Forbes Middle East - September 2023 - English

6 I Sidelines

The MENA Effect

By Claudine Coletti

LEADERBOARDS

10 I 10 Most Popular Arab Youtubers

From games and beauty to family vlogs, these are the Middle East’s most subscribed Arab content creators’ channels on YouTube. Subscriber and viewing numbers given are as of August 8, 2023.

By Haidy Abdelazim

TECHNOLOGY

14 I Timeline: NVIDIA’s Road To The $1T Club

On May 30, 2023, Silicon Valley behemoth NVIDIA became the sixth public company in the world to hit over a $1 trillion market valuation. As of August 11, 2023, the company’s stock had surged over 179% since the beginning of the year. Here’s a look at how it got there.

By Joyce Abaño

SPORT

16 I Football Legends Flock To Saudi

Saudi Arabia has been on a spending spree, snapping up some of the world’s top football players. Here are some of the most prominent deals and transfers as of August 20, 2023.

By Malika Kaloo

20 I How The FIFA Women’s World Cup Made History This Year

Having been established in 1991, the FIFA Women’s World Cup has recently witnessed a surge in popularity. Here’s a look at some facts and figures from the 2023 tournament, which has left a lasting mark through a series of historic firsts.

By Jamila Gandhi

SUSTAINABILITY

22 I Greening The Middle East

As the U.A.E. prepares to host COP28 from November 30 to December 12, 2023, the Middle East is witnessing a growing commitment among private and public entities to embrace change and take decisive action on climate issues.

By Rawan Hassan

MONEY

24 I MENA Venture Capital Declines

MENA experienced a significant setback in funding and deals during the first half of 2023, reflecting a global retreat in venture capital activity.

By Amr Abdelhamid

FRONTRUNNER

26 I Miss Patti’s Cakes

At 79, Patti Labelle isn’t resting on her royalties. She’s leveraging her music earnings to bootstrap PATTI’S GOOD LIFE, whose sweet potato pies and mac n’ cheese are now bestsellers at Walmart.

By Maggie McGrath

30

30

SUSTAINABILITY

I Changing The Narrative

Coca-Cola may be best known for fizzy drinks and curvy bottles, but it’s evolving with the times, according to regional VP, Andrew Buckingham. As plastic packaging becomes a social pariah, emphasizing ESG is on the rise for one of the world’s biggest companies, particularly in the Middle East.

By Hagar Omran

32 I Road To Net-Zero

Uber’s been evolving its vehicles, pricing, and ride options to steer a transition to clean energy. Now regional head Frans Hiemstra needs to persuade passengers and drivers in the Middle East to choose them.

By Jamila Gandhi

CONTRARIAN

34 I Sand Dollars

Bud Brigham made a fortune drilling for oil, but his 42-milelong conveyor belt of sand for fracking could make him a billionaire—assuming he can avoid the tiny lizards.

By Chris Helman

38 I Kill Trees, Save The Planet

Bill Gates and other investors are betting KODAMA SYSTEMS can reduce carbon dioxide in the air by cutting down and burying trees. Now if only Uncle Sam would get onboard with tax credits, too.

By Chris Helman

80 I Thoughts On Intensity

GLOBAL MEETS LOCAL 2023

50 I Just The Beginning

Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google, is leading the regional base for a more than trillion-dollar company, one of the biggest tech giants in the world. As AI increasingly powers growth in the Middle East, he’s creating partnerships to make sure the technology is understood and used in the right way.

By Claudine Coletti

Shifting Focus 42

By Jamila Gandhi

Sandeep Walia, Chief Operating Officer for the Middle East at Marriott International, one of the world’s largest hotel operators, is amplifying the emphasis on luxury as Saudi Arabia takes center stage in the company’s intensified focus on premium offerings.

The MENA Effect

This month we release one of our annual flagship rankings, shining a light on the Middle Eastbased leaders of the local offices of the world’s biggest international companies. These regional heads represent some of the most well-known brands in the business world, and it’s their job to mirror their global success in MENA by analyzing local demand, understanding the Middle East’s unique needs, and ensuring that their products and services find a foothold and scale.

But it’s not a one-way relationship. By opening MENA headquarters and infiltrating our markets, they also bring foreign direct investment (FDI), innovation, and competition, not to mention thousands of local jobs and stronger connections between the Arab and wider world. In the GCC, the clear frontrunner in FDI is currently the U.A.E., attracting $22.7 billion of inflow investment in 2022, followed by Saudi Arabia with $7.9 billion and Oman with $3.7 billion, according to UNCTAD data.

There are many elements attracting international companies to these shores. Of course, the high spending power of much of the Middle East’s growing population, including millions of resident expats, is one of them. According to the World Bank, MENA had a population of over 493 million in 2022, with around 55% of its people under 30. International companies also tap into MENA’s vibrancy, vision, and ambition. MENA’s governments are investing in supporting startups, skills development, and digital evolution. Its people are engaging in a big way, and businesses are benefiting.

This year’s top ten Global Meets Local features four technology companies—Microsoft, Mastercard, Google, and Amazon—two consumer goods companies, two aerospace firms, and two food and beverage giants. Technology dominates the lists overall, with 15 entries, followed by pharmaceuticals with 11. The basis for this list is the Forbes Global 2000, which ranks conglomerates using sales, profits, assets, and market value. We then rank the companies with a significant presence in MENA. So, our metrics show both which sectors have been making the most money globally in the last year and which have invested most in their operations in the Middle East.

With technology clearly the frontrunner, this month I spoke to Anthony Nakache, Google’s regional head, to find out more about its moves in the Middle East and his thoughts on the hot topic of the moment: AI. How we use it, how we’re developing it, and whether too much of it is a good thing. We also spoke to Sandeep Walia from Marriott International, one of the biggest hotel operators in the world, about why it’s looking to Saudi Arabia for its next major openings. And we take a look at how Uber and Coca-Cola are embedding sustainability into their traditionally resource-draining industries.

I hope you enjoy the issue.

—Claudine Coletti, Managing Editor

THE CITY OF EARTH

INNOVATING SINCE 2010

SEPTEMBER 2023 ISSUE 132

Dr. Nasser Bin Aqeel Al Tayyar President & Publisher nasser@forbesmiddleeast.com

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Editorial

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Research

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Business Development

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10 MOST POPULAR ARAB YOUTUBERS

From games and beauty to family vlogs, these are the Middle East’s most subscribed Arab content creators’ channels on YouTube. Subscriber and viewing numbers given are as of August 8, 2023.

1 Shfa Yusef

Nationality: Emirati • Residence: U.A.E.

Yusef started her channel in 2015. The 11-year-old has gained 6.6 million subscribers and 4.3 billion views since June 2021. Shfa’s video of opening a shop, which was published in January 2020, became her most viewed of all time, amassing 206 million views.

38.7 million Subscribers

21.8 billion Views

31.6 million Subscribers

2 Hassan Suleiman

billion Views

Nationality: Somalian • Residence: U.A.E. Known for his gaming videos and sense of humor, Suleiman is better known as AboFlah. In 2022, he helped to raise over $11 million for the World’s Coolest Winter refugee campaign in cooperation with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, UNHCR, the Food Banking Regional Network, and Galaxy Racer. Since June 2021, the gamer has gained 14 million new subscribers.

Hassan Suleiman

3 Mohamed Moshaya

Nationality: Saudi • Residence: U.A.E.

Moshaya and his family have created a family-friendly channel for entertainment, sketches, and pranks since starting their channel in 2010. In 2021, the MENA kids’ TV channel Spacetoon announced the premiere of the Moshaya Family Animation. With 240 million views, the eighth episode of Moshaya’s compilation of short sketches is the channel’s most-viewed video.

5

Sayed Hashem

Nationality: Bahraini • Residence: Bahrain

Sayed creates gaming content, with his videos consisting of playing a certain game and exploring its purpose while giving tips and tricks on how to play. Since joining YouTube in 2013, he has attracted 19 million subscribers, and in 2020, he became the first Arab gaming channel to receive YouTube’s Diamond Play Button.

Arab Games Network Gaming

22.6 million Subscribers

17.6 billion Views

19 million Subscribers

8.8 billion Views

Noor Stars Diversified

20.3 million Subscribers

4

Noor Naem

2.8 billion Views

Nationality: Iraqi • Residence: U.A.E.

Noor Stars started her channel almost a decade ago. She also has 14.1 million followers on Instagram. In January 2023, she launched her “Stars Podcast,” which has since gathered more than 16.5 million views on YouTube. She has been featured on a song with Iraqi Singer Saif Nabeel and DJ Aseel called “Bint El Balad,” and she has collaborated with fashion and makeup brands like SHEIN, American Eagle, M.A.C, and Maybelline.

14.4 million Subscribers

Anasala Family Family 3 billion Views

6

Anas Marwah; Asala Maleh

Nationality: Syrian/Canadian; Syrian/American • Residence: U.S.

Known as the Anasala Family, Marwah, and Maleh have been filming vlogs, pranks, and challenges since 2017. In January 2021, they launched “The Anazala Family” channel, which creates family content in English. Since then, it had 5.4 million subscribers and 595 million views. The family’s gender reveal celebration of their baby boy on the Burj Khalifa became the most viewed gender reveal video on YouTube.

7 Narin Ammara

Nationality: Syrian/Swedish • Residence: U.A.E.

Ammara’s channel features diverse content ranging from lifestyle inspiration to pranks, games, and challenges. She has collaborated with brands, including Maybelline and Vichy. Her most popular video is her song “3ish Hayatak,” which was released in June 2019 and has since been viewed over 61.8 million times.

9 Tarik Al Halabi

Nationality: Syrian • Residence: Türkiye

Al Halabi joined YouTube in 2019, creating entertaining content with his wife and daughter, among other videos. His most popular video was viewed more than 9.5 million times in five months.

Narins Beauty

14.1 million Subscribers

Diversified 2.2 billion Views

8 Ameen Mohamed

Nationality: Iraqi • Residence: Netherlands

Having joined YouTube about six years ago, Mohamed is an Arab gamer who produces content from the Netherlands for gaming enthusiasts. Mohamed is best known for creating video content on video game PUBG MOBILE. His most popular video has been viewed more than 25 million times.

tarik alhalapi

13.5 million Subscribers

Family 9.3 billion Views

10 Bander Madkhali

Nationality: Saudi • Residence: Saudi Arabia

Madkhali has been creating gaming content with a fusion of humor and entertainment for almost a decade now. He has gained an extra 3.2 million subscribers since June 2021.

Atro

13.9 million Subscribers

YouTube World Records

Gaming 2.5 billion Views

The

13.4 million Subscribers

BanderitaX Gaming 4.2 billion Views

T-Series, an Indian music label and movie studio, holds the record for the most subscribers on YouTube, with 229 million subscribers, which was verified on November 17, 2022. As of August 16, 2023, it had over 247 million subscribers on YouTube.

most viewed video ever on YouTube is “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong (from the Republic of Korea), which achieved 8.38 billion views as of April 22, 2021. Sung by 10-year-old Hope Segoine, the song was first uploaded on 18 June 2016. It reached No.32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No.6 in the UK. As of August 16, 2023, it had over 13 billion views on YouTube.

1999

1993

NVIDIA was founded in April 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. Today, the California-based software company is known for being the brains behind some significant AI breakthroughs, helping Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant, Tesla’s self-driving vehicles, and Netflix’s movie recommendations, to name a few.

NVIDIA invented the graphics processing unit (GPU), which set the stage to reshape the computing industry.

