2022 Speakers Lineup

"Mark Abou Jaoude is Spotify’s Head of Music for the Middle East and North Africa. Abou Jaoude, who has been in the industry for over 15 years, began his career with a renowned radio station in his home country, Lebanon. An industry veteran, Mark has extensive experience in the music streaming world and worked with artist and label partners to grow the industry. When he is not working, Abou Jaoude is on decks where he indulges his passion for spinning at popular venues in Dubai and the MENA region or is in the studio producing music."

Dr. Manish Kohli is an experienced and a visionary executive leader with demonstrated history of delivering complex healthcare “firsts,” both, in the US and overseas. A leading voice in his field, he has lent his expertise to pioneering health care organizations and endeavors throughout the world to help transform care and reduce disparities in access to quality healthcare. He works with health systems, policymakers and stakeholders in areas of digital maturity, strategy, governance and workforce development with the goal of redesigning care ecosystems to improve safety and quality while optimizing resource utilization and cost.



Presently, he serves a Senior Advisor with Albright Stonebridge Group, where he advises

clients on health care delivery initiatives and strategies with a special focus on innovation, technology and digital health.  Additionally, Dr. Kohli advises domestic and global startups that aim to transform health and care through emerging and innovative technologies in the areas of telehealth, remote patient monitoring and cognitive artificial intelligence. He is

regularly invited to lend his expertise globally as a speaker, lecturing domestically and throughout the world.



Additionally, a member of the Board of Directors of Wings of Hope, global, humanitarian non-profit organization that helps the world’s most vulnerable communities, Dr. Kohli chairs the Board’s Global Health Programs Committee.  He also serves on the Standards Advisory Panel, Joint Commission International (JCI).  Notably, Dr.  Kohli is the immediate-past

Chairman, Board of Directors of Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a global, 80,0000+ member, cause-based, not-for-profit organization focused on bet-ter health through information and technology.



In previous roles, Dr. Kohli served as Director of Global Programs, Harvard Medical

International and Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at leading health systems

including, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD), Advocate Aurora Health and

Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. During his professional tenure in the UAE he helped build a pioneering Health Information Exchange for Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC) and

subsequently, he was a key member of CCAD leadership team that delivered the first fully digital, HIMSS Stage 7 hospital in the MENA region.

Dr. Kohli graduated from SIU School of Medicine, Springfield, IL. USA, and completed

residency training in Family Medicine at Rush University, Chicago, IL USA where he also served as Chief Resident and received the Vijay K. Maker Excellence in Family Medicine award.  Subsequently, he completed residency training in Preventive Medicine at the

Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University as well as the Patient Safety

fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD.  Dr. Kohli has also completed Faculty Development fellowship at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, IL. USA, and he holds Master’s in Public Health (MPH) in International Health and Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) in Medical Services Management both from the Johns Hopkins University.



He is a Fellow of both, Health Information and Management System Society (HIMSS) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).  In addition, he is a Diplomate of both, Ameri-can Board of Preventive Medicine- Clinical Informatics and the American Board of

Family Medicine. In addition to his passion for digital health, he maintains a special interest in preventive care, personal wellbeing and lifestyle medicine.

Anas Zeineddine has been leading innovation initiatives for several years by establishing innovation hubs, investing in startups, and providing early-stage incubation and acceleration programs. He has extensive experience in advising governmental entities in establishing sustainable innovation ecosystems, and developing strategies for supporting small and medium enterprises to stimulate economic development.

Anas has worked closely with national space organizations in establishing innovation frameworks and strategies for accelerating entrepreneurship in the space industry. He led several initiatives in the incubation of space technology startups through custom space innovation programs, and has done extensive work in the drones tech industry by launching strategic R&D investment projects. Previously, Anas worked with leading energy firms in engineering and project management. He also co-founded companies in the media and IOT industries.

Anas is also the founder of innovaMENA, an innovation enabler that supports entrepreneurs, startups and industry stakeholders, and provides innovation advisory to various organization

Mrs. El-Shenoufy has over ten years of financial services experience managing venture capital and investment portfolios in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Prior to joining Flat6Labs- the leading startup accelerator and seed funding organization in MENA, from 2009-2011 Ms. el-Shenoufy worked as a Senior Analyst for Al-Ahly Capital Holding, where she was responsible for managing the Oil and Gas portfolio valued at over $200 million, as well as representing the company on the board of Egypt’s biggest producer of essential mineral oils, AMOC. Before that, Ms. El-Shenoufy held the position of Portfolio Manager at Beltone Asset Management, where she co-managed the MENA regional portfolio, valued at $28 million, acquiring great insight into the GCC, Levant and North African markets and business habits.

Since his graduation from Engineering 25 years ago, Dr. Khedr has been playing many roles in the entrepreneurial ecosystem; he built and sold startups, mentored hundreds of them, angel invested in some, worked for a venture capital and provided training to angel investors, incubators and accelerators.

He works as Managing Partner at his firm خضر وبزنس and he produces written, video and podcast content under that name. In 2020, he published a bestselling book about entrepreneurship called رائد الأعمال Inside Out.

Dr. Khedr's experience comes from the various ventures he has been working on, the DBA study as well as the ongoing consultation meetings he provides.

Mariam Kamel is an investment professional with 15+ years experience working across a wide range of the capital markets spectrum, from publicly listed companies, to legacy family businesses, to her current and more active role, advising and investing in early-stage tech startups. Ms. Kamel began her career in Investment Banking advising mid- and large-cap companies in connection with corporate restructuring, equity- and debt-financing, mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital markets transactions, in the form of capital increases through private placements and Initial Public Offerings. She then provided Investor Relations advisory services for a number of publicly-listed companies and family conglomerates, with a particular focus on supporting companies in developing their Investor Relations divisions, preparing for IPO roadshows, working closely with clients’ chief financial officers and finance teams in institutionalizing many of the reporting mechanisms, investment decisions, and business development divisions.

Ms. Kamel also co-founded FLOW, a family health and wellness center, whose operations spanned across multiple locations.

