MENA Opportunities

Founder of Arabic email provider Maktoob and chairman of Jabbar Internet Group, Samih Toukan, has called on Governments and private businesses in the region to help build a new entrepreneurial ecosystem. Speaking to Arabian Business StartUp, Toukan said attitudes need to change in order for start-up businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to flourish, arguing that more money must be channeled into this sector, and a support system established to offer advice and mentoring. “There’s a lot of money here but it’s not going in the right direction,” he said. “Investments need to go elsewhere – not just real estate or to projects outside the region. The online sector, and entrepreneurship in general, is very important to the Arab world. There are lots of ideas and entrepreneurship, and the more we give them in financing and support, the more we can build an ecosystem. “I would like to see more investment from private companies and governments towards entrepreneurship.”Having f...

It says a lot about the enhanced status of the entrepreneur that one of the best-selling books of 2011 was the biography of the deceased Steve Jobs. This success was, of course, partly due to the huge popularity of iPods, iPads, iPhones and other products made by Apple, the company Jobs came to embody. But it is also indicative of the increasing fascination with and glorification of “the entrepreneur”. Suddenly, it seems, everybody wants to be one. Moreover, commentators, policymakers and even politicians of all sorts hail entrepreneurs as the saviours of the world economy. So, how do you get to join this pantheon? The good news is that there is no set type. A new book produced by Regus entitled Growth in a Difficult Decade and based on interviews with more than 60 successful entrepreneurs reveals that they come from all corners of the globe, from all kinds of backgrounds and are active in a wide variety of business sectors. However, it is true that they tend to share certain attri...

If you’re planning a corporate meeting or special event for your company, your choice of professional keynote speaker to kick off the itinerary can be every bit as important as the venue, theme and timing for the occasion. While not every conference may call for the services of these individuals, who typically take the form of subject matter experts, thought leaders or bestselling authors, their inclusion can often enhance team-building exercises, training programmes and executive summits. Typically, motivational speaking presenters are utilised by executives or meeting planners looking to set a specific tone for a programme, galvanise heightened interest in occasions, or inspire teams by sharing authoritative insight and outside perspective. So what should you know if you want to hire a keynote speaker? Let’s start by considering the basics. Types of Professional Speakers: A professional speaker gets paid to provide keynotes, workshops, seminars or breakout sessions at internation...

Capital from MENA accounted for 13 per cent of the total cross border investment coming into Europe, a new report says. MENA investment in Europe rose by 25 per cent year-on-year during the first half of this year to reach $7.9 billion, according to a report by Colliers International. Total cross border investment in Europe rose by 32 per cent to top €44 billion, while capital from the MENA accounted for 13 per cent of investment coming from outside Europe. The report also highlighted a growing interest among investors for alternative products in continental Europe. “MENA buyers are increasingly prepared to venture outside Central London, looking at alternative asset classes such as hotels and serviced apartments in other tier 1 cities,” said John D. Davis, chief executive officer, Middle East & North Africa at Colliers International.“ Recent examples include Qatar Investment Authority’s acquisition of five more properties to its hotel portfolio, located in Cannes, Madrid, Fran...

Good news for middle income house seekers searching for affordable apartments: Sayfco Holding, the Lebanon-based high-end real estate developer is going back to its roots, said Chahe Yerevanian, Sayfco’s chairman. After having abandoned the middle income market for many years, the company is planning to launch a new housing project in Jdeideh (Metn) this month for mid-range budgets. ‘Abraj Jdeideh’ will feature five 15-storey towers and will include apartments ranging from 122 square meters, which will be priced at $140,000, to 166 square meters — priced at $180,000. Sayfco is not planning to stop developing luxurious housing projects, but is now entering a new market, which is projected to be healthier in the forthcoming years. “Luxury [demand] will stop for a while because of the economic crisis. The prices [of high-end apartments] will never go down, but I think luxury will stop having a quick turnover,” said Yerevanian. Sayfco has finalized the plans and is waiting for the per...

At some point in our lives, we will most likely have to stand in front of people and present an idea or a project. While the experience of having people stare at you while you talk (or stutter) may be stressful, many believe that public speaking done properly can be a rewarding experience. It's certainly a critical part of an entrepreneur’s life, as major mistakes in speech, cadence, or tone could throw off a potential investor or co-founder during a client or investment pitch. In a recent post on The Next Web, founder Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, who himself had his ‘fair share of presentations’, listed ten mistakes public speakers often make when giving a presentation. In his post, he advised speakers to never start their presentations by describing how they physically feel, and to avoid sentences like "I’ll get back to that later," and "can you hear me?" or worse, "I can’t see you because of the lights," or "I’ll keep it short." In hi...