2012

After years of being a powerhouse creating graphics chips used in PCs for video games, NVIDIA pivoted to the AI market and unveiled the neural network model, AlexNet, in 2012.

2013

The company introduced the Tegra 4i processor, which it said at that time was the world’s fastest mobile processor. In the same year, the company’s Tegra business continued to grow for fiscal year 2013, with its revenue increasing by 29.3% to $764.4 million. Its GPU business revenue increased by 2% to $3.3 billion.

2014

NVIDIA introduced Tegra K1 in 2014, paving the way for self-piloted cars. Tegra K1 was the first mobile processor to bring advanced computational capabilities to vehicles.

2015

NVIDIA introduced the NVIDIA DRIVE automotive computers with powerful capabilities for computer vision, deep learning, and advanced cockpit visualization.

2016

NVIDIA shares nearly tripled in price in 2016. The company introduced the Nvidia DGX-1 system, designed for deep learning for a new computing model to power the AI revolution. The system was built on NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs.

2017

NVIDIA entered the drone space.

Technology

Timeline: NVIDIA’s Road To

The $1T Club

On May 30, 2023, Silicon Valley behemoth NVIDIA became the sixth public company in the world to hit over a $1 trillion market valuation. As of August 11, 2023, the company’s stock had surged over 179% since the beginning of the year. Here’s a look at how it got there.

2018

NVIDIA reinvented computer graphics with NVIDIA RTX, the first GPU capable of realtime ray tracing. This brings real-time cinematic-quality rendering to content creators and game developers.

2019

NVIDIA released the GeForce RTX 2060, armed with ray tracing and AI, and the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, an affordable option. NVIDIA also partnered with Volvo Group to develop an advanced AI platform for autonomous trucks.

2023

In March, Google Cloud announced the continuation of its partnership with NVIDIA to provide GPUs to organizations that don’t have access to build generative AI models. In May, NVIDIA revealed a new class of GPUs, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, that reportedly run at twice the speed of the previous ones. This, along with the company’s impressive market performance, led Bank of America analysts to call NVIDIA an “unquestionable AI leader” in a recent report.

2022

NVIDIA’s popularity was brought to new heights amid the AI hype, especially after ChatGPT debuted in November 2022. GPUs play an important role in generative AI by helping to accelerate the training of models and enabling them to learn from larger datasets.

2021

The chipmaker announced that its A100 GPUs and DGX SuperPOD systems broke 16 AI performance records in the MLPerf benchmarks for training. Top users and backers of the technology include Amazon Web Services, Baidu Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Tencent Cloud, as well as dozens of major server makers like Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Inspur, and Supermicro. NVIDIA also unveiled two application frameworks: Jarvis, which was renamed NVIDIA Riva, for conversational AI, and NVIDIA Merlin, for recommendation systems. These are part of a growing family of app frameworks for markets, including Clara for healthcare, Isaac for robotics, and Metropolis for retail and smart cities.

2020

NVIDIA announced that it was acquiring Japanese holding firm SoftBank Group Corp’s subsidiary arm, a semiconductor and software design company based in the U.K., for $40 billion. Both companies terminated the transaction in 2022. NVIDIA also introduced its EGX Edge AI Platform, which rapidly received widespread adoption across the tech ecosystem.

FOOTBALL LEGENDS

FLOCK TO SAUDI Sport

Saudi Arabia has been on a spending spree, snapping up some of the world’s top football players. Here are some of the most prominent deals and transfers as of August 20, 2023.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Move: Manchester United AlNassr

Nationality: Portuguese

AlNassr Football Club signed a deal with Portugal football star Ronaldo in December 2022. He signed for the club on a free transfer until June 2025. AlNassr officially presented Ronaldo in January 2023 at the club’s 25,000-capacity Mrsool Park Stadium in Riyadh. The 38-year-old player has previously played for Real Madrid, Juventus, and Manchester United.

N’Golo

Kanté

Move: Chelsea Al-Ittihad

Nationality: French

Chelsea’s Kanté signed a three-year contract with Al-Ittihad Club in June 2023 after he completed his medical tests at a specialized medical center in Dubai. Kante, 32, helped Chelsea to victory in the Premier League and the FA Cup. He also helped the club win the Champions League, the Europa League, and the Super Cup in Europe as well as the FIFA Club World Cup. The club recently won the Saudi Pro League and is now preparing for the FIFA Club World Cup 2023.

Karim Benzema

Move: Real Madrid Al-Ittihad Nationality: French

In June 2023, French striker Benzema signed a three-year deal with Al-Ittihad Club. He joined the Saudi-based club after finishing a 14-year tenure at Real Madrid. The 35-year-old player is Real Madrid’s second all-time top scorer with 354 goals and the fourth top scorer in the history of LALIGA and the Champions League. He is also the current Ballon d’Or holder, which he showed off at his AL-Ittihad presentation in June at the King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah.

Kalidou Koulibaly

Move: Chelsea Al-Hilal

Nationality: Senegalese

Al-Hilal signed an agreement with Senegalese player Koulibaly in June 2023. The contract extends for three seasons until the end of the 2025/26 season. Koulibaly joined Chelsea in the summer of 2022 and made 32 appearances for the team during his time at Stamford Bridge. He also captained Senegal to the last 16 of the FIFA World Cup Qatar last year, scoring a winning goal to help his country reach the knockout stages. The 32-year-old player previously played for Napoli for eight seasons.

Marcelo Brozovic

Move: Inter AlNassr

Nationality: Croatian

Croatian footballer Brozovic, 30, signed a deal with AlNassr in July 2023. The contract will be valid until 2026. In the 2022/23 season, Brozovic played a key role in Inter Milan finishing runner-up in the Champions League and helped Croatia secure second place in the Nations League.

Rúben Neves

Move: Wolves Al-Hilal

Nationality: Portuguese

Al-Hilal signed an agreement with Portugal national team player Neves in June 2023. The 26-year-old player’s contract extends until the end of the 2025/26 season. The midfielder joined Wolves in the summer of 2017 and made 253 appearances with the club, scoring a total of 30 goals.

Edouard Mendy

Move: Chelsea Al-Ahli

Nationality: Senegalese

Al-Ahli signed an agreement with Senegalese goalkeeper Mendy in June 2023 that will extend until 2026. The 31-year-old player was named the Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper of the Year in 2021. Mendy joined Chelsea in 2020 and helped the club win the Champions League in 2021. He appeared 105 times for the club, with 49 of those games ending with a clean sheet.

Roberto Firmino

Move: Liverpool Al-Ahli

Nationality: Brazilian

In July 2023, Al-Ahli signed with 31-yearold Brazilian player Firmino. The contract with Al-Ahli extends until 2026. Firmino’s success with Liverpool included winning seven trophies, notably the Champions League in 2019 and the club’s first-ever Premier League title in 30 years in 2020. He made 362 appearances for Liverpool, scoring 111 goals and providing 72 assists.

Riyad Mahrez

Move: Manchester City Al-Ahli

Nationality: Algerian

Al-Ahli signed a deal with Mahrez in July 2023. The 32-year-old player spent five years with Manchester City after signing with the club in 2018 from Leicester City. Mahrez has won four Premier League titles with Manchester City, making 46 appearances and scoring 16 goals.

Sadio Mané

Move: Bayern Munich AlNassr

Nationality: Senegalese

Sadio Mané signed a contract with AlNassr in August 2023, which will be valid until 2027. He made 38 appearances and scored 12 goals for Bayern. Mané previously played for Liverpool for six years, where he helped the club win the Champions League and Premier League titles.

Neymar Jr.

Move: Paris Saint-Germain Al-Hilal

Nationality: Brazilian

Neymar signed a two-year deal with Al-Hilal in August 2023. Paris SaintGermain accepted around $102 million in exchange for the player. The 31-year old played six seasons with the Parisbased club. Neymar, a two-time La Liga champion and five-time Ligue 1 champion. He played 173 matches, scored 118 goals and picked up 70 assists for Paris Saint-Germain. Neymar previously played for Barcelona for five seasons.

Yassine Bounou

Move: Sevilla Al-Hilal Nationality: Moroccan

Al Hilal signed a contract with Bounou until 2026 in August 2023 in Paris, France. The player was a part of the Spanish club Sevilla since 2019. He helped Sevilla win its seventh Europa League title in June this year. Bounou played 142 games for the club, which included 58 clean sheets. The 32-year-old goalkeeper also helped Morocco reach the semi-finals in last year’s World Cup after beating Portugal and Spain in the knockout rounds.

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How The FIFA Women’s World Cup Made History This Year

Two hosts

In its ninth iteration, the FIFA Women’s World Cup shared co-hosting duties for the first time between two federations: Australia and New Zealand. To reflect the union and joint effort of the nations, the 2023 tournament’s official match ball was called OCEAUNZ.

8 nations

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup welcomed an expansion in teams, with eight nations making their inaugural appearance. Haiti, Morocco, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Vietnam, and Zambia all made their debut this year.

$110

The 2023 prize pot for the tournament surged by 267% to $110 million, marking a more than three-fold increase from 2019 and seven times more than in 2015. At least half of the prize money is earmarked for the players rather than their federation. By comparison, the men’s World Cup had a prize pool of $440 million in 2022. FIFA aims to achieve pay parity by 2027.

$30,000

For the first time, this year, all players that qualified for the group stages received individual payments of $30,000 direct from FIFA,

with the amount doubled for those that made it to the knockout stages. The players in the championship-winning team clinched $270,000 each.

million

First Arab team

Morocco etched its name into history as the first Arab and North African women’s team to participate in a Women’s World Cup and also the first to secure a win. The Atlas Lionesses lost their opening match against Germany but celebrated victory against South Korea and Colombia. The team was the only debutantes to make it to the last 16, where they were knocked out by France. This a remarkable feat considering only three of the 17 teams that have made their Women’s World Cup debuts this century have

reached the knockout stage.

First Hijabi

Moroccan footballer

Nouhaila Benzina made history as the first-ever player to wear a hijab in a game in the history of the World Cup. Benzina plays professional club soccer for the Association’s Sports of Forces Armed Royal— the eight-time defending champion in Morocco’s top women’s league.

First Palestinian referee

Heba Saadieh became the first-ever Palestinian to officiate a match in the World Cup. The 34-yearold moved to Sweden at 26 and pursued her career as a licensed FIFA referee in Europe.

Africa’s moment

When Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa won their entries to the knockout round of the tournament, they made history as the first time ever three African teams progressed to the last 16. The only other there was more than one was in 2019, when Cameroon and Nigeria reached the knockout stage.

1.2 million

After 48 matches, over 1.2 million fans had attended the 2023 tournament—a 29% increase from France 2019.

14 days

FIFA has surpassed digital traffic for the entirety of the 2019 tournament in just 14 days, welcoming 22 million unique users throughout the group stage. On average, 2.4 million users were engaging with FIFA Women’s World Cup channels daily.

First Separate Commercial Broadcasting

Breaking convention, FIFA independently commercialized the broadcasting rights for the Women’s World Cup. Previously, FIFA bundled the sale of media rights and sponsorships for the men’s World Cup along with the Women’s World Cup.

Having been established in 1991, the FIFA Women’s World Cup has recently witnessed a surge in popularity. Here’s a look at some facts and figures from the 2023 tournament, which has left a lasting mark through a series of historic firsts. BY JAMILA

GANDHI ;

PHOTO BY BRENTON EDWARDS / AFP

Morocco etched its name into history as the first Arab and North African women’s team to participate in a Women’s World Cup.

