quantum computing. His conviction: human capital remains the primary engine of the prosperity that AI generates.

5. "Your value will lie in your ability to ask the right questions." From this follows a cardinal quality: agility in the face of change. Many of the careers these graduates will pursue most likely do not yet exist; they will live in a world that changes faster than anything previous generations have known. They will need to adapt, to reinvent themselves, to take risks, and to cultivate their critical thinking in a world where machines will provide more and more of the answers.

He closes his address with a call to solidarity and commitment: that each of them make a difference for their country. "A sense of belonging brought me back, and it will bring all of you back, to Lebanon."

As part of our ongoing commitment to community resilience, the Philippe Jabre Association recently completed a targeted relief mission in the border villages of Rmeich, Ain Ebel, and Debel.

In close coordination with the Lebanese Army, 12 tons of essential food supplies (300 parcels) were delivered to support families remaining in their homes during these challenging times. This operation was made possible through the logistical support of the Lebanese Armed Forces and the cooperation of local municipalities.

Transparency and trust are at the heart of our mission. We are pleased to share the official letters of acknowledgment from the local authorities below, documenting the impact of this solidarity on the ground.