Ms. Kamel leads and manages AUC Angels, the first university-based angel investor network in the MENA region, supporting Egypt’s innovative early stage startups with high growth potential secure seed funding. Ms. Kamel is an active angel investor, with investments across Egypt and sub-saharan Africa.

12+ years experienced Business Development & E-Commerce consultant with a demonstrated history of working in different consumer goods industries . Skilled in Negotiation, Projects Management, Sales, Communication, and Strategic Planning

Dalia Ibrahim is the CEO of Nahdet Misr Publishing House, an affiliate of Nahdet Misr Group, the pioneering education and publishing group that over the course of the past 80+ years has evolved into a regional icon of knowledge; becoming a globally-recognized provider of integrated and innovative educational and digital learning solutions. Dalia is also the founder of EdVentures; MENA’s first corporate venture capital specializing in Edtech, and the founder of Ta’heal for VET Skills Excellence, which provides solutions to unemployment based on demand-driven solutions.

Hany Soliman is equipped with 19 years of diversified experience in business development, wealth management, investment banking and strategic management serving SMEs, entrepreneurs and affluent segments in several countries and across different sectors: banking, document management, telecom and more recently, fintech. Hany used to head Commercial International Bank’s Innovation & Digital Strategic Alliance department where he was responsible for building the digital business value proposition and articulating the strategy to serve the unbanked segment through mobile products and payment solutions to achieve financial inclusion. He also worked to support startups and the entrepreneurship ecosystem to complement the Innovation department’s business proposition, moreover he managed the pre-seed/seed rounds for CIB's VC "CVentures". This led to CIB being positioned as the FinTech hub in the Egyptian market. Earlier Hany led the Business Banking Development for CIB, serving and supporting SMEs starting by setting a differentiated business model and introducing different financial and non-financial solutions to the SME market with a focus on positioning Business Banking as one of the best SME service providers. Throughout his career, Hany has participated in many strategic initiatives and programs as an advisor and mentor to SMEs and entrepreneurs on how to benefit from banking services and have access to finance at different stages of their life-cycle along with angel investment activities that got him deeply engaged with several startups in the market and join their advisory boards such as Digified, Dayra and KIWE. His knowledge is backed by an ICFA from the Chartered Institution for Securities and Investment in London and MBA from Phoenix University. In his current role, Hany leads PayTabs operations in Africa, also he is an Advisory Board Member for FinTech Galaxy, a Board Member at EFG EV Fintech and an Ambassador for Africa Berlin Network.

Ayman Ismail is an international expert in entrepreneurship and economic development. He is currently the Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor at AUC School of Business and the founding director of AUC Venture Lab and AUC Angels. He is a co-founder, angel investor or board member in several fast-growing startups in fintech, microfinance and logistics. Previously, he was a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s New York office, a co-founder and managing partner at Enovio Consulting, and a Young Global Leader (YGL) at the World Economic Forum (WEF). He received his PhD in International Economic Development from MIT.

Mostafa Menessy holds a BSc in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo. His passion for Computer Security, Financial Services, and Entrepreneurship led him to meet his fellow co-founders to start Paymob, the leading Digital Payments company known for processing millions of transactions and billions of dollars in transaction volume. Since then, he has been on a mission along with his team to pave the way on how the power of scalable technology can help in improving the state of the underserved.

A 27 year old Entrepreneur with an experience in areas within Fashion, Ecommerce, Growth Hacking & Online Identity.

Co-founder & Managing Partner at In Your Shoe, a direct to consumer brand focusing on creating colorful & statement fashion items allowing people to express who they’re.

Ahmed El Assy is the co-founder and chief product at Gameball. He brings in years of experience in loyalty solutions, user experience & product management. He is the mastermind behind some of the most notable loyalty initiatives in the MENA region serving more than 150 million customers.

Honorary President of the DeInvesteerdersClub, Treasurer of BAN Nederland and Senior Investment Manager at Hivos Impact Investments. Global Ringmaster, Get In The Ring

Keith is a Scotsman who made the move to The Netherlands where he works with inspiring people to create gains for people and planet through profit. From this lowland base he travels widely, to service partners and clients in Europe, Asia and Africa. He’s been known to wear a top hat and tails, but is far more to be seen in his ubiquitous blue blazer.

Tamer Azer is a Partner at Shorooq Partners, a leading early-stage Venture Capital firm in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP) region.

Tamer began his career at the forefront of policy making with one of the world’s most influential business designers. He then went on and co-founded a number of startups and worked closely with several entrepreneurs for many years. He later joined Fahrenheit 212 as a Senior Innovation Consultant.

In 2016, he returned to Egypt to join A15, where he led investments and venture development. In 2019, he went on to join Sawari Ventures as Principal.

Tamer holds a bachelor’s from the University of Toronto and a Masters from the University of Oxford.

Francesca joined Seedstars after having taken part in the launch of an HRTech in France and co-founded a social entrepreneurship course with the UN-mandated University for Peace. At Seedstars she worked as a VC analyst MENA before managing the group's activities in the region. She eventually took on a global position as partnership manager where she works on strategic partnerships across the globe and the spinning off of new products.

HealthTech guru, graduated from Faculty of Arts- English Department, literature section. Before working in digital transformation, I have got my professional masters in Freight Forwarding business and Economy, and then shifted my career to advertising and digital transformation. I have worked on the agency-side, client-side, and built up teams for other clients and in house. In the last 8 years, I have specialized in Healthcare industry and its digitalization with concentration on patients’ experience and engagement online and offline.

Since 2006, I worked with many NGOS, programs, projects and youth Initiatives on different positions. I was working in Bibliotheca Alexandrina, RAYA Social Media, and Innovideas LLC. Also, I have worked as Group Marketing Manager for Andalusia Medical Group in Egypt and KSA. In the last couple of years, I joined Elaj Group as Group Marketing Communications Manager, then Cleopatra hospitals Group as Digital Communications Manager, since 2019. Now, I am E-business manager for Cleopatra hospitals Group.

In the public society, I am mentoring several startups with Flat6labs, Start Egypt, and Health2.0; and I was being selected to be a public speaker in many HealthTech events in Egypt and Middle East. Recently I have been selected to be a core member in The Egyptian Junior Business Association EJB, and a member in HIMSS Middle East Steering Committee.