COUNTRIES

Sustainability

Greening The Middle East

As the U.A.E. prepares to host COP28 from November 30 to December 12, 2023, the Middle East is witnessing a growing commitment among private and public entities to embrace change and take decisive action on climate issues.

Many companies in the Middle East are stepping up their efforts to address climate challenges, displaying greater transparency on their environmental impact, restructuring their organizations to implement a more systematic approach to sustainability, and appointing executives with dedicated responsibilities in environmental, social, and governance (ESG), according to PwC’s ESG Middle East survey 2023. The majority of business leaders surveyed represented organizations based in the GCC, with approximately two-thirds reporting revenues surpassing $100 million.

Around 64% of the companies surveyed have adopted a formal ESG strategy, and 73% have committed to achieving carbon neutrality or are actively pursuing such goals. More than 60% of respondents want a greater commitment from their organization’s CEO and board to address ESG-related issues.

In 2023, companies in the Middle East have shown significant progress in embracing green initiatives, with ESG-related issues becoming integral to their operations. Many companies have established specific roles to execute their ESG strategies, with over 27% appointing a chief sustainability officer (CSO). Notably, in nearly half of these companies, the CSO holds the primary responsibility for ESG. In comparison, 55% of respondents in 2022 stated that the CEO had overall control of ESG, but in 2023 that figure has dropped to just 20%.

Over the next 12 months, 45% of the organizations are set to prioritize environmental risk management and compliance. Circular waste management and mitigating climate change’s impact follow closely as the second and third environmental priorities. Biodiversity, air quality, and water scarcity are also mentioned. In

Wins So Far

addition to climate-related concerns, social causes are prominently featured as top priorities for the next year, including fostering diversity and equality, workforce well-being, and emphasizing the localization and upskilling of the workforce.

Sustainability skills are crucial for the Middle East to achieve its climate goals, and two in five survey respondents identified the need for more internal expertise to implement ESG initiatives as one of the critical challenges being faced by the region. Finance is another area presenting challenges, with 46% of respondents expecting to selffund their ESG activities rather than looking to more innovative green financing opportunities. Only 13% anticipated receiving green loans from banks or other sources. This may be attributed to the relatively recent emergence of sustainable finance in global markets, with sustainable debt issuance gaining momentum over the past four to five years, among other factors.

Although the GCC economies have seen a rise in green and sustainable bonds and sukuk issuances, the survey suggested these initiatives have not yet translated into widespread adoption at the business level. In 2022, total GCC green and sustainable bond and sukuk issuances experienced significant growth, according to PwC, reaching $8.5 billion, compared to $605 million in 2021. Major issuers in the region include Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, which listed a debut $3 billion green bond on the London Stock Exchange in October 2022. Additionally, companies like the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company Masdar achieved successful green securities issuances.

April 2016

December 2016

A number of MENA countries signed the Paris Agreement, including Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Palestine.

The Qatar Stock Exchange released ESG guidelines as solar electricity and wind power become economically competitive with fossil fuels globally.

June 2020 Bahrain Bourse issued its ESG reporting guidelines.

September 2020

March 2021

October 2021

November 2021

Egypt became the first Middle East country to issue a green sovereign bond for $500 million.

Saudi Arabia launched the Saudi and Middle East Green Initiative, a long-term sustainable action plan that aims to address climate change.

Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Bahrain released official announcements of their netzero commitments.

The Saudi Exchange published its ESG disclosure guidelines.

October 2022

November 2022

Oman announced its 2050 Net Zero commitment and a green hydrogen strategy that seeks to create 70,000 jobs. Saudi Aramco announced a $1.5 billion sustainability fund.

Egypt held COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. The U.A.E. and the U.S. announced a $100 billion clean energy partnership.

BY RAWAN HASSAN

Money

MENA Venture Capital Declines

MENA experienced a significant setback in funding and deals during the first half of 2023, reflecting a global retreat in venture capital activity.

According to MAGNiTT’s recent report MENA Venture Investment, MENA startups raised approximately $1.1 billion from 193 deals in the first half of 2023, indicating a 42% decrease in funding and a 49% decrease in the number of deals compared to the same period last year. Almost half of this capital came from three mega-deals recorded by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The second quarter had a more pronounced impact of the slowdown as it marked the lowest funding level since Q3 2020 and the lowest number of deals since Q2 2017.

Egypt, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia witnessed an average decrease of 51% in deals in H1 2023, while total funding declined by 31% year-onyear. However, despite a 27% drop in funding in Saudi Arabia compared to H1 2022, the kingdom did perform the best when it came to funding, raising $446 million driven by two mega-deals: dark store grocery delivery startup Nana raised $133 million, and online flower and gift delivery platform Floward raised $156 million both in Series C funding rounds in February 2023.

Despite a $260 million mega-deal by MNT-Halan in February, Egypt has experienced a substantial 75% decrease in transactions. This can be attributed to fluctuations in the global economy, coupled with a significant decline in economic growth resulting from severe currency depreciation and escalating food prices triggered by the

MENA’s VC Activity

In H1 2023

Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Exit activity has also slowed in MENA, with the total number of M&A transactions falling 27% compared to H1 2022. The U.A.E. led exit activity in the region, accounting for 17 of the 27 M&A transactions recorded in the first half of 2023.

MENA’s top five sectors reported a nearly 50% drop in the total number of deals compared to the same period last year. Empowered by the Nana, Floward, and MNTHalan deals, among others, Fintech and e-commerce accounted for approximately 80% of the funding accumulated by MENA-based startups.

• $1.1 billion • MENA startups raised $1.1 billion from 193 deals, a 42% decrease compared to H1 2022.

• $446 million • Saudi Arabia raised $446 million in H1 2023 driven by two mega-deals in February: Nana raised $133 million

Floward raised $156 million

• $260 million • Egypt saw a $260 million mega-deal by MNT-Halan in February.

• 17 • The U.A.E. accounted for 17 of the 27 M&A transactions recorded.

• 27% • Total number of M&A transactions fell 27% in MENA compared to H1 2022.

• 60% • Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. accounted for over 60% of total funding across MENA.

While Fintech continued to attract investor interest, it experienced a decline in funding and deals. On the other hand, e-commerce witnessed an 80% increase in funding. In light of market volatility, investors appeared to be focusing their attention on early-stage investments, resulting in a slight rise in the $1 million to $5 million investment bracket.

The region’s top 10 most active investors by deployed capital were from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., collectively accounting for over 60% of total funding across MENA in the first half of 2023. The leading investor in the region was Chimera Capital, an asset management firm based in the U.A.E., which deployed $260 million in capital. Following closely were STV, a venture capital firm based in Saudi Arabia, with $90 million, and Aljazira Capital, also based in Saudi Arabia, with $86 million.

Sami Alhelwah, Nana founder

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MISS PATTI’S CAKES

ou probably know Patti LaBelle as the voice behind “Lady Marmalade.” Or maybe as the star solo act who snagged two Grammy Awards in the 1990s. Perhaps you even recall Out All Night, her short-lived 1992 sitcom. But what you likely don’t know: The Godmother of Soul is a card shark.

“I killed him last night,” she says during a recent afternoon round of Pitty Pat, nodding toward her business partner, Charles Suitt. She sweeps up the cash scattered across her kitchen counter and adds it to a folio pouch bursting with 20-, ten- and five-dollar bills.

LaBelle isn’t just cleaning up at the card table: She’s winning as an entrepreneur, too. Fifteen years ago, she started Patti’s Good Life in Philadelphia, her lifelong hometown, to sell a line of hot sauces. She has since expanded into a whole cupboard’s worth of comfort foods: peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, chicken and biscuits, mac n’ cheese. Every dish is based on one of LaBelle’s own recipes. Voulez-vous manger avec moi? You bet: Gross sales hit nearly $200 million last year. It’s a royalty deal, meaning LaBelle pays a factory to bake her goods, then sells them to America’s largest grocers, including Target and Walmart; the latter alone accounted for $85 million in sales. At the end of the day, Patti’s Good Life pockets about 10%, or $20 million in revenue last year. LaBelle and her son currently own 100% of the company, though she says she’d welcome outside capital with open arms.

“People think of me as a cook, someone who’s going to give them quality food,” she says. “And I don’t put my name on anything unless it’s 110% perfect.”

LaBelle is one of the 200 fresh faces on the third annual Forbes 50 Over 50, which highlights women making power plays at age 50, 60, 70 or beyond. This year’s list, produced

NANCY PFUND

AGE: 67 FOUNDER, DBL PARTNERS

In 2003, long before it was trendy, Pfund launched an in-house impact investing fund at JPMorgan. Five years later, at age 53, she spun that out into VC firm DBL Partners and has made a name for herself with early bets on Tesla, Pandora and Farmers Business Network. In 2021, Pfund closed a $600 million climate tech–focused fund.

CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS

AGE: 64 FOUNDER, CENTER FOR RURAL ENTERPRISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

After receiving a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2020 when she was 62, Flowers is using her “over 50” career to bring change to what she calls America’s dirty secret: “The richest country in the world has people living with no sanitation, with sewage running either on top of the ground, outside their homes or coming back into their homes.”

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

AGE: 64

ACTOR

When she was young, Jamie Lee Curtis thought she would retire from acting when she got to be 40. Good thing she didn’t. This year, she won her first Oscar for her supporting role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. “I’ve had the most creative life in the last year that I’ve had in my entire life,” she says. “At 64.”

PEGGY WHITSON

AGE: 63

ASTRONAUT/DIRECTOR, AXIOM

Outer space is a second home for Peggy Whitson. The 63-year-old astronaut has spent 675 days working in space, more than any other woman alive. This May, Whitson added a new accolade to her trophy case: As Axiom’s director of human spaceflight, she became the first woman to command a private mission for the Houston-based space infrastructure outfit.

in partnership with Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski and her Know Your Value initiative, divides these high-flying women into four categories: Impact, Investment, Innovation and Lifestyle. It’s available in full at forbes. com/50over50.

LaBelle started cooking when she was 10 years old, escaping to the family garage to whip up her signature spicy ketchup. She never gave it up. Throughout her performing career, she cooked for Elton John, Prince and the Rolling Stones, going as far as labeling the tinfoil trays with her name so there was no mistaking Patti LaBelle’s food for the catered stuff. Her first cookbook was published in 1999. “Friends of mine would always say, ‘Why don’t you open a restaurant or start your own line of food?’ ” she says.

With Patti’s Good Life, by contrast, she’s near obsessively hands-on. She invites industrial cooks into her kitchen to see how she makes her food, then tests the product as many as ten or 20 times. Attention to detail pays off: When she launched Patti’s Good Life sweet potato pie in Walmart in the fall of 2015, it went viral on YouTube and in one three-day period before Thanksgiving was selling at a rate of one pie per second.

“Even today we’re selling more than five times the number of sweet potato pies than we did before we launched our Patti sweet potato pie,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon tells Forbes via email. McMillon credits her products’ popularity to the star’s strict oversight, noting that she has personally visited Walmart stores to pepper its customers and salespeople with questions about what they want to see from Patti’s Good Life. LaBelle understands the need for “innovation and constant improvement,” he says.

She’s continuing to expand. She plans to launch a line of wines later this year: a rosé, a sauvignon blanc and a cabernet modeled after the high-end bottles she favors—but at one-fifth the cost. And she’s looking to grow the Patti’s Good Life frozen breakfast line, which debuted last summer with pancakes and waffles and will soon include a syrup that is diabetic-friendly.

“My cooking is going places where my singing career has not gone,” she says.