After working through some major challenges, Lebanese entrepreneur Alia Khatib recently launched Feeditch, a new mobile app designed to serve the Arab world’s foodies. The app acts as a mobile taste-tester, allowing users to discover and review specific meals at restaurants across the MENA. Khatib first dreamed up the project while living in Dubai and working at a distribution company after graduating with a degree in marketing. When looking to go out at night, she found it difficult to trust the few restaurant review sites available at the time, particularly when wanting to try different ethnic cuisines. She decided that she could do it better. “I was learning [in Dubai], but then the learning curve stopped at one point and I wanted to try and go to another company. But then I thought ‘since I’m young, why don’t I start now’… because later when you get older you can’t make sacrifices for starting your own business as easily,” says Khatib. Finally, after two years in the UAE, she ...

Mubarak Al Suwaidi wasn’t always an entrepreneur, the young tech-savvy founder of Suwaidish Technologies (ST) is actually an engineer with a higher diploma in Aircraft Engineering and various Aviation Engineering licenses, formerly employed by Emirates Airlines. Al Suwaidi started up his company due to a niche need he found in the market- he was running a home-based operation that sold traditional Emirati women’s fashions including Shailah using social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, BBM, and a WordPress blog to encourage online clients. He decided on creating a portal to try his hand at e-commerce after having a physical store at Global Village between 2012 and 2013,and says that he encountered huge difficulties inthe process including receiving online payment, and online shipping logistics. “Nowadays, many local entrepreneurs have found the obvious and extraordinary benefits of marketing and selling online. Most of us dream to own our own online store where we have fu...

Ahmed Yahya, Chief Information Officer, Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre, takes time out to speak about his career journey which led him to the Abu Dhabi firm. Yahya, the path that has landed him at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre has been winding. Even determining his origins is an exercise in geography. “I am originally Palestinian, I am Jordanian and I am American,” he answers cryptically. “But I was born in Saudi Arabia.” He explains that his parents are both Palestinian, but like many Palestinians, no longer maintain residence there, but in Jordan instead. An oil and gas man, Yahya’s father was working for Aramco in Saudi in the 1960s where Yahya was born. Though he moved away for some time, Yahya’s latest stint in Abu Dhabi is not his first. “My family moved to Abu Dhabi in 1975,” he explains, “I actually went to school here.” Abu Dhabi has changed a great deal since the 1970s and 1980s. However, when Yahya left in 1983 to attend university in Jordan, he may not have realised ...

Having turned a profit since 2011, the founders of Applixya, an iPad app that allows highly mobile business executives to stay in touch with their companies, are turning their attention away from GCC executives, whose companies have until now been their main source of revenue, and towards international corporates. “Surely, the years ahead will reveal higher levels of maturity, adoption, and proliferation,” co-founder Sadek Shunnar said when I questioned the ability of a MENA based startup to tackle such a niche market of high-level executives. He already seems confident of how certain enterprise markets in the region, such as Dubai, are performing, and how he can capture opportunities. Based out of Amman, Applixya is a provider of enterprise-level highly secure iPad solutions for corporate executives and high-ranking officials, to help them keep up with their correspondence and meetings while out of office. Applixya's flagship product, called ixOffice Suite, enables businesspeo...

“Paying is a challenge in the Arab world, and we felt that as merchants,” said Omar Soudodi, explaining the inspiration to start PayFort, after experiences in previous e-commerce jobs with Accelerabia and Souq. Soudodi, Managing Director of PayFort, isn’t new to entrepreneurship; he’s been one ever since he was a kid, running a candy stand at his parents’ restaurant. After earning a degree in finance from California State University in Fullerton, and gaining work experience at several financial institutions including Bank of America as Assistant Vice President at 24 years-old, Soudodi relocated to the UAE. The type of service that PayFort provides is not common in the Middle East, where most people associate e-commerce services to PayPal. Soudodi contrasts PayFort and PayPal: “PayFort is a payment service provider; we enter a contractual agreement with the merchant, and offer the technology and processing in order for the merchant to enable different payment methods,” mentioning VI...