Dr. Amr El Tayeb, MD, MRCS, CEO – Smart Medical Services

Professor of Neurosurgery, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

Worked on the both the provider, Payer and administrative sides for more than 20 years, in both private, public and developmental sectors.

Holds a Healthcare Management Diploma, a Financial Certificate from the Egyptian Financial Institute, and Stanford Endeavor Leadership Program in scaling fast growth companies in global markets from Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Founded “Smart Medical Services” a Tech-based Healthcare Management company in 2010 and has been focused more on Technology and has finished a degree in Agile Software development and is a firm believer of Big Data, Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence

Selected as an Endeavor global company & Entrepreneur in 2013 and elected as an Ashouka fellow in 2017 participating with the Phillips Foundation” Accelerating Healthcare Access Globalizer program” in 2018

Menna is currently the DMZ Cairo Director. Menna has a track record of developing and implementing startup-building programs. She has worked with Rainmaking Global on corporate innovation, corporate backed accelerators; the GIZ on entrepreneurship education; and Bedaya Center for entrepreneurship, one of the first governmental centers to support startups and SMEs.

A seasoned expert in international development cooperation, she has also worked with bi-lateral organizations such as the GIZ, and KfW, among others, to implement private sector development and job creation projects.

Menna holds a master’s degree in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Manchester, as a Chevening alumnus, and an MBA from ESLSCA business school.

Co-founder of Career 180, Freelance yard, & Talent Yard, Mohamed Akmal is an entrepreneur, event manager, career coach, and trainer par excellence. He has amassed a decade of experience founding multiple successful businesses and delivering hundreds of training courses. Akmal was also the co-founder of one of Egypt's top co-working spaces, Ebda3. A distinguished name in the career-related fairs and events, Akmal has continuously put on mega-successful job fairs throughout the years, such as Egypt Career Summit and Freelance Job Fair. Akmal is also a top-notch project manager having managed multi-million-pound projects for world-renowned companies like Etisalat, OLX, PepsiCo, Dream, and DMG.

Syrine joined the Hambro Perks Oryx Fund in June 2021. She focuses on screening, selecting, and assessing emerging technology start-ups based in the MENA region. She is also executing new investments and portfolio management.

Syrine previously worked at EQ2 Ventures as an Investment Associate and as a Private Equity Analyst at Rothschild. Syrine holds a bachelor’s in economics & management and a master’s in finance from Université Paris Dauphine.

Syrine is fluent in three languages: English, Arabic, and French.

Kim Balle is the CEO and co-founder of Global Startup Awards, which is the biggest independent startup ecosystem competition in the world, created in 2012. Global Startup Awards is operated and owned by innovation agency XO.company. Kim Balle also owns a digital content agency operating out of the Nordic with clients such as Porsche.

Born and raised in Tanta, Egypt, into an environment where love and respect for food and its culture was one of the pillars of his family traditions and rituals.

Upon graduating from his culinary school at Henry Ford College Dearborn, Michigan, USA; Moustafa shove off for the bright light in the big country, where he worked at a wide variety of restaurants and gained his experiences. He has worked under influential leaders of the Italian culinary profession who have influenced his culinary philosophy and depth of knowledge.

Throughout the challenges faced him in his life and career, he manage to grow and become a successful entrepreneur by starting his own business. Chef Moustafa is currently the Executive Chef, Cofounder and Partner for Zooba Home Grown in Egypt and in New York. His culinary philosophy and passion reflects the growing trend towards a healthier and natural lifestyle. Working with neighboring farmers to seek out the finest in regional and local organic produce is the essence of his approach. Chef Moustafa creates cuisine that pleases the senses so that the natural flavors of the food express themselves.

Moustafa manage to step out of his comfort zone and took a lot of challenges in life and reached his goals, he became a Professor, teaching Professional Cooking and introduction to hospitality, The Egyptian Ambassador at the culture and Heritage committee, The technical chef for the EU for the Mediterranean Diet Project, the Egyptian ambassador at the WORLD CHEFS WITHOUT BORDERS, and the winner of the Falafel Festival in London 2016.

Moustafa is an exceptional innovative executive chef with strong leadership qualification combined with outstanding team building skills. He is an accomplished experienced food service consultant, who believes that each and every project deserves new and unique ideas, so he brings his expertise, professional background, vision, skills and passion to all of his assigned projects.

He spent a decade of challenges, successes, efforts and accomplishments in the field of documenting The Egyptian food heritage. As a chef he was the most capable model for introducing the spirit of the Egyptian cuisine. Moustafa was the most brilliant to find a permanent and renewed rhythm to add to the memory of the culinary community. Lately, He worked on different projects to document the history of the Egyptian cuisine, which is what he call “Egyptian culinary originality”, Clarifying the facts and details in every scientific honesty and record all the victories and setbacks that accompanied its development through different times, in order to deepen the values derived from the history of the Egyptian cuisine and keep pace with developments taking place in the whole world.

His culinary philosophy and passion reflects the growing trend towards a healthier and natural lifestyle. Working with neighboring farmers to seek out the finest in regional and local organic produce is the essence of his approach. Chef Moustafa creates cuisine that pleases the senses so that the natural flavors of the food express themselves.

In addition to cooking, Chef Moustafa's passion is to develop younger chefs to discover their own talents in the same way that he was encouraged in his early career. With this aim, he serves and encourages young chefs to attend cooking courses and cooking workshops, and provides ongoing coaching support to upcoming talents.

His Favorite thing to do is to travel all over Egypt to discover the Hidden Treasures that makes Egyptian Cuisine very unique.

Favorite Quote: “As chefs we get paid to play with food....so I make sure to enjoy that”.

Sabrine Assem is the Founder and CEO of Untap, a competition management platform enabling innovation-driven organizations to tap into the power of open innovation and generate creative solutions. We help organizations plan, launch, manage, promote and assess open innovation challenges, hackathons, startup programs, creative contests, employee innovation programs, and more.

Sabrine got her Master's degree in Digital Innovation and Information Systems from Warwick Business School in the UK and is a Chevening Alumni member.

