Student Amanda Fakihi shines at the Arista 2025 competition

Amanda Fakihi, a Master of Science (MSc) student in Applied Economics at HEC Montréal, has been awarded the title of Young Self-Employed Worker of the Year in Quebec at the 2025 provincial Arista competition.

Organized for over 48 years by the Jeune Chambre de commerce de Montréal, the Arista competition celebrates promising young professionals in Quebec’s business community who stand out for their leadership and innovative spirit.

Amanda received this recognition for her work with Tenet Stratégies, a public affairs, branding, and economic intelligence agency she founded in 2023. The agency supports startups and organizations by helping them harness rhetoric to refine how they think, persuade, and influence in a complex world.

“Entrepreneurship—and even more so, solopreneurship—is about taking risks, ideally calculated ones, without any guarantee of stability, but with one promise: the chance to push yourself beyond your limits,” says Amanda, who also holds a master’s degree in political science from Université de Montréal. “Pursuing your dream to the very end is demanding but rewarding. Receiving this award is proof to me that perseverance always pays off.”

Amanda Fakihi, and Sarah Kemerer, Interim Executive Director of the Jeune Chambre de commerce de Montréal.