FOR THE FULL LIST OF 200, PLEASE VISIT

Forbes.com/50over50

Life As It Should Be

Omar El Hamamsy, Group CEO of Orascom Development, sets out the company’s plans for growth as it continues to transform land into thriving communities.

How has Orascom Development’s unique model for destinations and towns driven its success?

At Orascom Development, we take immense pride in our reputation for creating integrated towns of an unparalleled scale with firstrate quality.

People are often surprised to learn about the magnitude of our business. Our landbank spans just over 100 million sqm and we have already developed nearly 40% of it into integrated towns with thriving communities across Europe, the GCC, and Egypt.

Our growth is a remarkable achievement considering it all began when our founder, Samih Sawiris, set out to create a little slice of paradise near the Red Sea. Since 1989, El Gouna has become a prime example of world-class destination development, and we have expanded our success with Makadi Heights, O West, Taba Heights, and Byoum in Egypt; The Cove in the U.A.E.; Jebel Sifah and Hawana Salalah in Oman; Andermatt Swiss Alps in Switzerland; Luštica Bay in Montenegro; and West Carclaze Garden Village in the UK.

What will characterize Orascom Development’s next chapter of growth?

Our focus is on delivering long-term, sustainable growth through a onecompany culture that builds on our expertise in real estate, hospitality, and experiences. We stay true to our heritage by thinking long term, focusing on our customers, and nurturing a creative spirit that propels us forward.

At the same time, we have renewed our strategic approach to growth. We are unifying our workforce by introducing our shared vision, mission, and values. Collaborating with like-minded organizations and governments allows us to accelerate our vision to be a global leader in destination development and the partner of choice for transforming land into thriving centers of life.

How do you ensure a customercentric approach in creating inspiring places to live, work, and play?

Being customer-obsessed is at the top of our corporate values, and our communities are at the center of everything we do.

Most importantly, we aim to elevate the benchmark of living with master-planned communities that enrich lives, foster a sense of belonging, and create lasting memories. Our standing invitation to our discerning customers is to discover life as it should be. One way we deliver on that promise is by offering exceptional experiences for our homeowners and guests alike. For instance, we have seven world-class marinas with capacity for more than 1,200 yachts and five golf courses designed by top professional players and accomplished course designers.

We define our success by the quality of life our destinations deliver and long-term value we create for our stakeholders. Many initiatives stem from our customers around the world. For example, we recently introduced a new premium platform called El Gouna Plus that provides design and renovation, property management and home services because so many of our customers are looking for a one-stop shop after they purchase their homes.

Overall, our dedication to crafting inspiring places that endure is the driving force behind our ongoing journey.

Omar El Hamamsy, Group CEO of Orascom Development

By Hagar Omran

Changing The Narrative

Coca-Cola may be best known for fizzy drinks and curvy bottles, but it’s evolving with the times, according to regional VP, ANDREW BUCKINGHAM. As plastic packaging becomes a social pariah, emphasizing ESG is on the rise for one of the world’s biggest companies, particularly in the Middle East.

Good Intentions

According to Mordor Intelligence, the beverage market is expected to be worth $3.49 trillion in 2023 and $4.39 trillion by 2028. The wide usage of plastic packaging in the industry means that the focus on ESG initiatives is also gaining ground. This is the case for the Coca-Cola Company, which has taken bold steps in this area, particularly in the Middle East. Many of the Coca-Cola Company’s ESGrelated initiatives in the Middle East are initiated from the regional headquarters in the U.A.E. and extend throughout the region. “Our sustainability strategies are focused on meeting our global World Without Waste vision, water stewardship, continued innovation in our product portfolio as a total beverage company, reducing our carbon footprint, and investing in a better-shared future for our communities,” says Andrew Buckingham, Vice President and General Manager for the Middle East at the Coca-Cola Company.

Sustainability and social commitments aren’t new to the 137-year-old company, which partnered with the Red Cross during World War I. But looking to

Andrew Buckingham, Vice President and General Manager for the Middle East at the Coca-Cola Company, is taking a regional view of a global sustainability drive.

the future, Coca-Cola is expanding its efforts, particularly in the Middle East.

In 2022, as part of its ongoing commitment to promote diversity, inclusion, and equality, the CocaCola Company joined the U.A.E. Gender Balance Council Pledge, which encourages increasing the representation of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2025. In June last year , it renewed its partnership with RECAPP, a U.A.E. recycling service, and mobile app, to collect and recycle hundreds of tons of PET packaging. It aims to reach a 100% collection and recycling rate of all its packaging by 2030. As of August 2023, the app had over 50,000 downloads. RECAPP has collected nearly 600 tons of mixed recyclables since its launch in November 2020.

In Qatar, Coca-Cola debuted 100% rPET bottles at a FIFA World Cup tournament for the first time in 2022. According to the company, recycling bins were placed across venues, and 73% of the plastic collected from stadiums and fan zones was recycled. Riyadh’s official FIFA World Cup fan zone also had 100% waste collection and in-country recycling.

In early 2023, Coca-Cola co-launched the U.A.E. Circular Packaging Association under the patronage of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. The association aims to embed circular and green economy principles into the packaging value chain in the U.A.E. It also became a member of the U.A.E. Aluminum Recycling Coalition, which aims to collect 20 million singleuse plastic bottles a year for recycling. In January 2023, Coca-Cola also partnered with Emerge, a joint venture between U.A.E.’s Masdar and France’s EDF, to establish a 1.8 MWp solar photovoltaic plant for the bottling and distribution facility in Al Ain. And The Coca-Cola Company and NGOs provided three million less privileged with meals and beverages as part of its Ramadan campaign during March and April 2023, focusing on Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait through Coca-Cola Caravan.

In June 2023, the Coca-Cola Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm, signed an agreement with the United Nations World Food Programme and the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Egypt to promote sustainable agriculture and green energy among farmers in Luxor. The two-year program aims to establish a model farm that uses green energy and watersaving techniques, benefiting 1,000 farmers. In Palestine, Coca-Cola launched “Youth for Plastic Recycling” in July 2023 to engage youth in designing environmental initiatives focused on plastic recycling and increase Palestinian local

Giving Back

communities’ awareness about sustainability and climate action. “We are looking at several youthcentered initiatives and will continue to build on our initiatives to continue to contribute towards our communities. I look forward to announcing these in due course,” says Buckingham.

All of these regional initiatives come in line with the company’s plans to use more recycled content in its packaging, expand the use of refillable bottles, and collect packaging for recycling through its global “World Without Waste initiative,” which was launched in 2018. About 90% of the company’s packaging globally was recyclable in 2022, and the plan is to make 100% of the packaging recyclable globally by 2025, including its owned and independent bottling partners and suppliers.

Buckingham explains, “Our aim for 2023 and 2024 is to build on our current initiatives and partnerships, facilitating long-lasting impact. For instance, we are considering significantly increasing our efforts toward our circular economy goals, especially in the GCC. We will continue to invest and expand water conservation and replenishment projects across the region. We will soon announce a project in Jordan.”

Despite undisclosed budgets for current and future ESG projects, Buckingham adds, “We view this investment as an integral part of our long-term growth strategy and commitment towards a more sustainable and socially responsible business. The financial commitment reflects our dedication to a more sustainable future and the well-being of the communities we serve in the Middle East.”

The Coca-Cola team engages in volunteering activities as well as expanding its ESG commitments across MENA.

FINAL THOUGHT

“SAVING OUR PLANET, LIFTING PEOPLE OUT OF POVERTY, ADVANCING ECONOMIC GROWTH... THESE ARE ONE AND THE SAME FIGHT.”

—Ban Ki-moon

Stay connected with our latest business news.

By Jamila Gandhi

Road To Net-Zero

Uber’s been evolving its vehicles, pricing, and ride options to steer a transition to clean energy. Now regional head FRANS HIEMSTRA needs to persuade passengers and drivers in the Middle East to choose them.

Despite being one of the world’s most successful companies, it’s taken Uber 14 years to become profitable. Having been established in 2009, in Q2 2023, the global technology firm reported an operating profit during a fiscal quarter for the first time in its history, recording an operating income of $326 million, marking a $1 billion yearon-year increase and $588 million versus the preceding quarter. While this milestone is remarkable, the conglomerate has been focusing on gaining momentum on a bigger priority—sustainability.

In Q1 2023, more than 9% of trips requested through the Uber platform in the U.A.E. were emission-free. “This is just a start,” says Frans Hiemstra, Director and Regional General Manager for Uber Middle East and Africa. “We need to continue the dialogue and collaboration to accelerate expanding this transition across all countries in our region.” In the U.A.E., Uber has committed to having one in four trips emission-free by 2030. The goal falls under the U.S.-headquartered company’s broader agenda to transform into a zero-emissions platform by 2040, announced in 2020.

The strategy has begun yielding results. In 2022, Uber expanded its green transportation alternatives to encompass over 200 cities worldwide, leading to 77

DGoing Electric Frans Hiemstra is embedding EVs and shared rides to support MENA’s green transition.

million trips being completed in zero-emission vehicles. To incentivize more riders in the region to opt for environmentally conscious choices, Uber made a pricing adjustment. As of July 2023, the price of an Uber Green became the same as Uber’s lowest-fare ride, UberX. Each Uber Green trip emits at least 25% less carbon emissions than an average ride. “Ahead of COP28, we’re looking at multiple ways we can bring industries together to encourage the public to choose greener options in their everyday life,” adds Heimstra. Currently available only for journeys starting in Dubai, Uber Green vehicles are 100% electric with zero exhaust emissions, helping to reduce air pollution and minimize carbon footprint.

Nevertheless, there still exist challenges for drivers to transition to electric vehicles (EVs). According to Uber’s insights, the cost of EVs is not the only barrier they face. One big hurdle is that charging an EV can feel too complicated and can be stress-inducing to consider when and where to charge to not miss out on peak earnings. “As a key player in the technology industry, we nurture the concept of responsible ownership, and this involves taking responsibility for the way in which technology impacts sustainability,” explains Heimstra. “In late 2021, we set out to find the best sustainable engineering practices, tools, and technologies and began building them into our services, products, and training sessions. We must continue introducing best practices for sustainable engineering and software development to steer us towards a zero-emission world.”

Uber’s 2040 zero-emissions ambitious goal is backed by an $800 million investment earmarked to help hundreds of thousands of drivers transition to battery EVs by 2025. The company is developing smart charging features into the Uber Driver app, which will assess real-time factors such as charging prices, traffic conditions, and charging times to keep drivers informed, plan on the road, and maximize their earnings. A batteryaware matching tool is also currently under development, a system that matches trip requests based on a driver’s battery level. This feature will ensure that drivers are assigned trips that conclude near charging stations and avoid trips that strain their battery capacities.

Hiemstra is also spearheading the expansion of infrastructure within urban mobility. “In the short term, we are investing heavily in solving

Milestones

Uber entered the Middle East market in 2013, with Dubai being the first city to join the regional network. Since its launch in MENA, Uber has crossed 39 million riders as of 2022.

Uber acquired Dubaiheadquartered Careem for $3.1 billion in 2020, marking the largest tech acquisition in the region at the time.

As of May 2023, Uber had a market cap of $76.4 billion, revenues of $33.85 billion, and assets worth $32.45 billion, according to the Forbes Global 2000.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar saw a surge in demand for ride-hailing services. Uber insights showed that tourists from over 80 countries visited MENA in 2022. In Qatar, Uber moved 2.6 million riders and created 40% more economic opportunities for drivers during the tournament’s four weeks. To tackle congestion and make rides affordable, UberX Share was launched, enabling two riders headed in the same direction to share the same ride at a 30% lower total fare.

first-mile, last-mile challenges by working closely with public transport to build a model that supports shared, electric, multimodal, and inclusive mobility,” he says. Uber has introduced several pioneering concepts unique to the region, marking global firsts.