She worked as an innovation consultant and researcher at the German-Arab Chamber of Industry & Commerce and multiple other entities before founding Untap. She is also the founder of SolverMine, a former open innovation intermediary connecting organizations with R&D challenges to networks of problem solvers through crowdsourcing and innovation challenges.

Sabrine graduated from the German School in Alexandria and is a proud Alexandrian. She's also a graduate of the German University in Cairo (GUC), where she majored in Innovation Management and Information Systems and used to work as a Teaching Assistant.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Mohamed Wahby currently serves as the CEO of AMAN E-Payments, a leading FINTECH Company that pledges a better quality of life to people through convenient, easy and available e-payment solutions. Prior to his role in AMAN, Wahby was the CEO of Raya Social Media, one of the newest subsidiaries of Raya Holding. Since its inception in 2011, Raya Social Media launched nassya.com, the first hyper-local social network in Egypt and the Arab world. Prior to Raya, Wahby spent all of his professional career in the ICT sector in Egypt, working for distinguished companies including Microsoft, IBM, The Bank of Nova Scotia and others in various positions including technology management, audience, and product marketing, and product development.

Under Wahby’s leadership, AMAN aspires to become the leading FINTECH Company in the region and envisions an ultimate Egyptian cash-less society with full financial inclusion, previously unattainable segments of Egypt’s population.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Wahby holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from Ain Shams University and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Louisville. Wahby also holds an MBA from RITI, Maastricht School of Management in addition to graduating from the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at the Harvard Business School.

I hold10 of years of experience in Growth and Marketing in telecom, ride hailing, and consumer financing, within Egypt and Internationally. I use this experience, my knowledge of Data, and tools to make decisions on how to grow products and businesses.

Mahmoud is a Mechatronics Engineer, graduated from Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University.

He received a silver medal in The Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions 2021 for early medical diagnosis using artificial intelligence (CIRA).

• Worked as a volunteer researcher at the Military Technical College in the unmanned integrated systems for a period followed by military service inside the college to complete research for a period of 7 years.

• Worked since 2013 in the jet factory in the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) and carried out many studies that reflected the modernization of traditional mechanical operation machines and also shared some military technologies for jet engines.

• He participated in the local communications that are related to the coming industrial revolution

• He established the initiative Robotics for all in 2015 and graduated an innovative generation capable of keeping pace with the world in technology and intelligence, so he sponsors (ROBOTO Academy). The number of students at the academy has reached 1,800 students so far.

• He invented the robot "CIRA" February 2020 as the first medical robot in Egypt with self-efforts and as the first robot to take PCR swabs, ranked by the United Nations at the level as one of the top 50 innovations and according to Forbes Middle East magazine for the top 100 innovations and also according to Reuters One of the top 20 medical robots in the world. Recently, the robot CIRA won the silver medal at the Geneva Inventions in its exceptional session 2021 and 2022.

• Established Artifinity as the first Egyptian limited liability company for artificial intelligence and space technology.

Influencer in world youth forum 2022.

Tarek Assaad is Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures, Egypt’s leading VC fund. Tarek is also Managing Partner at Ideavelopers where he has been managing $50m of VC investments since 2009, including some of Egypt’s most prominent technology startups. Tarek is a director of Smart Card Applications, SiWare and IdealRatings. In this role, he was also responsible for the investment in Fawry, the leading bill payment and presentment company in Egypt, which realized a $100m exit in 2015.

Tarek started his career as an engineer at Lucent Technologies then as a software developer for SAQQARA Systems, an internet startup in Silicon Valley. He later became General Manager of CID Consulting where he led the company’s high growth, helping it to become one of the leading local consulting firms in Egypt.

Tarek holds a B.Sc. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Germine has 5 years of experience in banking, venture capital, and the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Germine is currently an Associate and Egypt Operations Manager at MEVP. She joined the company 2 years ago to launch MEVP's Egypt office and is currently working, along the Managing Director, on expanding MEVP's footprint in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining MEVP, Germine worked in the investment unit at Flat6Labs where she helped manage a portfolio of over 55 startups across diverse industries. Prior to that, Germine was an Assistant Product Development Manager at the Commercial International Bank (CIB). During her time at CIB, she worked alongside the bank's senior management on revamping the SME Banking department's strategy, products, and processes. Germine holds a bachelor's degree in Management Technology, with a double major in Economics and Finance, from The German University in Cairo. During her undergraduate years, Germine led several entrepreneurial initiatives and conducted her bachelor thesis on the Egyptian SME financing landscape.

Experienced in Business Development & Product Development, Comes across with 10 years of diversified experience in Business development and SME's businesses, through 3 industries ( Banking, Operators and Financial services ) With a project management background and credit analysis .

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) International Business Management ( Faculty of Management Sciences), PMP & CMA Certified Member.

Reem Al Mosabbeh titled the youngest female Emirati Tech Entrepreneur that runs an IT solutions house, a startup mentor and speaker who was recently featured in Entrepreneur Middle East,Innovation Arabia 13 MIT, Global Entrepreneurs EOGSEA, Masdar Future Sustainability Leaders, Arab Excellence, TechStars & Dubai Chamber.

She is the founder of a Tech Firm called Retech, the co-founder of Unipreneur Inc. (An entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and leadership development platform for students) and is also a member of the Dubai Youth Council ,SDGs Global Council and Al Ghurair Foundation Council.

Through her work with the Dubai Youth Council and other Govt entities, she is involved in running various youth entrepreneurship and startup development initiatives, like GITEX YouthX Unipreneur (UAE's biggest and 1st of it's kind youth entrepreneurship event), the Young Falcons, Dubai Metavator Challenge, the UAE Hackathon and many more.

Over 16 years in Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, and Private Equity. Prior to heading to Beltone SME, he was Country Director at GroFin – a specialized SME financing company – for 5 years. 

Mr. Ashour holds a BS in Accounting & Finance from Faculty of Commerce, Cairo University and is an Accredited SME Consultant “ASMEC” – Association of Accredited Small Business Consultants – USA.

Strategic Sourcing and Procurement expert with 16+ years experience with a demonstrated history of working in the different industries from FMCG's, Sport & Entertainment, E-commerce and Heavy Equipment.