Ernesto Zarzur likes to think of himself as the patriarch of his family — one that he considers to be 4,000 strong. The chairman of Eztec, one of Brazil’s largest construction firms with annual post-tax profits of over $200 million, he is unashamedly unconventional in his management style. Wearing his trademark sunglasses, the 80 year old conducts a full tour of his 400-strong head office to check all is running smoothly — a practice he carries out at least twice a day. With the informality common of Lebanese leaders, he stops regularly to kiss employees on the cheek or the head. And when he says his company is his family, he also means it literally — eight of his 16 grandchildren work there, while the company’s chief executive title is rotated between his four sons. He admits it is a highly unusual and potentially controversial structure, but one that he says is inspired by his Lebanese roots. “In this market there are around 20 [major] companies … The way I run this company is di...

Whether you own an e-commerce site, a content platform, or any other kind of websites, you find yourself today asking for an increasing amount of information from your users. The more you know about your users and their behavior, the better you can customize your services or products to fit their needs, thus growing your traffic and conversion rates. But are you making sure to protect the data with which they entrust you in return for your services? Possessing this much private information puts you as an entrepreneur – and your business – on the line, as stealing and exposing personal information incidents are increasing, since new technologies are making it an easier task. Data hacking was a global issue last year, with human rights groups calling for companies like Google to stop handing over user data to governments, particularly during the United Nations’ 8th Internet Governance Forum 2013 (IGF) held in Indonesia. According to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s Chronology of Data B...

It seems that the online gaming industry revenues exceeding the $100 million USD threshold in the Middle East has been encouraging entrepreneurs to enter the market, especially when it comes to social challenge games. A few months after the release of AlMwajaha, three Arab entrepreneurs have now launched a similar app, during Ramadan, called Nujoom Almarifa. Also a game where two players take turns answering several rounds of questions, it aims to enrich the Arab user’s culture. Based on general knowledge questions, each round falls under a specific category, of which there are 15, including Islamic knowledge, art, sports, science, and geography. Just like in AlMwajaha, itself inspired by the German QuizDuel and largely resembling the Icelandic QuizUp, users can either invite their own Facebook friends and chat with them during the game or play with others. The two players compete to win the Najem Almarifa title (Arabic for 'Knowledge Star') through four rounds, each made o...

At 22, an age when many are still at university, an Emirati entrepreneur started her own business, a small typing centre in Abu Dhabi. Five years later, Dalal Al Qubaisi, now 27, has capped off a successful career by being voted on to the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s board of directors. She plans to use her position on the board to promote business solutions for other entrepreneurs. “I know many local women who design fabulous abayas and hand-woven crafts at home and they sell them to other traders and remain nameless, ending with a small profit,” said Ms Al Qubaisi, who is chief executive of Interact Integrated Business Solutions. “I am a woman and can better understand them so will be contributing my services pertaining to women-related activities,” she said. “Getting a trade licence, better marketing and showcasing the designed products can fetch them far better yields, no matter how small you want to begin with. “I started from a very low level, opening a typing...

“I was really fed up from the work environment in Beirut and wanted to leave the region,” said Ibrahim Nehme, Editor-in-Chief of The Outpost magazine. The 28 year-old ‘trep from Lebanon stopped packing his bags once he realized that the Arab Spring created an opportunity in the market for what he calls “quality print products.” It seems that the emergence of a more active generation of Arab youth inspired Nehme. “I felt there’s an opportunity to stay and make something different, making something that would be part of the revolution,” Neheme explains, “that would help us imagine a new Arab place, a media voice that can capture our imagination, provide us with a space to dream, speak up, think freely, be who we are as Arab youth.” Born in Lebanon, Nehme studied business at the American University of Beirut despite developing his love for journalism after writing for Arab Ad during his junior year, eventually joining them as a writer. While he later became involved in other types of ...

Not many businessmen can claim the superstar status of Carlos Ghosn. But then not many businessmen are at the helm of not one, but two of the world's biggest car makers. Brazilian-born Ghosn has not always been a superstar in Japan. When he arrived in Tokyo in 1999 to revive the fortunes of Nissan, he took plenty of flak after slashing more than 20,000 jobs and closing assembly plants. But when his "Nissan Revival Plan" worked -- he resurrected the car maker from near bankruptcy a year earlier than scheduled -- he became a hero. These days Ghosn gets the sort of adulation in Japan normally reserved for rock stars and football players. He is often mobbed by fans in search of an autograph and has even been portrayed as a manga comic book superhero in "The True Story of Carlos Ghosn." His face has graced the covers of Japanese business magazines, he is the subject of a handful of books and has even written his own. Ghosn was born on March 9, 1954, to Lebanese p...