For example, this year, Uber Reserve was integrated into the Saudi Arabia Railways website and app, enabling passengers to prebook rides to and from seven train stations when purchasing train tickets across six cities in the kingdom. This unique integration was built to improve end-to-end mobility experiences, allow advanced travel planning, support local tourism goals, and reduce the need for parking spaces. In the U.A.E., Uber signed an MoU with Etihad Rail in May 2023 to share knowledge on passenger activity and movement between cities to enhance integrated passenger transportation. “The long-term goal is for us to explore opportunities to integrate e-hailing services within the public transport ecosystem to unify journey planning,” reveals Heimstra.

Consumers are also showcasing a growing acceptance and demand for environmentally conscious choices. Findings from a 2022 PwC survey indicate that ESG and sustainability factors affect Middle East consumers’ decisions more than global consumers, at 31% in the Middle East compared to the global average of 18%. The change in mindset is evident. In Egypt, for instance, the UberShuttle—a daily mass-transport commute product—saw growth of 1.8 times from 2021 to 2022.

Exploring opportunities for integration and collaboration will be key for the company to make consistent headway toward its ambitious goal. “Looking ahead, there are three key areas that we need to actively work on, collaboratively, to achieve this vision,” says Heimstra. “They are to help drivers transition to EVs, develop diverse infrastructure within cities, not just for EVs but for micro-mobility too, and build partnerships with transport regulators, charging providers, and mobility companies to collectively develop a scalable model.”

FINAL THOUGHT

“I REALLY DO ENCOURAGE OTHER MANUFACTURERS TO BRING ELECTRIC CARS TO MARKET… I WISH IT WAS GROWING FASTER THAN IT IS.”

—Elon Musk

ENTREPRENEURS

By Chris Helman

Sand Dollars

by Michael Thad Carter for Forbes

BUD BRIGHAM made a fortune drilling for oil, but his 42-mile-long conveyor belt of sand for fracking could make him a billionaire—assuming he can avoid the tiny lizards.

Growing up in Midland, Texas, there wasn’t a lot to do, Bud Brigham says. “We used to sled on the dunes—using a cardboard box. If you were really fancy you made a sled, put laminate on the bottom and waxed it.” Fifty years later, you can still sled the giant sand dunes at Monahans State Park. If you’re lucky you might spot a threatened three-inch dunes sagebrush lizard skittering amid the shinnery oak bushes.

GWhat you will see for sure is sand trucks. Lots of them. Brigham’s company, Atlas Energy Solutions, fills up to 1,200 trucks a day, each with 24 tons of sand destined for oil fracking operations. Brigham’s no longer playing on the dunes; instead, he’s digging them up—to the tune of 10 million tons a year.

At the heart of Atlas’ mine in bone-dry Kermit, Texas, is the incongruous sight of a 50-acre blue lagoon, where barges dredge the sand, sucking it up through hoses. It goes through cleaners, dryers and screens, then into tall silos for loading into trucks.

The sand doesn’t have far to go. For hundreds of miles around Kermit, the landscape, known as the Permian Basin,

Enter Sandman

“We’re building a capillary system for sand,” says Atlas Energy founder Bud Brigham. His Dune Express will be “the main artery.”

Photograph

is dotted with thousands of oil-and-gas wells, with dozens of new ones being fracked every day. You cannot frack without sand—and you need preposterous amounts of it, on the order of 10,000 tons per well. At the drilling site that sand is mixed with water, then injected at high pressure into the wellbore (often three miles down, then two or more miles horizontally). This subterranean blasting, Brigham explains, “props open fissures to let the oil and gas out.”

Brigham’s six-year-old company, which went public in March and now sports a $1.8 billion market cap, is the biggest sand supplier in the Permian, with 25% of the market and deep enough reserves to keep digging for 100 years. Brigham, 63, owns 15% of the company. Add in his proceeds from a decade of oil deals, and Forbes estimates his net worth is in excess of $500 million.

Atlas has big plans for its $300 million in IPO proceeds. The company has begun building a 42-mile electric sand conveyor belt made of reinforced rubber, called Dune Express. “It’s really four ten-mile conveyors,” says Atlas’ president, John Turner, standing atop the Kermit silos looking west to where the line will extend over the New Mexico border into the world’s biggest fracking hotspot, where ExxonMobil, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum plan thousands of wells in the coming decades.

The oil companies are thrilled. Before local mines opened, they had to buy sand by the trainload from as far away as Wisconsin and pay $50 a ton just for transportation. Today Atlas, the dominant sand supplier, is gushing cash. In the first quarter of 2023, it generated $63 million in net income on $153 million in sales. Mining costs are about $7 per ton, with about $3 a ton in royalties. With sand selling for about $43 a ton, Goldman Sachs analyst Neil Mehta sees Atlas’ net income surpassing $500 million by 2025, thanks in part to Brigham’s conveyor belt, which should be fully operational by the end of 2024. The Dune Express will cut transportation costs in half to about $7 per ton.

Other cost savings are immeasurable. “This project is going to save lives,” says Hope Williams, a former Winkler County commissioner and member of the Kermit City Council. Since the sand boom started in 2016, the public roads have become choked with 40-ton sand trucks, leading to horrific accidents on State Highways 302 and 285. Across the Permian region, 277 people died on the roads in 2022, up 19% over 2021. Moving sand by conveyor instead of truck could take 70% of sand trucks off the roads around Kermit.

Sandman Brigham lives 300 miles away in Austin, a green oasis relative to Midland. His

The Vault PAYDIRT

There are plenty of ways to get rich in the sand—just ask Astrid Rosing, who made a fortune off the stuff many decades before the fracking revolution. Rosing had risen from a humble stenographer to a Chicagobased supplier of “80,000 barrels of cement” and “600 cars of building partitions,” plus sand and other materials “for many of the largest building enterprises in the Middle West” when Forbes profiled her unlikely rise in 1918. Some of the structures she helped raise, such as Chicago’s Crane Company Building, still stand. Rosing died at age 79 in 1954.

“We will need 1,500 cars of sand and gravel for that warehouse,” reported a Chicago contractor to his firm. “Where shall we buy it?”

“Order it of Astrid Rosing and you’ll get service,” came the reply.

“Are you sure this Rosing man is reliable?”

“Man! That business belongs to a woman—built it up herself, and I want to tell you that when I need materials in double quick time I always deal with Miss Rosing.” —Forbes, March 30, 1918

office sits on a bluff above the Colorado River, with downtown views. He drives a black Ford Bronco with a bumper sticker that reads, “Who is John Galt?” — a famous line from his favorite book, Atlas Shrugged, by libertarian icon Ayn Rand.

Brigham’s parents divorced when he was young. His mother raised him and five siblings in Midland, working for oilfield legends like T. Boone Pickens’ partners Cyril Wagner Jr. and Jack E. Brown. Brigham studied geophysics at the University of Texas, then got a job at Western Geophysical studying seismic data. “I was just one little cog in the wheel. I felt I could add so much more value,” he recalls. In 1984, he got a job at Rosewood, the oil-and-hotels holding company owned by Caroline Hunt, a daughter of oil baron H.L. Hunt, who was considered the richest man in the world when he died in 1974. “There, I knew everything that was going on. I felt empowered.”

In 1990, at age 30, he founded Brigham Exploration to drill for oil, using then-novel subterranean seismic imaging to spot reservoirs. He took the company public in 1997, just in time for the great American oil boom of the early 2000s, made possible by the combination of steerable drill bits and hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking). Brigham acquired 400,000 acres in North Dakota’s Bakken shale fields, competing against the likes of billionaire Harold Hamm. The shale boom was on. “When I started in the 1980s, most holes were dry holes. Now it’s a factory on the ground,” Brigham says. In 2011 Norway’s Statoil (now Equinor) bought Brigham Exploration for $4.7 billion.

Brigham cleared about $100 million on the deal and was keen to put it to work in his next venture. Brigham Resources leased 80,000 acres in the Permian and started drilling, funded with Brigham’s cash and an additional $700 million in private equity. Brigham’s investors tripled their money in

2017 when Diamondback Energy bought the company for $2.5 billion. Brigham’s take was about $300 million.

He could have started another oil company, but having bought a lot of sand over the previous decade, he knew a good business when he saw it. When the fracking revolution began, drillers believed that the most effective so-called “proppant” would be relatively large-grained, perfectly round sand like Northern White, railed in from mines in Wisconsin. “Sphericity is so important for crush strength,” Brigham notes. At first, “We thought the coarser grains were better because [they offered] more space for oil and gas to get through.” They even experimented with microscopic ceramic balls.

“We tried everything,” he says, and were surprised when consensus emerged among Permian frackers that the most effective sand was right in their backyard. In 2017 Brigham and some friends founded Atlas Sand and began negotiating the rights to mine two giant dunes.

Separately, Brigham had been building another public company, Brigham Minerals, which focused on buying rights to oil and gas still in the ground. It raised $300 million in a 2019 IPO, then late last year merged with Denver’s Sitio Royalties in a $4.8 billion deal—freeing up Brigham to focus on Atlas.

You can’t corner the market on sand in the Permian without visiting the Sealy & Smith Foundation, which owns a 10-by-10-mile block of land encompassing the biggest sand dunes and the park where Brigham sledded as a kid, as well as myriad oil wells. About 140 years ago, John Sealy had acquired the large tract for a family retreat. The arid land had natural springs, and Sealy’s original idea was that they could provide water for the locomotives running on transcontinental rail lines. Oil—and now sand— has proven vastly more lucrative. The foundation has gone on to contribute more than $1 billion from oil, gas and sand royalties to building research hospitals for the University of Texas. It will make a risk-free royalty of about $3 on every ton that Atlas mines for the next 94 years.

Brigham’s 42-mile conveyor belt, made from steel and reinforced rubber, was designed by Atlas engineers with the help of a wind tunnel at Texas A&M. It took four years to negotiate with ranchers for rights of way.

Automation is key. From a control room at HQ in Austin, technicians remotely activate spouts on the silos to fill customers’ sand trucks, each of which has been fitted with an RFID tag.

HOW TO PLAY IT

By John Dobosz

Spanning West Texas and eastern New Mexico, the Permian Basin is the most prolific onshore source of domestically produced crude oil and natural gas in the United States.

Occidental Petroleum (OXY) owns 2.9 million acres of land in the basin, edging out Chevron’s 2.2 million. Over the past five years, OXY revenue has grown 24% annually with help from the Permian. Earnings have grown at a 49% compound annual rate. OXY’s biggest shareholder is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which owns 25% of its outstanding stock and was busy buying more in the first and second quarter of 2023. Fellow billionaire Israel Englander of Millennium Management also loaded up on OXY earlier this year and now owns 1.9 million shares.

John Dobosz is editor of Forbes’ Billionaire Investor newsletter.

“We love exponential efficiency,” Brigham says. Even after the Dune Express is complete, they’ll still need a lot of trucks to move sand from the conveyor belt over unpaved, rocky oilfield roads to drilling sites. Atlas has already bought 120 military-grade Mack trucks, which can haul triple trailers filled with 72 tons of sand. It’s also working with Robotic Research, developer of autonomous trucking systems for the military, in the hope that these trucks will eventually drive themselves.

