Making It

MNT-Halan’s IPO has been the talk of the market for a few weeks. So on this episode of Making It, Mounir Nakhla, the founder and CEO of MNT-Halan , joins Patrick to talk about why his company is going public, and why now is the right time.  Mounir built MNT-Halan in about 17 years, and soon 20% of the Egypt side of the business will be up for grabs. In the first part of the episode, Mou...

What do you risk when you build your business on top of the world’s frontier AI models? Youssef Rizk says, “Look at Google’s graveyard.” Youssef is the CEO of Windfall and co-founder and CTO of Wondercraft, which is the company we rely on to produce our other show Morning Drive, using the AI voice of our very human executive editor. On this episode of Making It, we discuss...

For a few months, alarms have sounded across the board cautioning of an impending credit bubble. Are they warranted?  On this episode of Making It, Hazem Moussa joins Patrick to break down how a bubble in the credit industry actually forms, what regulators should watch out for, the risks on both sides, and the responsibility that lies on the client side — us, the consumers.  &...

Is Egyptian food having a moment? And more importantly, is our cuisine finally claiming its seat at the global table?  Hoda El-Sherif says, “It’s coming.” Hoda is the co-founder and CEO of Flavor Republic , and the force behind Cairo Food Week. On this episode of Making It, Hoda argues that Egyptian food belongs on the same table as the great cuisines of the world. That&rsqu...

After almost 50 years of competition, why would two companies choose to merge? Is it as simple as the big entity buying the smaller one, or is there more to the story?  On this episode of Making It, Ahmed Ragab joins Patrick to share how things actually played out for him.   Ragab is the CEO and Partner at Baraka Retail Group . This past May, Ragab sold control of Baraka Optics to M...

Foreign investors see a lot of potential in Egypt. Their optimism, however, is not necessarily shared by many inside Egypt. So where does the gap lie? On this episode of Making It, Neveen El Tahri joins Patrick to make the case for optimism. Neveen is a legend in banking and finance . She is a serial entrepreneur, the first woman to sit on the board of the Egyptian Stock Exchange and the Egyptian...

When Chinese cars first appeared in Egypt around a decade ago, they were met with backlash. Now, they’re everywhere. Why? And how? On this episode of Making It, Ankush Arora joins Patrick to break down how this happened, and why the pace of adoption is accelerating. Ankush is the CEO of Al Mansour Automotive Group, a leading Egyptian and regional automotive distributor. With both global and...

Past the doom and gloom, what the heck is actually going on with AI at the moment? On this episode of Making It, Tarek Assaad joins Patrick to decode the latest in AI. From one of the smartest people in business and tech, this is an episode for both the novice and the pro, about what we should make of the recent technological breakthroughs, and what we’re yet to find out. Tarek is Managing P...

Six days a week, we help top executives make sense of the Arab world’s companies and economies — and every Thursday, our editor-in-chief, Patrick, talks shop with the people who run them.  Making It is an hour where the founders, CEOs, investors, and policymakers making the biggest decisions in our region show their work and talk about what’s next.  From EnterpriseAM, t...

In this special feed drop, Patrick shares an episode of EnterpriseAM’s new show, Morning Drive. It's a 10-minute rundown of the biggest business stories that will shape your day. To get new episodes straight in your feed every morning, follow EnterpriseAM | Egypt wherever you're listening right now. We’ll be back with a new season of Making It soon, so stay tuned. See omnystudio.com/li...

For the last few decades, Sahel has cemented its place as a go-to summer destination for many. Clear waters. Crisp weather. Buzzing nightlife.  Last year, the Ras El-Hekma deal swung the spotlight on the potential of Sahel as a regional investment hub. But what exactly are we building up there?   In this special episode of Making It, we speak to Marakez Executive Vice Chairman Dasha...

After more than five years at Mashreq’s helm, Group CEO Ahmed Abdelaal is a well-known face in the regional banking industry and beyond. Ahmed has led the bank through an ambitious expansion strategy that has seen it recently open Mashreq Oman, in addition to Mashreq Neo in Egypt, as well as its digital banking platform for corporate clients in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar.  We recently s...