There can be no substitute for sophisticated and thorough recruitment processes and methodologies as the cost of getting the hiring process wrong can be very steep, not only in terms of lost recruitment expenses but also in terms of training and on-boarding expenses. A recruitment process that is not optimized can lead to reduced productivity, reduced employee morale and even potentially lasting negative impact on the brand, as well as suppliers and clients. In light of the above, new joiner induction programs are absolutely crucial for any position. These programs can last anywhere from one week to one year depending on the nature of the job. Existing employees should also be given the opportunity to be part of these training programs and impart knowledge from experience whenever possible. It has been proven that relevant and regular internal (both structured and informal sessions) as well as external training sessions always boost employee performance and morale. Another upcoming...

Entrepreneurs tend to insist on doing everything related to their startup themselves, often without realizing that there are solutions that might help reduce their workload and save them time to be able to focus on the most important tasks. Strategic alliances arise between companies through formal understandings and formulas that allow them to exchange business benefits. Such arrangements are beneficial to startups; the entrepreneurs who insist on doing everything on their own may miss out. Late last year, Aramex, Google, PayPal, and ShopGo jointly launched EZStore, an e-commerce platform that offers discounts on payment gateways, logistics, and advertising. The four companies signed the partnership to target conventional offline retailers who wish to enter the e-commerce world in the Arab region. This is a good example of a strategic alliance between companies. “Alliances can reduce costs and the duplication of efforts for entrepreneurial ventures and startups, and allow at the s...

As part of a new project, Integrating the Middle East and North Africa (i-MENA) aiming to foster MENA global integration, the World Bank is engaging with the Lebanese and Tunisian diaspora populations to determine how their knowledge resources could be leveraged for economic growth in their respective countries of origin. Diasporas and diaspora networks abroad are especially important reservoirs of knowledge about trade and investments opportunities, as well as technical and scientific expertise. Members of a diaspora can contribute in several ways to development in their country of origin, through financial remittances, homeland investments, philanthropy, political influences, and most importantly skills and knowledge transfer. Many countries, like India, Chile, Ireland, have already seen development in some sectors thanks to strong engagement with their diaspora populations. Lebanon’s and Tunisia’s skilled diasporas are relatively small when compared to countries like India, Chin...

Given the cost efficiency and other benefits of Cloud Computing Services, the innovative technology for data storage is becoming increasing popular in the MENA region, including Qatar. The total investment in the cutting-edge technology is expected to reach $4.7bn (QR17.11bn) by 2018, according to Gartner, Inc, an American information technology research and advisory firm. As cloud computing takes the region by storm, businesses are advised to address privacy concerns with great diligence, according to industry experts. "This cost-efficient method of granting remote access to information has led to an international cloud revolution, and Qatar is no exception when it comes to tapping into the unlimited potential of cloud technology," said a press statement.  "In a business environment, cloud computing helps increase staff collaboration, secure data, and reduce costs associated with on-premise assets," said Savitha Bhaskar, General Manager of Condo Protego, a Duba...

A month ago, Saudi entrepreneur Fady Yahya launched the new, pivoted version of Resury. The recruitment app has come a long way since its first installment launched in November 2012, which was a clear failure. How do you learn from a failure, and how do you move on from it? Yahya shares his experience. The starting point of Resury was a belief that CVs lacked humanity; instead, he wanted CVs to tell great stories, hence the name Resury, which is the combination of resume and story. The idea was that your friends know you and can help recruiters understand better who you really are. So in Resury v01, friends are asked to review their friends’ resumes, and to give their opinion. With the original app, even if people had CVs, they didn’t share them because they felt uncomfortable. “We asked people. They said they wanted feedback. But it’s like going to the gym. Everybody say they want to go to the gym, but nobody goes,” explains the founder. These came as a surprise since Yahya though...