Infrastructure and logistics aren’t Brigham’s only challenges. Drilling and sand mining are habitat killers for the tiny dunes sagebrush lizard, which lives among the shinnery oaks growing in the dunes. In June, The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said it was seeking comment until September on a proposal to place the lizard on the endangered species list. This could severely limit sand drilling and mining in the area. “Where the lizard is living there should be no more removal of its habitat and destruction,” says Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Anticipating trouble, Atlas has already been working with the Department of Interior and other agencies on conservation plans that might enable the lizard and the oil industry to peacefully coexist. Brigham argues that many of Atlas’ large-scale operations are on the giant open dunes, far from shinnery oak ecosystems.

For all its 5 million barrels per day of oil production, the Permian Basin remains a desolate, inhospitable place. But it has been a bona fide cash machine for the state of Texas and the University of Texas system, which encompasses 13 institutions and 240,000 students, and owns stakes in millions of acres of oilfields. It received $2.3 billion in oil-andgas royalty income last year, virtually all of it from fracking. The University of Texas system’s endowment is now $57 billion.

“I think saner minds will prevail here,” says Harold Carter, a longtime private equity investor in Brigham’s ventures. “The landowners want to see the royalties, and the state can see the benefit that mining the sand provides. That lizard’s got plenty of land.”

FINAL THOUGHT “WE’RE ALL SOMEBODY’S PROSPECT; WE’RE ALL SOMEBODY’S CUSTOMER.”

—Chris Murray

Jewelry To Empower, Inspire, and Delight

Damas is the Middle East’s leading house of jewelry design, from the region to the region. Since 1907, we have been the pioneer in jewelry across the GCC, bringing to our customers innovative and creative jewelry collections inspired by Middle Eastern culture.

Damas is one of the few jewelers in the region to create its designs solely in-house. We develop stories for each collection and portray them through the region’s women, celebrating our cultural bonds and building a proud legacy within the industry.

In terms of presence, we have 150 locations across the GCC. Our stores capture our deeply rooted Arabian heritage, with interiors inspired by the natural palette of sand, beige, and gold. Each store displays our jewelry collections as well as our international brands, Graff, Djula,

Damiani, Mikimoto, Sabyasachi, Fope, and Roberto Coin.

We are also the first jeweler to have created a retail lifestyle destination. Located in the heart of Dubai, Bayt Damas brings jewelry, art, and fashion all under one roof, and also offers a café and social space.

Further demonstrating its pioneering spirit, in 2019 Damas became the first jeweler to offer a virtual tour. The tour of the Dubai Mall Millennial Store included a fully immersive shoppable experience, accessible any time by phone, tablet, or desktop device.

Soon after, in 2020, we began our brand transformation, which has earned us the leading digital share of voice in the region and a strong e-commerce presence. Importantly, we leverage digital channels to cater to the evolving needs of our customers, and to always stay relevant, innovative, and creative.

Damas’ commitment to creativity, innovation, and relevance is reflected in its collections. Our iconic and best-selling jewelry collection is Alif, created and inspired by the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. Through the collection, we turn a single letter into modern designs in a selection of gold, diamonds, mother of pearl, and semi-precious stones. Each design represents strength, confidence, and the power of standing tall, just like an Alif.

GAIA is another standout collection. Created in 2021, each piece within the collection is made with pristine, ethically made, and certified lab-grown diamonds that are D to G and VVS to V graded and certified independently by HRD Antwerp and the International Gemological Institute.

GAIA revolves around four key pillars: real diamond, best-in-class quality, price, and choice. It has been curated for discerning and aspirational women who choose to be different. The collection has been loved by celebrities such as Lebanese actress, Nadine Njeim, and Mona Kattan, winner of the Entrepreneurial Award at the Forbes Middle East Women’s Summit last May.

Looking ahead, we are exploring new markets and believe Saudi Arabia offers a tremendous opportunity. Damas is already well established in the kingdom with a network of 26 stores and we have an ambitious expansion plan, with an opening expected by the end of the year at the Red Sea Mall in Jeddah.

Luc P. Perramond, Chairman & CEO, Damas Jewelry, shares his insights into the heritage, collections, and ambitions of the much-loved Middle Eastern brand.

Luc P. Perramond, Chairman & CEO, Damas Jewelry

By Chris Helman

Kill Trees, Save The Planet

Bill Gates and other investors are betting KODAMA SYSTEMS can reduce carbon dioxide in the air by cutting down and burying trees. Now if only Uncle Sam would get onboard with tax credits, too.

Forbes

A year ago, Merritt Jenkins moved from Boston to Twain Harte, California, a speck of 2,500 souls in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. On his morning commute, he stops at Alicia’s Sugar Shack for a breakfast sandwich (scrambled eggs on rye with avocado),

Athen heads to a 10-acre patch of woods in the Stanislaus National Forest. There, his startup, Kodama Systems, is testing and perfecting its 25-foot-long, 17-ton semiautonomous timber harvesting machine.

Loggers use such machines, known as skidders, to grab tons of cut trees and debris and drag them out of the woods. Kodama’s version is designed to do the job even at night, with fewer workers, using satellite connectivity and advanced lidar (light detection and ranging) cameras, the same type that are used on self-driving cars, to monitor the work

Undertaker

No sawmills means no commercial demand for logs from California’s Stanislaus National Forest. That makes these trees prime candidates for burial, says Kodama CEO Merritt Jenkins.

Photograph by Ethan Pines for

remotely. It isn’t easy. “There’s a lot of texture to the trees. Every 10 feet of skid trail is slightly different,” says Jenkins, 35.

But logging in the dark isn’t the most intriguing part of the plans at Kodama, which has raised $6.6 million in seed funding from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy and others. After cutting down the trees, Jenkins plans to bury them—to help slow climate change and to reap salable carbon offsets (and maybe, someday, tax credits too).

Yes, the conventional idea is to plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide from the air and to then sell credits to corporations, private jet owners and others who need or want to offset their emissions. But scientists say burying trees can reduce global warming as well—particularly if those trees would otherwise end up burning or decaying, spewing their stored carbon into the air.

California’s enormous 2020 wildfires drove home the risks to air, property and life posed by overgrown forests. “The orange skies in San Francisco were an inflection point. Now the story resonates,” says Jimmy Voorhis, head of biomass utilization and policy at Kodama. The alarm bells are sounding even louder this year as Canadian wildfires have spread dangerous air conditions to New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

To help address the problem, the U.S. Forest Service aims to thin out 70 million acres of western forests, mostly in California, over the next decade, extracting more than 1 billion tons of bone-dry biomass. It is customary, after such forest thinning, for logs of marketable size to go to sawmills, with most of the rest piled up and later burned under controlled conditions. Kodama wants to bury the leftovers instead—in earthen vaults designed to maintain dry and anoxic (oxygen-free) conditions and protect the wood from rotting or burning.

Along with the VC seed money, Kodama has already received $1.1 million in grants from California’s forest fire agency and others, as well as purchase commitments for the carbon credits tied to the first 400 tons of trees it buries. On the open market, those credits should fetch $200 a ton. Eventually Kodama wants to cut down and bury more than 5,000 tons of trees a year.

A Dartmouth grad with degrees in both engineering and environmental studies, Jenkins started selling used robotic equipment while earning a master’s in robotics at Carnegie Mellon. Then he cofounded a company that uses machine learning to help farmers analyze soil. But in 2019, while earning an MBA at MIT, he concluded there was more opportunity in forestry than in

HOW TO PLAY IT

By William Baldwin

Grow a tree and then bury it? What a waste! The rational place to store carbon is above ground. The wood could be the two-by-six studs in a house or the laminated beams in a commercial building, and it spares the planet CO2 emissions from steel and concrete. Participate in this environmentally virtuous business by owning shares in forest products companies, such as West Fraser Timber in Canada and Stora Enso in Finland. Earnings will be down this year as homebuilding pauses, but the trees are still growing, and the dividend yields (1.4% and 5%) continue. Recover some or all of the foreign withholding taxes on dividends via a credit on your U.S. return.

William Baldwin is Forbes’ Investment Strategies columnist.

the crowded ag-tech field. He backed away from the AI company and spent months with loggers to understand how they use equipment, and by 2021 had settled on forestry robotics, convinced that labor shortages would drive demand.

“There’s not enough workforce,” he says. “We’ll need new training and new technologies” to meet the Forest Service’s clearing goals.

He also saw another “big gap” in the industry: what to do with all that biomass. He had heard about biomass vaults from Yale’s Carbon Containment Lab. Then mutual friends introduced him to Voorhis, a 33-yearold mountaineer, geologist and earth sciences engineer (with an M.S. from Dartmouth), who had become obsessed with the idea of reclaiming old mines as biomass burial sites. They joined forces.

The notion of burying trees sounds simple and low-tech, particularly when compared with the convoluted “carbon capture” technology now being developed to pull CO2 from the air. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act Democrats passed in 2022, companies like Occidental Petroleum and ExxonMobil could qualify for tax credits of $85 per ton of CO2 sequestered if they can perfect systems to suck the gas directly from the air and transport it by pipeline before injecting it permanently underground. The IRA further incentivizes some of these projects with tax credits equal to 30% or more of upfront capital invested.

If you want to cut down trees and pelletize them to burn in place of coal, there are tax credits for that too. But not, as of now, for burying them.

“If you need to remove carbon at scale, it’s crazy not to learn from nature or harness nature,” says Lucas Joppa, a former chief environmental officer at Microsoft who is now at Haveli Investments. “We’ve never come remotely close to being as efficient at removing carbon from the atmosphere as evolution has.”

How efficient? University of Maryland atmospheric science professor Ning Zeng, considered the godfather of biomass burial, explains that the average ton of freshly harvested forest is about 50% carbon by weight, and if left to rot or burn it would put the equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A good rule of thumb, he says: “A ton of biomass in the Earth is a ton of CO2 not in the sky.”

Zeng has his own startup, Carbon Lockdown, which has a contract with the city of Baltimore to pick up 5,000 tons of biomass and bury it near wealthy, leafy Potomac, Maryland. He’s selling the carbon credits generated by that burial at $181 per

sequestered ton on Puro.earth (a platform that was built with backing from the Finnish government and became majority-owned by Nasdaq in 2021). Swedish investment company Kinnevik recently bought 1,000 tons. “Nature-based technologies are here and scalable,” says Mikaela Kramer, who oversees carbon credit purchases for Kinnevik. “It doesn’t have to wait another 10 years.”

Still, it’s tough to get large-scale private or government investment in biomass burial because it’s neither replacing a climate-destroying industrial activity nor creating a product that’s of use to people—other than the credits themselves. It also can mean disturbing land.

In Texas, attorney Chris Knop, 43, has already interred more than 4,000 tons of biomass on 45 acres of land his company, Carbon Sequestration, owns near the Louisiana border. The land there is ideal for the anoxic burial required to prevent biomass from decomposing, he says, because of its thick layer of clay. He recently acquired 15,000 tons of debris from landowners north of Beaumont, who are clearing pine forest for real estate development and would otherwise have burned it, enabling him to sell carbon credits for $145 a ton on Puro.

Knop thinks he can break even and was counting on federal tax credits to make the venture profitable. But Congress didn’t explicitly include biomass burial in its tax-credit bonanza. Now Knop and biomass lobbyists are hoping that

when the Treasury writes final rules for carbon sequestration credits, biomass will qualify. “I’m just looking for some type of affirmation,” he says.

Knop also has an out-there vision for turning America’s forestlands into carbon sponges by chopping down pine trees, burying them and then replanting with more carbon-thirsty species like bamboo, kenaf or poplar. In the U.S., hundreds of millions of acres are dedicated to cattle grazing or timber production, he says.