In 20 years of working in private equity, Hossam Abou Moussa has seen the makings of great businesses across industries in Egypt and other emerging markets. At Actis, he is a partner in the private equity business, as well as chief operating officer of the unit. Actis is one of the leading investors in emerging markets, and currently operates roughly USD 10 bn under management. In Egypt, they have...

Hend El Sherbini took over her mother’s testing facility MK Lab in Egypt and rebranded it to Al Mokhtabar in 2004, with the intention of providing affordable and quality testing beyond Cairo.  16 years later, El Sherbini sits atop Integrated Diagnostics Holding, a merger of Al Mokhtabar and Al Borg.  IDH is the first Egyptian company to list on the London Stock Exchange, and has si...

Ali ElFakharany got hooked on sports data as a university student, and the blog he started to analyze the Egyptian Premier League blossomed into a company in 2017. But the local market was not ready for Arqam’s services, and so Ali turned to Europe. In 2019, Arqam was acquired by UK-based Statsbomb in a share swap agreement that retained Arqam’s team and Ali leading the data product.&n...

Hisham Shawki and Nancy Zayed launched MagicCube in 2014 with the intention of eliminating the redundancy of hardware-based security currently used in mobile and IoT devices. The primary target of their technology is the USD 48 bn POS hardware market, a strategy that attracted investments from Visa and CIB’s VC arm CVentures. Beyond financial services, the security platform has major applica...

With brick and mortar retail seeing declining growth in developed markets fueled by competition from e-commerce, Majid Al Futtaim tells a story that might look a little different in emerging markets. Malls here still see growing popularity and Majid Al Futtaim’s retail brands are household names in Egypt and the region. Ahmed Galal Ismail led Majid Al Futtaim Ventures for 10 years prior to h...

If your business sells time — yours or your team’s or both — then this week’s episode is for you.  Lawyering is perhaps the world’s second-oldest profession — and the source of endless jokes, the vast majority of them (pleasantly?) tasteless.  Today’s episode features a lawyer — and an awfully nice one, at that — but th...

The majority of Egypt’s population are unbanked and have no access to financial services. Thanks to fintech players like Fawry, this is changing quickly — and for the better. When Ashraf Sabry founded Fawry in 2008, he knew he wanted to leverage his experience and technology in a business that had recurring revenue. Flash forward and, a decade later, Fawry is now a payments platform th...

Zooba sells taamiya, not falafel. When Chris Khalifa launched Zooba in 2012, the goal was to elevate Egyptian street food from cheap, delicious, everyday sustenance to a global brand. By 2020, Zooba’s value proposition had already shaped a loyal following at home and abroad with branches in Egypt, a franchise agreement in the GCC, and a New York outpost — opened just before covid-19 hi...

Making It is back for its third season. Making It is a show about building great businesses in Egypt. Each episode brings you a one-on-one sit-down with a CEO or founder at the top of their game. They are leaders at the helm of businesses going through different stages of growth and they discuss with us the issues they face, the challenges they have to overcome, and what it takes to “Make it...

Omar Hagrass, CEO of Trella On this week’s episode of Making It, we remotely sit down with Omar Hagrass, the CEO and co-founder of Trella, a digital trucking marketplace. The company’s application acts as a hub for shippers and carriers, eliminating the time-consuming and inefficient manual process of using brokers. Trella is a relatively new company, raising an impressive USD 600k pre...

Hoda Mansour, Managing Director of SAP Egypt and Frontier Markets Hoda Mansour was twice recognized by Forbes as one of the most influential businesswomen in the Middle East for her work in SAP in the UAE, Oman, and Egypt. SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is among the most widely used across the world, at a time when the livelihood of many businesses hinges on establishing a...

Algebra Ventures Managing Partners Tarek Assaad and Karim Hussein From a background of senior positions at multinationals, Algebra Ventures Managing Partners Tarek Assaad and Karim Hussein are driven by a belief that tech and entrepreneurship can enable tangible change in a region where basic services can often be major inconveniences. Established in 2015, Algebra Ventures is a USD 54 mn venture c...

Sahar Salama, Founder and CEO of TPay Mobile In a country with low banking penetration and high mobile adoption, Sahar Salama saw a business opportunity in creating a payment solution through telecom operators. She used her experience at Link Development to create a direct operator billing model and launched TPay Mobile in 2014.  Launched in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE simultaneously, the...