Jafar Owainati

he/him

Co-founder & CEO, Barley

Jafar is the Co-founder and CEO of Barley, a compensation management software that helps companies make better pay decisions. Barley was built to address the major shifts in the compensation landscape, from pay transparency to pay equity analysis. The Barley platform empowers forward-thinking organizations to effortlessly manage salary bands, streamline compensation reviews, and more effectively communicate total rewards to their teams.

Prior to Barley, Jafar co-founded Loopio, a B2B SaaS solution and award-winning employer (Deloitte Fast 50, Greater Toronto’s Top Employer, and more). As Loopio grew to over 150 people, Jafar learned the importance of structuring and managing a thoughtful compensation program as a company scales. This firsthand experience, combined with his passion for solving complex people-centric problems, led to Barley.

Jafar has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Queen’s University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where his focus included business and organizational strategy.