Contributed and managed a wide variety of projects, from establishing procurement policies, KPI's and SLA as well as budgeting and procuring transformational projects of growth for the organizations.

Worked for global market leaders and innovators in multiple fields: FMCG's, E-commerce and Heavy Equipment with local and regional scopes. Have also worked as instructor of supply chain in a non profit organization to help fresh grads understand more the work nature of the supply chain.

MBA holder from Edinburgh business school.

A commercial strategist and visionary leader with more than 15 years of outstanding experience and accomplishments across OTC, Pharmaceutical business, FMCG, white goods who possess a range of knowledge and experience across different fields of consumer marketing, retail, trade & shopper marketing, digital marketing, medical detailing & expert marketing, e-commerce & sales management. An omnichannel marketing strategist who believe in the exquisite importance of Phygital approach & omnichannel related adaptations.

Expertise lies in successfully conceptualizing and implementing innovative marketing/ sales/ e-commerce initiatives, with an eye on the relevant consumer/ shopper behaviors —to drive market impact and business profitable growth. Blended with a strong ability of managing regional teams, with +10 years’ experience as leadership team member; focused on staff development & profit generation while ensuring that governance framework is in place, in use.

A strong believer in D&I, who is proudly leading women empowerment program with immense determination to challenge unconscious bias & help women to have/use their strong voice at the table, help paving the way for a more inclusive women empowered future

Stephen Key is the world’s leading expert on how to license a product idea and a 2018-2019 AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. As an independent inventor, he achieved repeat success commercializing products ranging from simple novelty gifts to complex packaging innovations. He is currently the patent strategist for Fishbone Packaging, the environmentally-friendly solution for single-use plastic rings.

In 1999, he cofounded inventRight, the coaching program that has taught inventors from more than 65 countries how to harness the power of open innovation and the licensing business model to bring their ideas to market.

He is the author of One Simple Idea, Sell Your Ideas With or Without a Patent, Become a Professional Inventor, and Licensing Ideas using LinkedIn.

To help creative people become profitable inventors, he has written more than 1,000 articles for Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur magazines and published over 900 videos on his popular YouTube channel inventRightTV.

I have over 13 years of work experience in the IT space, around 8 years within the Pharma industry, my main objective is to bridge the gap between pharma companies and Health care professionals as well as patients, achieving the business strategic objectives via leveraging technology. In this capacity, I partner with business stakeholders to create strategies, lead the delivery of initiatives.

Yasmine Nagaty brings 10 years of program management and leadership experience in youth development and employability programs as well as entrepreneurship. She currently is the Acceleration Manager for AUC Venture Lab, Egypt's first university-based startup accelerator and an award-winning accelerator in Africa and the MENA region. As part of her role,

Heba Ali is an Egyptian/American investor, development economist, and operator.

With over 15 years of global experience, Ali’s expertise spans across investing in high-growth and impact-driven startups, fostering emerging market linkages, and researching tech entrepreneurship ecosystems since 2007 – with a particular focus on Egypt and MEA.

Ali has a Master of Science in International Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she specialized in business model innovation at the base of the pyramid, tech and socio-economic impact, and economic development policy. She focused her research on critically analyzing tech entrepreneurship ecosystems from an economic perspective. Ali obtained her Bachelor of Science in Management Technology from the German University in Cairo, where she double-majored in Strategic Management and International Business.

Dr.Emad Kattara 26 years of experience in the banking field beginning from Barclays, Arab African, & Audi bank.

Holds a Business Administration Master's degree in Customer Service from AAST.

12 years of experience in the field of training at the Egyptian Banking Institute.

CEO & founder of Banker's Lounge Academy.

He is also an economist, journalist and broadcaster, & has many articles and press interviews with senior banking experts and economists.

Belal Zahran started his career in the banking industry in Egypt for five years before shifting gears and entering the startup world.

It was there at Bayt that Belal learned everything about startups, business models, growth strategies, profitability, and most importantly SaaS (software as a service).

Spending eight years at the startup, taking on all sorts of roles, from sales executive all the way to country manager. After spending five years as country manager, he was ready to move on to the next chapter.

A former banker turned entrepreneurial executive, he has played a key role in Saudi-based Food-tech and FinTech platform Foodics’ successful expansion in Egypt. Since leading Foodics in 2021 as country manager, Zahran has increased the company’s recurring revenues and customer base tenfold, making it one of the leading food-tech companies in the country.

In less than three years since entering the local market, Foodics has worked with some of Egypt’s leading restaurants in Cairo and beyond, in governorates and cities such as Dahab, Aswan, Minya, and the North Coast. It plans to further expand across all of Egypt’s governorates by providing innovative technologies and solutions to empower food businesses to fast-track their growth in the market.

Co-Founder & CEO Grinta

Co-Founder & Chairman Seha Healthcare

Mohamed Azab is active in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, where he sits on a number of investment committees and boards. He is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor in both Egypt and the US. He is an endeavor entrepreneur and board member at Endeavor Egypt.

Azab obtained both his BA & MBA in Investment Management from Washington State University and Owners President Management program at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard Alumni and a visiting guest speaker for Seha Capital HBS case.

Seha is building an integrated healthcare platform in Egypt with the vision of transforming healthcare services in the country. It has invested in diagnostics, specialty centers and hospitals.

Grinta is modernising the pharmaceutical supply chain and empowering independent pharmacies across Africa through a B2B market place.

Inji is a seasoned economist & management consultant with over 17 years of experience in both fields. On the government policy side Inji has been the project manager for the development of the Egypt Vision 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy, as well as being the lead strategist for several projects undertaken by the Egyptian Ministries of Trade & Industry, Investment, and Planning. On the enterprise development side, Inji has worked across corporations and consulting firms in Egypt and the UAE in order to develop company strategies, launch new products, redesign the organization and re-engineer business processes. In that capacity Inji has worked with the real estate, fintech, food, chemical, plastic, furniture, automotive, engineering and retail sectors.