A Syrian entrepreneur has developed an app to disseminate all available refugee services for Syrians in countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. Syrian refugees now number 2.5 million, and Syrians are on track to become the largest refugee population in the world due to the war that has ravaged the country for the last three years. In response to these staggering figures, Syrian entrepreneur Jahed Akil has developed 8rbtna, an app available for iOS and Android as well as a Facebook page, to disseminate all available refugee services for Syrians in host countries, especially Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, KSA, and Turkey, which host the largest number of Syrian refugees. Vailable in the Syrian dialect, 8rbtna (which means ‘our immigration’ in English) aggregates various details of interest to Syrians in these foreign countries. Akil says: “the project periodically publishes job offers found on websites or received by mail from companies looking for employees via our services. W...

Nadine Ajaka, a journalist and photographer, recently explored Jordan’s video game industry and the challenges the burgeoning market faces. Called the Silicon Valley of the MENA, Jordan has a good future if predictions of a 29% annual market growth in the MENA hold true.  Video games are a multi-billion-dollar industry, with the global gaming market projected to reach over $86bn by 2016. In the Middle East, the video game market is burgeoning, with an expected annual growth rate of 29 percent. While console gaming remains largely under-developed in the Middle East, mobile gaming here is the fastest growing gaming sector in the world – and of all the digital games produced in the region, Jordan churns out over half of them. “[The region] has the highest mobile penetration rate in the world,” said Chris Jackson, a Boston University graduate who works for Na3m Games, one of several mobile gaming startups in Jordan. While Jordan has been described as the Middle East’s Silicon Valle...

For three years now, Stanford University students, gathered in a student initiative called AMENDS, have invited promising actors of change in the Arab World to the Palo Alto campus to learn from each other, connect with global leaders and resources, and share, through TED-style talks, their ideas and experiences with the world. Each year, the group selects 32 delegates from across the MENA and the United States to be hosted at Stanford with the support of a few partners, including OCI, the Moulay Hicham Foundation, as well as Tech Wadi, an organization aiming to build bridges between entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and the MENA region. The delegates came to share their experience in one of the four categories: Empowerment and Education; Impact Entrepreneurship; Art and Culture; and Peace Building, Social Activism and Human Rights Over the course of two days, participants took part in workshops to prepare them for the TED-like speeches they gave on the final day (watch them here). T...

Ali Nehme, the managing director-digital, at Starcom Mediavest Group, in MENA shares some insights on the Middle east’s digital media market. According to Nehme, the market’s adspend in the region is somewhere between $360 and $420 million. From a geography perspective, Saudi Arabia is the priority for most of the advertisers, yet the UAE remains the spend hub as most of the multinational companies operate locally. While the share of digital in overall spend has grown, it remains low when compared to western markets. Why is that? The MENA region is relatively small when compared to western markets like the US and Europe. Furthermore, the market here started fairly late – about seven years later – in adopting digital, when compared to other markets. That being said, the YoY growth in MENA is faster than any other market. He continues to state that there is a big education gap when it comes to our market, where almost all of the clients need to understand the benefits of digital. To ...

Herve Cuviliez, Talal Jabari, and Kamal Bouskri, founders of Diwanee, Fariqak and MyVLE respectively, exposed the pros and cons of offshore outsourcing. The three entrepreneurs explained how they wouldn’t have gotten where they are today without offshore outsourcing, but also set limits and recognized that this model is not suitable for all businesses. Today, they share their tips regarding recruitment and management to get the best out of offshore outsourcing. Where to find offshore developers? Recruitment might be the most important aspect of an outsourcing strategy. It’s not enough to get a glimpse of the candidates’ portfolios; it’s also crucial to check with previous employers about the quality of their work and professionalism, and to think about the contract and payment management in case of disagreement or unsatisfactory work. The three entrepreneurs have used specialized websites such as Guru and Elance on the international level, or Nabbesh on the regional one, on which e...

Entrepreneurship has been booming in the MENA region in the last few years, so it was natural that a growth in social enterprises would follow, particularly in a region that suffers plenty of social, environmental, and economic problems. While there are many definitions of “social enterprise” the best may be “every enterprise that offers, at the heart of its strategy or action plan, solutions for a social or environmental problem.” Medea Nocentini, founder and CEO of C3 – a venture that offers consultancy and coaching for social enterprises in Dubai – has a different, more quantitative view of what a social enterprise is. As she explains, “any company 50% of whose returns account for grants and donations and which invests not less than 50% of its profits in developing and expanding itself or in its social project is a social enterprise.” C3 focuses on social entrepreneurship in the UAE, particularly on entrepreneurs who have several years of experience. “We receive entrepreneurs fr...