“Why not switch to carbon farming?”

Back at Kodama, Jenkins is focused on burying wood that needs to be culled anyway for forest health, while Voorhis is aiming to adapt defunct mines and quarries—rather than dig new land— for biomass storage. “We will measure the gas and leachate and completely box off the carbon flows,” Voorhis promises. “If you meet anyone with an old inert rock quarry, let me know.”

THOUGHT

“IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST AND NOBODY IS THERE TO HEAR IT, DOESN’T IT JUST LIE THERE AND ROT?”

—Chuck Palahniuk

America has plenty of trees—nearly 300 billion of them, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s “tree census.” Good thing, since wood products are used in a variety of products including cigarette filters and Parmesan cheese. Here’s how much you can wring out of a single 30-foot tall, 1.5-foot-wide tree.

Little Big Picture WOOD WORK

7 million toothpicks Birch

Framing for 1/20th of a 2,000-square-foot home Douglas Fir

1/40th of a 65-foot Viking longship Oak

4,000 wine corks Cork Oak 1.2 bowling lanes Pine

Paul Bunyan 2.0 After thinning trees up to 60 feet tall, Kodama will inter them on more arid land outside the forest.

You Are How You Dress

Cedric Haddad, celebrity stylist and owner of #StyledByCed, explains how he helps clients to shine by bringing their fashion personalities to life.

As a personal and celebrity stylist, you have worked with many luxury brands and high-profile individuals. How do you ensure that your clients’ personalities shine through in their style?

It should always be a perfect fit between the personality and the DNA of the brand. Every client has their own ‘fashion personality’ and my role is to either create or enhance it with what he or she is wearing. I always say, ‘you are how you dress.’ You create your own individuality and social identity by the way you present your image. The game is not choosing the runway look and wearing it as it is, but knowing what to choose from the runway that enhances your style and personality. It can be just one garment or the total look.

Beyond personal styling, you offer luxury training sessions for brands and offer consultation services to diplomats and VIPs. How do you tailor your approach to meet the unique needs of different clients?

When dealing with luxury brands, the first thing to do is immerse oneself in the brand’s DNA and history. It is important to understand what makes a brand ‘luxury’ and know its pillars. During training sessions, I am responsible for reflecting the brand’s direction each season and for educating the team on how to deal with each garment from every new collection.

This involves continuous on-theground training inside stores right across the GCC.

The aim is not only commercial; it is also to offer the ideal experience with the right selection of products that fit the clients’ personalities and styles. Your work requires you to stay on top of the latest trends. How do you keep yourself informed and inspired?

Inspiration and self-education are key in my daily routine. I stay up to date with all the fashion trends by attending fashion

weeks in Paris, Milan, and other key cities. However, the most important aspect is to have personal relationships with leading creative directors and international designers and discussing their innovative directions and plans. Last but not least, visiting fashion and art museums is a stimulator that keeps me growing and growing.

Your Personal & Celebrity Styling course is taught across multiple countries. What key principles and techniques do you emphasize in your workshops to help fashion enthusiasts look unique, stylish, and confident?

My Personal and Celebrity Styling course is always tailored and updated

according to the innovation happening in each country, but the main elements of style are the essence of the course. My main focus is to help each student discover that fashion and style are not only hobbies, but also a part of them –I call it passion.

I always maintain my relationship with students by offering them full support after the course. That support can take the form of internships, follow ups, and sometimes even job offers.

Cedric Haddad, owner of #StyledByCed

SHIFTING FOCUS

Sandeep Walia, Chief Operating Officer for the Middle East at Marriott International, one of the world’s largest hotel operators, is amplifying the emphasis on luxury as Saudi Arabia takes center stage in the company’s intensified focus on premium offerings.

BY JAMILA GANDHI

Sandeep Walia, Chief Operating Officer for the Middle East at Marriott International

This year marks a big Middle East milestone for Marriott International, one of the world’s biggest hotel operators, with one of its flagship high-end brands—St. Regis—due to make its debut in Saudi Arabia. The St. Regis Riyadh will welcome guests from September 2023, and The St. Regis Red Sea Resort will open its doors by the end of the year. For Sandeep Walia, Chief Operating Officer for the Middle East for Marriott International, the introduction of these properties is a strategic move to bolster its luxury offerings portfolio. “Moving people physically has never been easier, but moving them emotionally has never been more difficult,” he says. “In 2023, we announced an additional focus on luxury to drive our competitive advantage in this segment.” Both of the new hotels have been developed as part of the kingdom’s 28,000-square-kilometer Red Sea Development, an archipelago of more than 90 islands. Within the next year, Ummahat Island will also be home to Nujuma, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve, which will be the brand’s first property in the Middle East.

Marriott currently owns eight luxury brands: The Ritz-Carlton, Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, EDITION, The Luxury Collection, JW Marriott, and W Hotels. In the Middle East, the company has 54 luxury hotels, with 14 set to open in the next three years. Walia serves as the most senior executive of U.S.-headquartered Marriott International in the region. The company marked its first venture in the Middle East and Africa in 1980 when it opened the Riyadh Marriott Hotel. By 2013, it had 43 properties in the region and secured the title of the world’s tallest hotel with the launch of the 355-meter-high JW Marriott Marquis Dubai. A decade later, Marriott’s current Middle East portfolio covers more than 230 properties across 21 brands in 11 countries and territories, with plans to add over 100 properties and 26,000 rooms to the region.

Globally, the almost-centennial business has nearly 8,600 properties under 31 brands spanning 139 countries and territories. As of May 2023, the company had a market cap of $53.5 billion, revenues of $22.2 billion, and assets worth $24.9 billion, making it the world’s biggest listed hotel operator, according to the Forbes’ Global 2000, followed by Hilton Worldwide Holdings with a market cap of $38.27 billion.

The series of new hotel openings for the hospitality brand aligns with burgeoning regional demand. Whereas previously, the spotlight for Marriott in the Middle East was on the U.A.E., Qatar emerged as a key player as it prepared to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. By the time the tournament kicked off, Marriot International had doubled its hotel portfolio on the affluent peninsula. Now, Saudi is drawing attention.

“Some of the most thrilling opportunities lie in Saudi Arabia,” Walia notes. The company already has an array of options for wealthy travelers in the kingdom. Of the eight Saudi properties awarded by the 2023 Forbes Travel Guide, four are owned by Marriott, with Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, and Hilton Worldwide Holdings making up the other four.

Marriott is far from the only international hotel operator seeing potential in Saudi Arabia. According to Lodging Econometrics, there were 549 hotels under construction in the Middle East as of the end of 2022, with the three cities with the largest number of projects all in Saudi Arabia: Provincial with 96, Riyadh with 73, and Jeddah with 46. The kingdom’s travel and tourism sector is forecasted to grow at an average of 11% by 2032, making it the fastest-growing travel and tourism sector in the Middle East, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. This annual growth is more than six times the 1.8% growth rate of the country’s overall economy.

While Marriott’s portfolio covers a range of affordability options, its investments in luxury are particularly relevant to this region. According to a 2023 survey conducted across the more than 186 million members of Marriott’s loyalty program, Marriott Bonvoy, the luxury market is being heavily driven by the Middle East, especially from the U.A.E. and

“Hotel leaders need to have the heart of an innkeeper and the brain of an entrepreneur.”

SANDEEP WALIA

Saudi Arabia. In a 2023 Deloitte report, the rise of luxury travel was identified as a key trend for the coming years, spurred by an increase in high-net-worth individuals. Demand for event-led tourism is also evident. “Sporting events have the potential to attract millions of visitors from all over the world while generating significant revenue and contributing to the growth of the sector,” Hassan Malik, Lead Partner, Tourism Sector, at Deloitte ME and Managing Partner at Monitor Deloitte ME said in a statement in the report. In Saudi Arabia, upcoming events include F1 2024, the AFC Asian Cup 2027, the Asian Winter Games 2029 in NEOM, the annual MDLBEAST festival, the Future Investment Initiative, and the Saudi MICE Forum.

Walia highlights how localization has also become a priority for Marriott, with over 40% of associates in Saudi hotels being Saudi nationals. “Hospitality is extra authentic and memorable when it comes from the people of that country,” explains the COO, extending this narrative to enhance opportunities for women in the industry. In 2022, Marina Krasnobrizhaya was appointed as the first female general manager in Saudi Arabia to lead The St. Regis Riyadh, marking a significant milestone. Marriott has also expanded its Female Leadership Initiative (FLI) in the Middle East and Africa with programs in the U.A.E., Egypt, Türkiye, and Jordan designed to provide high-potential leaders with a personal development program that will help prepare them for the next level of their careers. In 2022, there were 90 FLI participants.

As a seasoned hospitality veteran, Walia recognizes the value of cultivating and fostering talent within the industry. His own journey in hospitality began at the bottom of the ladder. In 1996, he started his career attending to guests at the Oberoi Hotels in India after completing his education in

hospitality at the Indian Institute of Hotel Management and the Oberoi School of Hotel Management.

After six years with Oberoi in India, he moved to Egypt to work at The Oberoi, Sahl Hasheesh, marking his foray into MENA. In 2005, Walia joined Marriott International as the executive assistant manager of food and beverage at The Ritz-Carlton, Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, before taking up his first general manager role at The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow. Over the years, he took on significant roles overseeing luxury brands such as The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, Luxury Collection, Bvlgari, W, and Edition across Europe. In 2017, Walia obtained an Executive MBA from Northwestern University, and in 2019, he ventured back to

the Middle East, relocating to Dubai to serve as area vice president of luxury hotels for the U.A.E. before taking his current role in 2021.

In 2022, the COO visited over 98% of Marriott’s Middle East properties—an average of more than one hotel nearly every other day. For the business leader, time on the ground and feedback loops are vital components in improving the delivery of memorable guest experiences. Through Marriott Insiders, an online membership community, the Marriott team regularly talks to members to learn their preferences and how to enhance their experience. It also uses Adobe Analytics to better understand guest

Marriott partnered with Etihad to plant 12,000 mangrove trees to create the Etihad Marriott Mangrove Forest.

tastes and behavior. In the 2022 Forbes’ Halo 100 list—a ranking of the top brands loved by U.S.-based consumers—Marriott placed first in the hotel industry.

Sustainability is also at the forefront of Walia’s agenda, which is both eco and business-conscious, especially against the backdrop of COP28, which will be hosted by the U.A.E. in December 2023. According to a 2022 survey by Expedia Group Media Solutions, 90% of consumers now look for sustainable options when traveling, and, on average, guests are willing to pay 38% more to make their travels more sustainable.

As consumers seek eco-friendly options, hotels are incorporating sustainability practices to appeal to this growing audience. Marriott has set ambitious goals, such as reducing water intensity by 15% and reducing carbon emissions by 30% across all its global properties by 2025. It is also aiming to decrease the amount of landfill waste it creates by 45%. In 2023, it partnered with Etihad to plant 12,000 mangrove trees to create the Etihad Marriott Mangrove Forest on Jubail Island in Abu Dhabi, and it has also begun bottling its own water at select hotels in the U.A.E. instead of importing glass bottles from abroad. “Not only do these larger, refillable bottles offer a residential touch to the guest experience, they also eliminate

the unnecessary plastic waste associated with one-time use traditional amenities,” explains Walia.

Using local suppliers is appealing to guests too. “Local design provides guests with a more bespoke and premium experience, far removed from the ‘chain’ experience,” agrees Sachin Kerur, Managing Partner, Middle East at Reed Smith.