Inji co-founded Acumen Consulting, a boutique management consulting firm in Egypt which is concerned with improving the business environment for SMEs and ensuring their integration into the global value chains. Inji leads assignments in the fields strategy, innovation, investment and business planning, organization development and design, operational efficiency and marketing and branding for both policy makers and enterprises (predominantly family businesses).

Most recently Inji joined Mastercard as a Senior Managing Consultant in the Advisory team for MEA; leading projects in financial inclusion, digital transformation, loyalty and banking innovation.

Inji is also a serial mentor and angel investor in health-tech. She is the Lean Startup Co. ambassador to Egypt and sits on the advisory board of the National Employment Pact (founded by GIZ).

Inji is an economist with an MBA in finance, and a Stanford Graduate School of Business degree in corporate innovation. She is currently enrolled in an MIT supply chain management degree.

Ismail Hafez is the Chief Business Officer at Rabbit, which he co-founded in 2021. He most recently served as the Regional General Manager at Kazyon, one of the largest retail players in Egypt, where he led a 1200 people strong team running over 150 stores nationwide. Prior to that, he held leadership roles at Dorra Group and Orange, where he ran marketing efforts across 5 countries in the Middle East.

Ismail is a well-seasoned business and people leader, with over 18 years of experience spanning the retail, telecom, real estate, FMCG and F&B industries.

Ismail holds an MBA from HULT International Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a Marketing specialization and a minor of Economics from the American University in Cairo.

Ismail is also a serial entrepreneur, launching and managing several F&B ventures since 2007!

Said is currently a Partner at Global Ventures. Prior to joining Global Ventures, Said was COO of the e-commerce platform, Jamalon, where he led the company’s operational efforts and played a pivotal role in helping the company raise its Series B round. Prior to that, Said was COO at EFS Facilities Services leading the security services business and EFS's activities in Jordan. Said also previously held the position of CEO of Groupon UAE, where he was responsible for managing and sustainably growing Groupon’s Local, Goods and Travel business lines’ revenue across the UAE through the acquisition of new merchants. Before Groupon, Said worked with Deloitte's strategy consulting team, as well as SHUAA Capital as an AVP in the CEO's Office, in addition to previously working in private equity at the firms Dubai International Capital (including Jordan Dubai Capital), and Abraaj Capital. Said holds an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Mahdi Al Olabi is the founder and CEO of R2S Logistics, an end-to-end eCommerce enablement technology and operations provider for eCommerce merchants in Egypt. R2S provides logistics tech and embedded fintech solutions to support eCommerce growth in Egypt and soon in more emerging markets. Launched in 2016, R2S has had five successful years of growth and success in last mile delivery services and now is offering storage, fulfillment, last mile delivery, parcel pick up and drop off network, returns management and COD remittance solutions for sellers of all sizes. R2S is focused on supporting the growth of the eCommerce ecosystem in the region which will in turn lead to the growth of many micro and SME’s and entrepreneurship in Egypt and African continent in this space.

Mahdi has more than twenty years of hands-on management experience in eCommerce operations, in North America and the MENA Region. Previous to launching R2S, he managed the setup and scaling of Souq.com between 2013 and 2015 as its Head of Operations in Egypt. He started his career in the eCommerce logistics field in Toronto, Canada in 1998, and was part of dynamic start ups indigo.ca and grocerygateway.com

Mahdi is passionate about driving eCommerce innovations and customer centric solutions to both merchant and consumer, that are sustainable, efficient, economical and disruptive. Recently, he led the launch of the region’s first eCommerce training Academy for women entrepreneurs in eCommerce which plans to empower and support 1,000 female Micro and SME’s within the next 3 years. Other interests that are key on his agenda for the next phase are: creating jobs in the sector through training, development of both youth and entrepreneurs, working on sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions for eCommerce logistics operations, and using eCommerce to support local production and exports from Egypt.

Bassel joined the valU team in January 2022 as our Chief Operations Officer. Bassel was part of the Dean’s List of Honors when he graduated in 2010 from the American University in Cairo. He majored in Mechanical Engineering & minored in Business Administration. His first job was in Procter & Gamble (P&G) was Distributor Operations Finance Manager where he managed a $600M business at the time. He then transitioned into a Commercial Finance Manager role where he was responsible for the Baby Care, Feminine Care, Shave Care, Oral Care & Batteries business in Egypt & the Levant countries where he was responsible for all commercial financial aspects for the business. After spending 4 years in Egypt’s P&G office as part of the Near East organization, Bassel went to P&G’s E-IMEA HQ office in Geneva as the India, Middle East & Africa (IMEA) for Baby Care Product Supply Finance where he was responsible for the full supply chain which included 5 plants in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa & India. After 2 years in Geneva, Bassel moved one last time with P&G to their regional office in Dubai where he was responsible for IMEA Skin Care & E-IMEA Personal Care business which operated in 13 countries. In 2018, Bassel joined Uber Eats as their first full time employee in Egypt. After helping the team launch the business in Egypt, Bassel led the operations for two years and was responsible for Courier, Eater, Restaurant & Marketplace operations. Bassel then joined Amazon’s Ultra Fast Grocery team based out of London and led the 3rd party grocery business which operated in the UK, France, Italy, Spain & Germany. He then joined Minly, the first passion economy start-up in the region which raised $3.5M of seed funding from leading regional VCs (4DX, B&Y and Global Ventures), as a late co-founder, Chief Operations Officer and interim Chief Commercial Officer.

A proven business leader in local/multinational organizations with almost 20 years of track record in growing businesses, brands and people.

Able to work in different cultural environment. strong experience in major function such as Marketing, Sales, Business development . . . etc. able to manage and motivate people to overcome the various business challenges utilizing the valuable communication and managerial skills.

Expert in planning, implementation and creating dynamic Marketing/Brand strategies that engage consumers and grow market share. Analytical, problem solver and Result-oriented with demonstrated success in turnaround.

Strategic marketing expert with 10+ years of digital experience in growth, demand generation and engagement strategies across different verticals and regions.

He's been immersed into teaching and academia for over 10 years delivering special topics in international marketing, digital advertising, and marketing management courses for university undergrads and Marketing/Communications professionals.

