Pod Kas with Yaz

Real talk with Elias S. Kawar, who coached me in basketball Little League back in Jordan when I was only 9 years old. Fast forward 15 years later, we crossed paths for a couple of years at Kearney after he helped me land my job interview - and the rest is history. After having known each other 30 years, we finally get to catch up and chat about how life has evolved for us professionally & personal...

I sat down with "Shaq and Chuck" of the NBA world in Arabic, or more accurately, one of the most spot-on NBA analysts in Arabic even when compared to their pro peers analyzing the NBA in English. Their podcast 'Man 2 Man' is one of the most watched in its category for a good reason. Even better, the hosts 'OJ & Dwees' and I go way back - I've known Dwees since we were teenagers, while OJ and I bec...

Tambi Jalouqa is a renowned Venture Capitalist with Propeller VC. We initially found ourselves having a couple of interesting conversations and debates around AI on LinkedIn, which enticed me to invite him over for an in-person chat on my podcast. It was an absolute pleasure having him over to discuss the entrepreneurial scene in the Middle East, key success factors for innovation and startups, th...

Khaled Talhouni of Nuwa Capital is a renowned hashtag VC, but most already know that by now. I've known Khaled since the 90's when we both graduated from Amman Baccalaureate School, lived in the same neighborhood and jammed in our high school rock band 🎸 Fortunately, we kept in touch since then and whenever we catch up, we find ourselves delving into everything from philosophy, socioeconomics (sp...

Rosa is the Founder of Anqa, a new wellness app that provides access to a bunch of awesome wellness services surrounding meditation, breathwork, yoga, different types of healing (sound, alternative and animal healing!). I downloaded Anqa just to check it out, but ended up booking a couple of services on the spot starting with a handpan session. She's an incredible entrepreneur and is on to somethi...

أقوى نقاش عن بيتكوين والعملات الرقمية باللغة العربية (مع شوية إنجليزي اجباري) مع الأخ والخبير طلال طباع، المدير التنفيذي لشركة كوين مينا - Round 2 👊🏻 استضفت طلال في أول حلقة من بود كاس في سبتمبر ٢٠٢٠، عندما كان سعر البيتكوين اقل من 10,000$. تشرفت باستقباله الأسبوع الماضي للمرة الثانية بعد أن تجاوز سعر بيتكوين 70,000$ لأول مرة في التاريخ, حيث تشعب نقاشنا إلى عدة مواضيع مهمة وقصص مثيرة داخل وخارج...

Last time I saw Yasmeen Al Naif was in 2002 when we were performing West Side Story at our high school theater. Fast forward 22 years later, Yasmeen became a serial entrepreneur, a mother of 3, a hypnotherapist and the host of her own podcast 'Pivot DXB', which is focused on career pivots. It was so refreshing to hangout after so many years! This episode has a bit of everything: Childhood memories...

Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi (aka 'Turtle Sheikh') is a member of the UAE's Royal Family, Executive Chairman at the Department of Government Relations in Sharjah, Co-Founder of Seafood Souq and a good old friend from our days back at Kearney. When he's not swimming in oceans saving turtles (literally), he's probably dining with Gary Vee or with the President of Guatemala to discuss Economic relations wi...

Elie Skaf is the Co-Founder & CEO of Right Farm, a B2B AgTech platform on a mission to improve food supply chains in the MENAPT region. They recently raised a USD 2.8M seed round led by DisruptAD and Enhance Ventures. In the first half of this episode, we discuss the story behind Right Farm, fascinating insights about food supply, sustainability challenges, food waste management and other related...

Zina is a serial entrepreneur, mentor (500 Startups), ex-BCG and worked at Careem just before the acquisition by Uber. Most recently, she co-founded Palma de Salus, the "perfect hand sanitizer" inspired by the pain points that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Above all, Zina is a good old friend, a work colleague and someone I've always admired & enjoyed catching up with. We also lived in Ne...

My cousin Fady is a seasoned C-level executive in the advertising industry who recently got neck deep into NFTs. It all started when I introduced him to crypto at a family dinner in 2020, right in the midst of the last bull cycle. Fast forward 2 years later and he's become a walking NFT encyclopedia. In this episode, we discuss the difference use cases for NFTs (beyond just digital art), the hype...

Dana Fakhoury (aka Earlybird) is an incredible up & coming Artist and Music Producer who was recently a Resident Performer at Dubai's Expo 2020. I came across a couple of her tracks and was blown away not only with her style of music, but also with her masterful ability to play the guitar and the Ableton Push in a live setting (despite her hand injuries, which also led her to double down on her mu...