Over the past few months, there were numerous stories from game developers in the Arab world and across Europe looking to target regional consumers: all have been faced with a lack of distributors, especially in the mobile gaming space. A few companies, like Maysalward in Jordan, have been successful in partnering with foreign developers for popular titles like ShaqDown, using their expertise to localize the game. But for the vast majority, local distribution is a challenge. Many developers see the regional market as a gamble, hedging their bets by spending less time on one title for the sake of cranking out as many games as possible.  Perhaps a little international exposure is just what a startup from the region needs to create a viral game. Enter Lebanese startup Abjatron. After traveling to Amsterdam to get acquainted with the European gaming ecosystem, Lebanese game developer Paul Atme, previously of Wixel Studios, is throwing his full weight behind his new game Upworld, wh...

As crowdfunding becomes more popular in various countries, recent reports reveal the funding option is gaining attention in MENA. According to the Huffington Post, a handful of Lebanese entrepreneurs are using crowdfunding to create and sustain social initiative throughout the country, some of which have a strong focus on disadvantaged youth. Lebanese-American and MIT graduate Zeina Saab used Middle East’s crowdfunding platform, Zoomaal, to help set up Nawaya Network, an NGO. She is now overseeing a number of social projects in the city of Beirut. She stated, “Zoomaal came along at just the right time for us at Nawaya; we were ablet o raise $7,000 in just two days, which helped establish our network.” Saab and her team work with youths to teach them core social principles while nurturing their specific talents for the arts. She noted, “Individually tailoring each project helps us make each person a success story.” Meanwhile, Jordan entrepreneurs are also realizing the potential of...

The 10 highest earning chief executives in the UAE make several million dirhams a year, taking home a total of Dh78.14 million in salaries and bonuses in 2013 alone, according to a new survey. A study conducted by Argaam.com, an Arabic website, which looked at the income of 30 top-ranking officials of listed companies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last year, showed that three executives from Etisalat and one from Emaar, the developer of Burj Khalifa, were among the UAE’s ten biggest earners in 2013. One of the executives made more than a million dirhams a month. The lowest monthly income stood at little over Dh400,000. Seven out of the ten highest paid officials work for companies based in Abu Dhabi, while the rest are based in Dubai. Males dominated the list and only one woman chief executive, who used to work for Emaar Properties, made it to the top ten. The biggest earner, Etisalat CEO Ahmad Julfar, took home Dh17.27 million in 2013, or about Dh1.4 million a month. Low Ping, who served...

MENA entrepreneurship scene has been abuzz of late with a rising number of start-ups, especially in the tech industry. High smartphone penetration rates and a growing e-commerce sector have made MENA a hotbed for tech start-ups, bringing a surge of investors in their wake eager to tap into the promising new business potential. “We look back in the last five years and those have been characterised by small funds offering around $10 to $15 million,” said Omar Christidis, founder and CEO of digital hub Arabnet. “Today, all of those funds are raising larger amounts- about $30 to $60 million, which is almost four times as much the money than was previously raised. They are interested in doing bigger deals and I think that is really going to transform the landscape,” he added. “We are going to see faster scaling of companies. It also means we are going to see competition between venture capitalists to fund the best start-ups while the best start-ups are going to get better terms.” Those ...

Joseph Safra is the richest banker in the world, according to Forbes. And, incidentally, the name Safra means yellow, or gold, in Arabic. Convenient. Especially since the illustrious family has had their hand in the gold trade since the Ottoman Empire, facilitating trade throughout the Middle East. Notorious for their stable yet clandestine banking operations, the mysterious Safra family continues today as a fortress of banking successes. But the real question on everyone’s mind is this: how has such an illustrious family, at times seeped in scandal, managed to remain so mysterious to the public eye. And what transpired to cause the untimely death of its golden boy, Edmond Safra? The Safra dynasty, as it's known today, was born with banking mogul Joseph Safra’s (b. 1939) great-great grandfather well over a century ago. The Lebanese Jewish family became the most trusted bankers of the Ottoman Empire, most notable for facilitating trade between Alexandria, Aleppo and Istanbul. Wh...

The city’s political stability and rising demand from a burgeoning workforce have been instrumental in attracting international investment to its property market, a new report says. MENA buyers are increasingly investing in Central London’s residential property market as they are encouraged by the city’s transparency and its credentials as a finance centre, according to a report by real estate consultancy JLL. Although international investors control only nine of the largest 50 development sites in the city, these sites have the capacity to accommodate up to 28,000 new homes. This figure already represents 20 per cent of the total planning pipeline in Central London and is expected to grow significantly over the next few years, JLL said. “London’s position as a capital city and financial centre, alongside its stable political system and transparent legal framework, continues to attract interest from across MENA,” said Adam Challis, head of residential research at JLL. “Whilst quest...