Shehab comes with 17 years of extensive experience in customer happiness & operations management, customer journey design & implementation, strategic planning & execution, business transformation & governance model, people Management, talent management & leadership.

Shehab is experience of global leadership at scale in different industries (Telecommunication, Logistics , Supply chain, E-commerce & Fin-Tech, focus on the whole customer life cycle.

Shehab joined Vodafone Group Shared Services in 2007 where he had different roles among which was leading scaled operations, Vodafone AUS, NZ, Qatar & UK Offshore operations and partner management.

Shehab joined Aramex Egypt Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain and Storage in 2018 managing the whole customer life cycle for B2B & B2C since the on-boarding until churn by building a contact strategy which includes all the stakeholders applying the RACI model with agreed service level for each stage in the customer life cycle generating multiple continuous improvement & cost optimization initiatives and ensuring tangible savings from operational plans as multiskilling.

Shehab joined Homzmart E-commerce a One-Stop-shop platform specialized in home goods and furniture sector through visual content technologies in 2020 as VP of customer operations.

Shehab joined Moneyfellows Fintech company trusted & convenient Money Circles in 2021, his role entailed being the primary responsible all customer journey design for our strategic objectives with full accountability of performance management, people management and customer experience, overall relationship to ensure the implementation of the B2B & B2C customer happiness strategy, also design and implementation of a clear top level engagement and governance strategy including regular partner review forums. offer first class communication skills and ability to translate strategy into actions, change operating models and improve overall customer experience.

Shehab controlled overall CH budget and oversee 350 FTE staff, with C-level/board advisor on business excellence initiatives; shaping top-tier decisions & responsible for the new customers still being a loyal customers.

Bahia Alyafi has more than 14 years of experience in consulting and is currently responsible for Innovation advisory services at Alyafi IP Group. She focuses on Intellectual property consulting including innovation index, brand strategy, innovation strategy, strategic portfolio development, commercialization and alignment of Intellectual property objectives across organizations. She has extensive experience in handling local and international clients managing the innovation cycle from planning and creation to sale and or purchase.

Experience

She graduated from the American University of Beirut in 2006 and upon her graduation she moved to the United Kingdom and worked at Grant Thornton in the corporate finance department. She was instrumental in several transactions, including the an acquisition of a piping business a disposal of a real-estate development business and the the debt restructuring of multiple educational institutions. Throughout her tenure at Grant Thornton, Bahia worked on assessing and evaluating companies for potential acquisitions and restructuring opportunities on behalf of clients.

Bahia then joined PwC as an associate in the audit department, where her expertise was in insurance, oil and gas, not for profit, food products and retail. She was continuously promoted on a fast trajectory and transferred to the transactions services consulting department working in due diligence, valuation and financial in the Middle East and Africa.

Following her tenure at PwC, Bahia Joined Alyafi IP Group, to restructure the IP department and set up the intellectual property consulting department which services local and international clients with innovation and intellectual property services locally and regionally. She has set up multiple offices around the middle east region building relationships with local businesses and government officials. She has led multiple IP consulting matters in a range of industries including; automotive (Ferrari SA), high end fashion (Valentino) entertainment (Formula 1), publishing (TPR), education (Becker) hospitality (IHG), medical (illumina) and technology (WeChat). She then launched Easy Trademarks as part of the innovation initiative which aims to protect, grow and maintain trademarks in high growth markets via an online accessible platform.

Bahia has passion for meeting people and has delivered multiple trainings and talks about innovation and intellectual property in the region.

Professional memberships:

Co-Chair - Global Advisory Council; International trademark Association (January 2019-December 2021)

Advisory board member – SAIP Saudi IP Authority

Secretary – Intellectual Asset Management team (MARQUES)

Licensing Executives Society – Member

Salma Shahin is the Head of Marketing & Communications at Thndr. Prior to joining Thndr, she was a Regional Account Director at IMPACT BBDO Dubai. Salma led on a number of acclaimed campaigns recognized in global & regional award shows, including Cannes Lions, Dubai Lynx, MENA

Effies, Clios , WARC & D&AD.

She has well-rounded experience in integrated communications, starting her career in Public Relations & Social Media at Omnicom’s FleishmanHillard in

Washington DC. During that time, she worked within the crisis communication & brand marketing departments on global accounts.

Salma is a University of Maryland, U.S.A graduate, holding a bachelors degree in Communication Studies.

Nataly is an investment manager at Seedstars, leading the efforts in MENA and Pakistan. Previously, Nataly worked with several leading VCs in MENA, overseeing e-commerce, fintech, and logistics startups across multiple stages and regions. She also worked on value creation operations for portfolio companies and LPS, while also contributing to impact investment practices and measurements for seed-stage and unicorn startups.

With 10 years of experience in the field, Habiba Helmy is a veteran in the startups and entrepreneurship support field in Egypt and MENA. In her current role as the Innovation Lead at Arab Bank Egypt, Habiba runs multiple activities, initiatives, and pilot projects with the goal of accelerating Arab Bank’s digital transformation journey. She does this through conducting due diligence on promising investment opportunities in Fintech companies in Egypt and leading the implementation of POCs and Banking as a Service (BaaS) offerings. Additionally, she conducts activities aimed at fostering an innovation culture through engaging staff internally in design thinking workshops as well as internal incubation programs to develop ideas into implementable banking solutions.

In 2020, Habiba headed Womentum, the MENA region’s first acceleration program focused on women-led tech startups. During her time with Womentum, she designed and directed a virtual accelerator program for women led-startups operating in different industries and geographies.

Prior to Womentum, Habiba headed the non-financial arm of EGBANKS’s youth banking platform, MINT, as the Hub Director where she launched MINT Incubator and created multiple skills development programs for the bank’s youth client segment.

In 2016, Habiba received the Chevening award and acquired her MSc. Degree in Management from the University of Bristol, UK, where she focused her dissertation on women entrepreneurs in Egypt.

Before leaving Egypt for her master’s degree, Habiba served as an Entrepreneur Selection and Growth Manager at Endeavor Egypt, a non-profit organization focused on developing the economy through supporting and strengthening high-impact entrepreneurs. During her time at Endeavor, she managed a portfolio of 9 multi-million dollar SMEs where she helped grow these companies.

