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 invested in some of Egypt’s biggest companies, including CIB, Edita, International Diagnostics...

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 since become a regional player with over 450 facilities across Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria and Jordan. El Sherbini...

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.  Today, Arqam’s data collection center in Egypt has become an essential service to 42 European and US clubs,...

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 applications in industrial machinery, medical devices, and autonomous vehicles. The implications on emerging...

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 his current role. Today, Ismail leads Majid Al Futtaim Properties, the arm responsible for malls,...

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 think of him as a stand-in for every business in the service industry, from ad agencies to engineering consultants, PR types and accountants.  From attracting and retaining...

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 that connects over 29 mn customers through 166K service points across the country, and can be used for over 850...

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 hit.  Chris talks to us about what it takes to change people’s perception on how much street food should cost...

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.” This is our second season to come out since Covid-19, and a full return to working from the office...

The Enterprise Show is an Egypt-focused business, policy and pop culture talk show, produced by Enterprise, the daily brief on all matters business, finance, and economics. Each episode will see us sit down with interesting and impactful business leaders, policy-makers, and cultural icons to discuss their life's successes, failures, and their views on major topics that shape Egypt today Listen to the pilot episode with International Cooperation Minister Rania Al Mashat...

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-seed round led by Algebra Ventures in 2019. They joined and graduated the Y Combinator program shortly...

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 digital presence. She details the reasons multinationals find Egypt attractive, and outlines how to...

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 capital fund that invests in early stage tech startups in the MENA region. The fund is the...

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, they now operate in over 18 markets across MENA covering almost 51 mn transactions a day.  The company...

Having served as Executive Advisor for Microsofinance at Banque du Caire and then as head of the microfinance and SMEs division at the Bank of Alexandria, Amro Abouesh believed in private sector financing as a means to enable social mobility within the low income sector of society. By founding Tanmeyah in 2009, Amro effectively launched private microfinance in Egypt and helped bring in Egypt’s leading private equity, commercial and investment banks. Today Tanmeyah sits at the top of the...

Laila Sedky and Adel Sedky, Founder and CEO of NOLA As Founder and CEO of one of the most recognizable brands in the confectionary business, Laila and Adel understand the business of selling happiness. Their tenure at Nola saw them grow the brand beyond the flagship store in Zamalek to a confectionary giant with 25 stores across 7 cities. From leading the local cupcake craze to making pivotal decisions on the sustainability of their brand and the subsequent reorienting of their customers,...

Mohamed El Kalla, CEO of Cairo for Investment and Real Estate (CIRA).  As the head of one of the largest private sector education operators, El Kalla is someone who understands the business of education. He has seen the seismic shifts in the industry over the past few decades: from family-owned businesses to corporations, from Cairo and Alex to the other governorates, from the super wealthy to the middle class, from individual shareholders to IPOs and private equity, and from the classroom...

Making It in the time of covid-19: Making It is back for its second 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.” This happens to be our first season where we had to record...

As we wrap up our first season of Making It, Enterprise's very first podcast, we thought we'd reach out to everyone who lent us an ear these past few months and thank them for their constant feedback. If you have something you'd like to let us know about this season, or any recommendations for seasons to come, email us at [email protected] ** Subscribe to Making it here for https://bit.ly/35lugvb. ** Subscribe to Enterprise, our 6am briefing on business, finance and economics in...

TAM Gallery, formerly Arts Mart, started off as an online gallery that aimed to give new artists a chance to break into the Egyptian art world. Fast forward less than a decade later, TAM has three arms each aiming to give new artists and entry into the commercial world — and to bring new potential buyers into the market. The online gallery is still going strong, but is now complimented by a physical art space in 6th of October City as well as TAM Corporate that integrates art into public...

If you’ve ever been starving in Egypt without a kitchen anywhere in sight, it’s likely that you’ve tried a snack by Edita. Since its founding in 1996, the maker of such brands as Todo, Molto, Bake Rolz and Twinkies, expanded its product offering, grown its manufacturing capacity, and has even launched a factory in Morocco. It did this during the economic storm that came with the EGP float and 2016 and the high interest rate environment that has only just begun to subside. Today, Edita has...

Hazem Moussa will forgive you if you’ve never heard of Sarwa Capital, because unless you’re a finance geek (like us), Sarwa is hardly a company whose name you’ll hear every day — even though there’s a reasonable chance Sarwa has been involved in your financial life one way or another.  They own Contact Cars (the website and the car finance business). They sell insurance, mortgages and leasing solutions— as well as white label finance for car dealers.  Oh, and they invented the notion of...

After taking over the helm at Azza Fahmy back in 2006, Fatma Ghali, along with her sister Amina, built on the legacy of their mother, spearheading the expansion of the brand outside of Egypt and added a contemporary perspective to the company’s designs. They established a foothold in the European market through collaborations with leading fashion designers such as Julien MacDonald and Mathew Williamson and fashion houses such as Preen. They also popularized their brands with exhibits at the...

Karim Awad started at EFG Hermes as an analyst and rose to become the head of EFG’s high-profile investment banking unit — a job he held until he was tapped to run the firm as Group CEO in 2013. In an industry known for its outsized egos, Karim is Scottie Pippen, the consummate team player from the 1990s Chicago Bulls.  In this week’s episode, Karim talks about the firm’s unique culture and how it helped him transform EFG into not just an Egyptian multinational, but a top-30 player in the...