Heather Henyon talks about how angel investment and microfinance are creating opportunities across the region. Only about a tenth of the MENA’s needs for microfinance are currently being met, estimates Heather Henyon — and some new thinking may be needed as the sector loses some of its novelty and momentum. Henyon, who currently heads Balthazar Capital and is also the founder of the Women’s Angel Investment Network (WAIN), said she was always seeing the potential for lifting households and individuals into creating new businesses across MENA. In Morocco, she had worked with a woman over 10 years to grow a family farm from a couple of sheep to 200 — and raising and selling Arabian horses, producing cheese, providing jobs for her family and provisions for her community. “This is a woman who comes from nothing. We’re funding someone who probably is like a Bill Gates,” Henyon said. And there were many others like her out there. “When you see that, you just realise there’s so much need....

On the strength of her fifteen years of experience as a fund manager at Comgest, the French multinational asset management company, Lebanese entrepreneur Hala Fadel is ready to put her own money on the table, as a regional angel investor. Fadel has decided to move to the other side of the equation, as an angel investor in the Arab region. “I want to go through this experience by myself and at my own expense first, so that my experience with a fund, when I eventually decide to join one, wouldn’t be my first,” says Fadel. When she moved back to Lebanon from France, “I noticed that the region needs a lot of support and assistance in terms of entrepreneurship,” says Fadel. Shortly thereafter, she decided to launch the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Enterprise Forum in 2006. Over the course of her involvement with the forum, Fadel’s knowledge of the ecosystem has vastly improved. The forum’s Business Plan Competition supports about 70 entrepreneurs selected every year among...

When telling the story of Manuel “Matty” Moroun, it’s nearly impossible not to tell a story about Detroit and some of its history. And like Detroit, Moroun might be a little old-fashioned, but certainly never dull. He is the owner of the Ambassador Bridge, and a man who rarely speaks to the press. While he’s viewed as an adversary by some and an example of the American dream come true by others, in reality Moroun’s early years were not unlike those of many growing up in Detroit in the 1920s and ’30s. A Detroit-Windsor landmark (and one of the busiest crossings between Canada and the U.S.), the Ambassador Bridge is also one of the only privately owned international border points. “My grandfather came from Lebanon and my dad was born in Buenos Aires,” says Moroun, sitting in a wood-paneled conference room at his spacious company headquarters in Warren, Mich. “My mom was also from Lebanon, but we think she was born in Cuba. The U.S. was always the magnet and that’s why they wanted to ...

For many years in MENA, the harsh weather, the oil wealth, male dominance of the public space, as well as a traditional patriarchal society made it difficult—if not unnecessary—for women to enter the business world. But some were able to break through and thrive in that sector. Arab Women entrepreneurs have always existed, long before the term became a buzzword. They were considered outliers. In the past 10 years, there has been much change. A perfect storm has led to increased numbers of female entrepreneurs in MENA: greater numbers of educated women, rising unemployment for both genders, and growing media attention on social enterprises from around the world. Women who could not find jobs in the private or public sectors, women who could not re-enter the work force after taking time off to raise their kids, women who wanted to become their own bosses, and women who loved creating new business all started thinking of entrepreneurship as a viable alternative to widespread job inse...

Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican businessman, CEO of Telmex, Telcel and América Móvil, was born in Mexico City in 1940, January 28. Among six siblings, he is the youngest of his parents Yusef Salim Haddad and Linda Helu. His father Yusef Salim Haddad emigrated from Lebanon and opened a dry goods store in Mexico. His father has always emphasized understanding finance to all his children. Carlos showed special interest in finance from his childhood but he faced hardships after his father death when he was only 13. He spent subsequent 13 years focusing on business and grew his fortune to $40 million. He completed his engineering from the Universidad National Autonoma de Mexico. After few years, he started his business venture Inversora Bursáti, a stoke brokerage. In 1982, when Mexico was in economic crisis, he took over Mexican Affiliates of General Tire, Reynolds and Sanborn’s chain stores and cafeterias and his fortune accelerated with the recovery of country. After some times, he bough...