Habiba also served as the Country Lead in Egypt at MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Pan Arab, a non-profit affiliated with MIT University. During her time at MITEF, Habiba introduced the Social Entrepreneurship Track as part of the MITEF Arab Startup Competition, the biggest startup competition across the MENA region. She also established MITEF’s partner network in Egypt and organized the competition & Final Award Ceremony in Cairo with 300+ attendees from 10+ countries.

Prior to joining MITEF Pan Arab, Habiba briefly worked with the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program (EIP) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on creating boot camps for early stage entrepreneurs and on the launch of the AUC Venture Lab, the first university based accelerator in Egypt.

Habiba graduated with high honors from AUC where she double majored in Communication & Media Arts and Psychology.

Mohamed Sekkina is the General Manager of talabat mart, the leading local q-commerce platform in the region, delivering everyday essentials in 20 mins.

Prior to heading tmart Egypt in November 2021, Sekkina acted as Country Manager for tmart UAE, Head of Commercial Operations, and Market Launcher, where he lead the launch of talabat mart through building a network of over 30 dark stores across the region.

His early career days were pillared in multinational FMCG giant, Procter & Gamble, where he spent over four years leading Pampers’ supply chain in GCC and Pakistan, among different other roles within the company. In his tenure in P&G, he achieved record-breaking +$44M sales improvement for BabyCare, $36M for Fabric and HomeCare, and oversaw an intricate supply chain involving tens of plants.

Before shifting his career to management, Sekkina worked as a Software Engineer and Teaching Assistant at GUC. Sekkina holds a BSc in Computer Engineering with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the German University in Cairo (GUC), where he completed his thesis in the German Center for AI.

Sekkina is an avid padel player and also a foodie who not only appreciates a good meal but also enjoys cooking one.

Graduated from the American University in Cairo with highest honors & worked at P&G as an assistant brand manager handling DTC at the age of 22. When I became a mother at the age of 24, I realized there was a huge market gap when it comes to supporting new moms. Even though motherhood is one of the oldest professions, with all these ever-growing online chunks of information, in this fast-paced world, there wasn't a single comprehensive, tailored support system for new moms in Egypt. This was the discontinuous shift moment when I realized change was needed, this is when Rahet Bally was born.

Rahet Bally—which translates to “peace of mind” in Arabic—was born in August 2015, not long after my son.

As of early 2020, more than 4 million women in Egypt have been connected to Rahet Bally’s services, which encompass financial, physical, intellectual, and social support.

Rahet Bally Supports All Mothers—and its Employees

Beyond reaching more millions of women through one of its four pillars of support, the company employs an all-female staff. This is unusual in Egypt, where it is hard to find women accountants and technicians. We have almost 100 women working full time in the company divided between our headquarters and our other locations. The company is mother-friendly, too. Employees can work from home any time and take advantage of flexible maternity leave, making it possible for mothers to get a decent job with a market-competitive salary.

Hana graduated with double majors of Business Administration concentration Finance from AUC and Medicine from Ain Shams University achieving highest honors in both disciplines. Following her passion for both Medicine & Finance, she joined Elaj Group in 2020, given its specialization in investments in the healthcare sector allowing Hana to utilize her educational background of both disciplines. During her tenor at Elaj, Hana founded the data analysis department thus significantly improving the patient experience. Additionally, she played a pivotal role in the establishment of Tawasol Holdings for Financial Investments in 2021 to be the investment arm of Elaj Group and to act as a holding for Elaj Group’s current and future investments. Currently, Hana acts as the Investment Director of Tawasol Holdings who leads and directs the investment team focusing on identifying, analysing, and executing the investment opportunities. Hana led the very first investment of Tawasol in the startup scene through investing in Valify Solutions where It is foreseen as one of the most potential startups with a great impact and game changer in the regtech industry.

Khaled Lababidi is an Operating Partner at Arbor Ventures, a FinTech focused Venture Capital firm operating across MENA, South East Asia and North America.

Prior to Arbor, Khaled has held various senior positions at banks such as BNP Paribas, FAB and HSBC. 

Khaled received his B.Sc in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from Oxford University.

Ambitious Digital Transformation Lead with over 14 years of diversified experience of marketing, medical, commercial, and digital in the pharmaceutical industry with a track record of success driving new launches, new ideas, and crafting digital strategies either in Egypt or international assignments in Asia cluster and Global functions Passionate about leading business transformation through innovation, resilience and customer-centricity.

The first Egyptian girl to create content for games and CEO for a Saudi organization called Sky Rockets, and a creator of gaming content

Fadi Antaki- Founder & CEO at TFK

Fadi Antaki the Founder & CEO at TFK, is a veteran tech venture builder and investor. He has invested in the region’s leading and fastest growing tech startups.

Antaki’s entrepreneurial experience enabled him to mentor and guide many entrepreneurs to overcome their challenges in management, generating traction and fundraising. Being an entrepreneur at heart; he founded TFK.me in 2020, the leading digital partner for Fashion brands in Egypt which is a curated Fashion marketplace having a portfolio of more than 200 partner brands and 135K+ customers.

His purpose is helping Fashion entrepreneurs grow and sustain their brands by offering them all the tools and services needed for their digital transformation to sell online so they focus on enhancing the quality of their products and collections.

As the General Partner of A15, and during the period from 2015-2019, he led the teams of 19 portfolio companies across 17 regional offices with more than 1,000 employees. Antaki turned the corporate structure of an Orascom company OTVentures into a lean VC as A15 by decentralizing all functions and creating synergies across all companies. Overall A15 succeeded in conducting 7 exits crowned by MENA’s first dragon exit which is TPay exit to Helios Investment partners in 2018, the Otlob exit to Rocket Internet in 2014 and A15’s largest dragon exit which is Connect Ads exit to Aleph holding in 2021.

Fadi Currently sits on the boards of companies in Egypt, Mauritius, Dubai, Singapore and USA. He supports those companies with extensive market and domain knowledge, networks, and strategic operational support impacting their business growth.

Antaki was graduated from the American University in Cairo with a Business Administration Major