Rawan is an eclectic individual and an outspoken critic of the BS that gets regurgitated on LinkedIn, which is how I initially stumbled into her on my newsfeed. As it turns out, many more of Rawan's LinkedIn posts had gone viral including her thoughts on women empowerment, career choices, social stereotypes and everything in between. I found Rawan's opinions and vocal presence on LinkedIn to be qu...

Nour is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Coach and a dear friend of mine. In this episode, we discuss what is NLP and how it fits within the overarching theme of self mastery. Nour shares valuable and practical examples of how NLP can be transformative in our every day lives and sheds light on her own self development journey.

Fouad Jeryes & Sinan Taifour are serial entrepreneurs who co-founded several companies together over the last 10 years, most recently Maqsam (maqsam.com). In this candid episode, we discuss the impact of our childhood & our environments on our adult selves, mental health, misguided ambition and the healthy pursuit of authentic success and fulfilment. فؤاد جريس وسنان طيفور رواد أعمال شاركوا في تأسي...

Suna is a Palestinian Entrepreneur living in Jerusalem. She's also the Founder of Tawazon, the 1st mobile app for meditation & mindfulness in Arabic. In this episode, we discuss the history, perceptions, benefits and recent trends surrounding mindfulness - specifically for Arabs. We also had an interesting chat about her entrepreneurial story since 2018 and what it's like to build & grow a tech st...

Are you a Generator, Projector, Manifestor or Reflector? This is just one of the many layers within ‘Human Design’, which is a new-age pseudoscience for self-discovery that is fascinating to say the least. I had my mind blown learning about it for the 1st time from my good friend Fares Bdeir, who also spoke to me in depth about the ‘Law of Attraction’ and how it led him to NFTs - a topic he’s extr...

Bechara is an Executive Coach and a Facilitator who previously worked as a Management Consultant at McKinsey between 2008 - 2019. We were recently introduced to discuss business collaboration, but we walked out of our meeting as friends who perhaps knew each other from a past life (if there is one). I couldn't help but notice Bechara's humility, empathy and honesty - all the things that got me exc...

A 360 crypto episode with Yazan Barghuthi, who raised $30 million during the ICO craze in 2017. Today, Yazan is building collateralized debt offerings (CDOs) on chain with Traunch and is a Co-Founder at CoinMENA, a leading crypto exchange in the Middle East. Yazan is also a dear friend from high-school and the reason I started buying crypto 4 years ago. In this episode, we discuss a bunch of stuff...

جريس مدانات (أبو يزن) سياسي وصحفي مرموق. في هذه الحلقة العفوية، يخبرنا أبو يزن عن بعض الأحداث التي شهدها قبل خمسين عاماً ومنها مقابلته مع ٱلشَّيْخ زَايِد بِن سُلْطَان آل نَهْيَان رحمه الله عام 1971 أثناء إتحاد الامارات العربية ومعركة ثغرة الدفرسوار في فلسطين عام 1973

كيف تختار العملات الرقمية للإستثمار والتداول

Elia Korban is a good friend and an ex-colleague from Kearney back in 2010. Since we left full-time consulting, we've both been active in the Management Consulting gig economy; Elia as a freelance Management Consultant and myself as the Founder of QO Collective. Both of us also endeavored into entrepreneurship by starting companies of our own.

Ramzi Khleif is General Manager MENA at StashAway, a robo-advisor investment app with +$1B in assets under management. Prior to StashAway, Ramzi was at Careem during its exit to Uber and also worked as a Management Consultant with Strategy& for ~4 years. In this episode, we discuss everything from startups, investing, management consulting, MBA, and everything in between. Watch 'Pod Kas with Yaz'...

Chirag is the Founder & CEO of Amaeya Media Network, the UAE’s 1st independent podcast company which has grown into one of the largest podcast network’s in the Middle East & North Africa. In this episode, we discuss the latest and greatest in the world of podcasts and digital content. We also discuss Amaeya's 2nd report on Podcasts in the Middle East, which they recently issued. Watch 'Pod Kas wit...

Feras Jalbout is Founder & CEO at Baraka, a new investment app for millennials across the Middle East. Before Baraka, Feras worked in venture capital and wealth management. In this episode, we discuss the differences between trading vs. investing in stocks and crypto, as well as new trends in this space such as NFTs.