Joudy Abou Chakra is the Founder of ABC Guidance. She is an experienced Higher Education Consultant with an ambitious mind. She has completed her Master’s in Economics and Social Sciences and also in Environmental Engineering.
Through our interview, we got to know that she has around 15 years of experience in the education field. Joudy states, “Education is my real passion.” This helped us understand how much Joudy Abou Chakra values education.
She started ABC Guidance so that she could provide students with budget-friendly support. The company also has social media presence on Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn.
Let’s learn more about Joudy Abou Chakra and ABC Guidance through our interview below. Explain the background of you and the company in detail.
I worked in education for around 15 years in Dubai and France. It has always been much more than a job for me. Education is my real passion!
Every Guidance session for me is like the first one: unique, rewarding, and humanly enriching. I founded ABC-Guidance based on my firm belief that every student should get the chance to seek a “budget-friendly” support service during a crucial turning point of his or her life, high-school years.
ABC-Guidance:
Our mission is to guide students through their higher education planning phase and application process. We aim to make guidance accessible, simplified, and affordable.
Our dedicated, multilingual, highly qualified team of experts is committed to providing the highest quality of consultancy services while keeping the costs reasonable.
Our expertise covers application planning as well as support for drafting and writing key parts such as essays, statements, and various documents. We provide different university-related services for the UK, USA, France, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, other European countries, UAE, etc.
With more than 15 years of experience and a record of students who went to study in top universities around the world, we can help students every step of the way, no matter their profile and needs.
While our fees are reasonable, we do not compromise quality, students’ well-being, or work ethics.
What are your goals?
We aim to provide totally ethical, accessible, simplified, and affordable guidance services. We seek to offer tailored support for every student. In addition, we look forward to helping any student, no matter his profile. We will gladly welcome students who wish to apply to different destinations at the same time.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of yourself/company right now?
Here is a list of our key strengths below:
– We are ethical
– We are highly qualified
– We are trilingual (English, French, Arabic) / we can also communicate in Spanish and Japanese
– We cover diverse applications
– We are experienced (15+ years)
What was the path you took to get to where you are today?
I occupied different leading positions in high schools and educational NGOs and founded a reputed guidance practice characterized by an advanced level of professionalism, unparalleled empathy, and a unique support style.
Why did you start (or want to be the head of) this company?
I started this company because I believe that every young student should be able to benefit from some guidance during his high-school years. While working as a Head of Guidance in a school setting, I realized that only a few fortunate students could afford such services. Concurrently, schools cannot always provide the personalized support private guidance consultants are able to offer. The idea of ABC-Guidance was to give everyone a chance to benefit from high-quality guidance support. The rate per hour is reasonable, and we suggest a wide range of packages that offer the students the flexibility of booking as many guidance hours as they need and/or are able to afford.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Luckily, ABC-Guidance is already making a profit, and we did not face major challenges.
However, reaching new families to communicate about our services is not an easy task.
Give us one word that describes you the best
Dignified
Every human being should be valued and respected for what he is. I always treat other people with dignity. It is the essence of my life experience.
What makes you excited about Mondays?
That is a very easy question. Meeting with students, of course!
What do you value most about your culture and vision?
The sense of adventure; continuous learning; teamwork
Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
During the pandemic, I realized that middle-school and high-school students are facing increasing difficulties in having healthy habits and organizing their time.
I knew I had to do something about it. I initiated the so-called time management project. I worked on it with some student volunteers. It forced me to be creative in the tools we used to help pupils of different ages get organized and set healthy habits. I also had to adapt the organizational tips to the school’s specific curriculum and system in a unique custom-made way.
What are your company’s strategies, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
All our team members are highly qualified and have an excellent reputation in their professional sphere. They are dedicated and work ethically. Everyone is ready to share his knowledge and expertise in his defined sector with students.
We stand unique thanks to the distinctive team that we have. We are multilingual and work with corporate leaders who provide us with their hands-on vision of the corporate world. Moreover, we cover different destinations. But above all, I would say that being independent and ethical is what characterizes ABC-Guidance.
What are the key values which helped you to overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership.
Reliability, expertise, work ethic, and loyalty helped me overcome every single incident during my career. I remember once a student in year 11 was hesitating over which courses to choose for her final year. Her parents wanted her to take courses she was not interested in because they believed it was best for her. She came to me, and we had a long guidance session. I supported her professionally without taking sides. The student’s choice matched her profile and was pertinent to her future prospect. The day after, the mother called me. Needless to say that she was not happy with what her daughter told her about our session. I gave her my detached expert answer.
She asked a few questions that I answered, then she paused for a few seconds and said: “I will talk to my husband and consider your suggestion seriously. You shared with me information that I was not aware of. I thank you for that. I know you want what is best for students, and that is why I called you. Parents always say that you are trustworthy”. The student ended up where she wanted to be, and I cannot describe how rewarding it was to witness her thrive in her senior year.
How do you see the company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
I see ABC-Guidance having many partnerships with schools across the Middle East and, hopefully, Canada and the United States. I see our team expanding and helping more students realize their dreams. I see it growing and recruiting more talented consultants, coaches, editors, and advisors.
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your company in this competitive world?
Our students can benefit from high professional standards while being sure that we practically apply our values in every task we accomplish. Most of us are educators with a high sense of morality. We are not simply doing business. We are changing lives and trying to have a positive social impact.
Families that choose to work with us can also benefit from our diverse expertise covering most of the universities in the world. We are trilingual (English, French, Arabic) and multicultural. Some of our team members can also provide support in Spanish and Japanese, enlarging our cultural spectrum.
As for leadership, in the education field, every team member is a leader and a role model for students. We work altogether, each in his own field of expertise, to accompany the students on their path to success.
What are the services/solutions or products offered by your company as par with the current industry standards? Tell us something about your upcoming products or services.
We offer a wide variety of packages for students and schools. We believe that every student is unique. Therefore, we provide tailored support and plan every path thoroughly.
After a free intro consultation, the student can choose his package based on his needs and budget.
We are independent, ethical, and budget-friendly. We have diverse expertise, and we are multilingual. Those qualities certainly make us stand out.
What is new?
Schools can allow their students to get a 30% discount on our services if they communicate about ABC-Guidance.
Students can book a small, reasonably priced personal statement or letter proofreading and get one free Guidance session. Offer valid until the end of November 2022.
Our coaches are planning an amazing leadership package that will soon be released on our website.