“Localized design cues, foods, and cultural attractions enhance the overall local community attractiveness of hospitality properties, transforming them from travelers’ meeting points to neighborhood hotspots.” Research by Deloitte indicates that travelers want to feel connected to the local community and immerse themselves in their destination. In a 2021 survey by booking.com, 73% of respondents said they wanted authentic experiences that are representative of the local culture when they travel.

As he seeks to elevate Marriott’s regional prominence and luxury status, Walia is aware that travelers are searching for more than just opulence. “We’re focused on hyper-personalization for our guests to create the real, rare, and enriching experiences that the modern luxury traveler craves,” he adds. “Hotel leaders need to have the heart of an innkeeper and the brain of an entrepreneur.”

The World's Largest Hospitality Companies In 2023

These are the world’s top three hospitality companies, according to Forbes’ 2023 Global 2000 ranking. Figures are as of May 5, 2023.

From Strength To Strength

Saudi Arabian fintech platform, HALA, strengthens both its leadership and its growth potential with the appointment of company co-founder and CEO, Esam Alnahdi, as chairman.

significant growth in 2022, doubling its customer base and its revenues year-on-year.

Prior to founding HALA, Alnahdi kick-started multiple trading, retail, and technology entities. Before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, he also worked in the banking sector, in both credit and investment banking, including in Banque Saudi Fransi, Venture Capital Bank, and Arcapita.

Now, as Alnahdi ascends to lead HALA into the future, he takes the baton from Abdulkareem Abu Alnasr, under whose chairmanship the company transitioned into becoming the digital financial platform of choice in the MENA region.

For five years and counting, leading Saudi fintech platform, HALA, has been empowering freelancers and SMEs to start, run, and grow their businesses. Through cutting edge financial solutions and digital tools, the company enables clients in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. to digitalize their payments, manage their operations, and ultimately reach their potential. Now, with more than 60,000 customers, 300 employees, and $3 billion in annualized transactions, HALA is ensuring its future success by appointing co-founder and CEO, Esam Alnahdi, as chairman.

For HALA’s board of directors, the unanimous decision was a natural extension of the company’s vision. Alnahdi, who co-founded

Riyadh-based HALA (previously HalalaH) with Maher Loubieh in 2018, has been instrumental in scaling up the business including its recent multi-million-dollar acquisition of U.A.E. payment startup, Paymennt.com. The acquisition strengthens HALA’s foothold in the SME sector and expands its product portfolio to cater to the unserved and unaddressed segments. The expansion also aligns with the company’s vision to grow globally and capture international markets to fulfil its vision of becoming the future bank of SMEs.

HALA has made progressive leaps within the fintech industry with a clear focus on serving SMEs and entrepreneurs. Under Alnahdi’s leadership, the company witnessed

HALA started operations back in 2018 providing B2C services. Then, during the Covid-19 years, Alnahdi identified a big, underserved segment of SMEs and startups, with insufficient financial institutions catering to their needs.

It was at that point that Alnahdi and Loubieh decided to pivot HALA’s business model to focus on providing financial services and leveraging technology to enable SMEs to manage, run, and grow their businesses with minimum banking hassle.

The transformation allowed HALA to grow leaps and bounds, and with solid leadership firmly in place, that growth looks set to continue.

Esam Alnahdi, Co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of HALA

Maintaining Growth

One of the most notable milestones is achieving outstanding financial results for the first half of 2023, with a net profit of approximately $121.1 million, total assets of around $607 million, and total equity in the region of $367.5 million. These figures represent substantial increases compared to last year, highlighting EIH’s remarkable growth and dedication toward our investors.

Another milestone is the establishment of Al Fanar Gas Group and Emirates International Gas, which have led the way in the U.A.E.’s energy sector for over 33 years. We are proud to be market leaders in this field.

Additionally, we launched SkyGo, the first U.A.E. drone operator company in the region. SkyGo specializes in data collection, logistics, events, and aerial solutions, and we are excited about its potential for growth.

Can you give us an

overview of Ethmar International Holding (EIH) and its scope of work?

EIH is a leading holding company based in Abu Dhabi. Our aim is to establish positive synergies for our investors that generate sustainable and continuously growing value, as well as contributing to the overall growth of the U.A.E. economy.

We currently operate across seven sectors including energy, real estate, healthcare, technology, alternative investment, hospitality, and automotive and trading. Today, our portfolio of companies consists of more than 42 subsidiaries that provide a wide range of products and services.

What have been the key milestones for EIH to date?

Throughout our journey, EIH and its subsidiaries have recorded various achievements that we are very proud of. These achievements would not have been possible without our exceptional team, who are the backbone of our organization and our most valuable asset.

Alongside these milestones, we have established NineYards, our boutique real estate development company that utilizes the latest technologies to enhance the quality of life of our clients. We are currently working on exciting projects in Yas Bay and Al Reem Island with plans for international expansion.

Furthermore, we are proud to have established Al Rabdan Holding, which operates multiple companies across various trading industries, further diversifying our presence.

What is EIH’s strategy when it comes to undertaking partnerships or acquisitions?

Our strategy when considering new partnerships is to carefully assess the alignment of the potential opportunity with our vision and active sectors. We prioritize opportunities that complement

Ali El Gebely, Group CEO and Managing Director of diversified investor Ethmar International Holding talks us through how the company has evolved and invested, and the impact this has had on its bottom line.

Ali El Gebely, Group CEO and Managing Director of Ethmar International Holding

"Our mission is to build long-term value for the future of investment through strategic partnerships"

our existing business portfolio and contribute to our long-term growth objectives.

When evaluating potential acquisitions, we consider factors such as market potential, growth opportunities, and synergies with our existing operations. We aim to identify opportunities that offer strategic advantages in the sectors we operate across.

Additionally, we actively explore leading companies operating in other sectors to broaden our horizons and potentially enter new industries. This allows us to stay adaptable and open to opportunities that may arise in different markets.

How has the company’s ideology of ‘adding value’ impacted EIH’s growth and development over time?

At EIH, our ideology of ‘adding value’ has been a key pillar in our progress and has helped shape us into who we are today.

Our mission is to build long-term value for future investments through strategic partnerships. This will enable us to develop a diversified, innovative, and sustainable investment portfolio.

We believe that embracing technological advancements is

essential in creating and delivering new and unique growth opportunities. That is why we are committed to exploring new sectors such as renewable energy, technology, and healthcare.

EIH is a diversified and multifaceted group. What are your key focus areas at present?

Currently, we are focused on identifying profitable investment opportunities that align with the interests of our investors. This involves expanding our business portfolio in both new and existing sectors. Additionally, we are working towards broadening our international presence while maintaining the highest standards of transparency and disclosure, as this helps us earn and retain the trust of our investors.

What is your vision for the future and how does it fit with the U.A.E.’s strategy for long-term sustainable growth?

Our vision for the future is very ambitious. We have a solid plan in place with focus on strategic acquisitions and investments as part of our growth journey. This will further expand our business portfolio, fostering continued growth and diversification, and ensuring expected benefits and dividend distribution to our investors.

EIH’s strategy is aligned with the U.A.E.’s economic roadmap, which emphasizes long-term sustainability through diversified economic pillars. As the U.A.E. economy continues to evolve, EIH aims to actively contribute to this journey by further growing our business and playing a significant role in the country’s growth.

"We are currently working on exciting projects in Yas Bay and Al Reem Island, and we have plans for international expansion"

JUST THE BEGINNING

Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google, is leading the regional base for a more than trillion-dollar company, one of the biggest tech giants in the world. As AI increasingly powers growth in the Middle East, he’s creating partnerships to make sure the technology is understood and used in the right way.

BY CLAUDINE COLETTI

Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google.

While many major tech companies in the world have become a part of our day-to-day existence, few can boast of becoming as ingrained as Google. “To Google” has become a common verb for billions of the company’s users over its 25 years of growth, and today, as AI takes the reigns, the tech giant is far from finished influencing the way we communicate. Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for MENA at Google, knows this well, having just overseen the launch of the Arabic version of its AI language tool, Bard, which was released in July 2023 to much fanfare. “We’ve been amazed by the feedback, which has been overwhelmingly positive,” says the Dubaibased French national.

The Arabic AI language tool is able to recognize questions given in 16 different dialects while responding in modern standard Arabic (MSA). As well as recognizing dialects that differ significantly across the Middle East, Bard has “code-switching” abilities, meaning that questions can be asked in a mix of dialects and languages—part Egyptian and part English, for example—be recognized, and responses be given in MSA. “This is amazing because it’s reflective of the colloquial language young users in MENA use. We’re very excited to see how people are going to use it,” Nakache adds. Chances are, they’re going to use it prolifically. The Middle East has one of the youngest and most tech-savvy populations in the world, with more than half of the population under the age of 30.

While Nakache—Google’s most senior executive in the region—has only been based in the Middle East for less than two years, Google has had a presence here for 15 years, with offices in Dubai and Cairo and, more recently, Riyadh and Doha. In March 2023, it also opened a new cloud region in Qatar, one of over 37 globally. The regional MD says the company has doubled its workforce in MENA over the last three years, bucking a global trend that has seen many tech companies streamlining staff numbers, including

Google. “Google has 15 products that have more than half a billion users in the world. We have six of these products that have more than two billion users. And all of these are available in the region,” says Nakache. “MENA is really, for us, a region of opportunity, and we are betting big on it.”

Alphabet Inc, the holding company created to house Google and Other Bets in 2015, is the world’s seventh largest company, with a market cap of $1.34 trillion as of May 2023, according to this year’s Forbes Global 2000 list, putting it ahead of other tech behemoths such as Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung Electronics. In Q1 2023, it recorded total revenues of $69.78 billion, a 2.6% increase compared to the $68 billion recorded in Q1 2022. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa brought in nearly a third of its Q1 revenues, recording just over $21 billion. In 2022, the company made nearly $60 billion in profit. But while Google continues to accumulate capital, what’s really interesting is how it’s investing it, especially in the Middle East.

According to the regional MD, of all of Google’s products, by far the most popular in the Middle East is YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion. It was a good bet. In 2022, the video streaming service had a brand value of $23.89 billion, according to Statista. YouTube ads earned Google $6.69 billion in revenues in Q1 2023 alone. “MENA loves YouTube. It reaches 90% of the adult population in the U.A.E. and Saudi. We feel that it’s, to a certain extent, redefining Arabic culture and entertainment,” says Nakache. The classic search engine is also popular, with Google tailoring how it surfaces content on its homepage to regional needs such as prayer timings and Ramadan content. For example, when research showed that many users in the Middle East were searching for jobs and job-related content, Google added a jobs feature. Google’s virtual assistant, which can respond to voice commands to play music, set alarms, or ask basic questions, among other tasks, was also launched in 12 Arabic dialects in 2019. And Google Maps street view is available in 26 cities in the region, showcasing over

“Yes, we need to work on the risks, and we need to get it right, but as a result, we will benefit.”

ANTHONY NAKACHE

80 cultural landmarks where users can experience the site before visiting, including UNESCO world heritage sites such as Petra in Jordan or the pyramids of Sudan.

But while Google is powered by its users, it’s also a tool for businesses and content creators to connect with billions of potential consumers and viewers, and for governments and organizations to tap into technology that has the potential to change lives. This is where the value of partnerships becomes vital, and it’s an area that Nakache knows well.

The self-confessed tech enthusiast started his career in sales and business development for an IT consulting company in his home country of France before heading to Singapore to spend a year studying at INSEAD for his MBA. He admits that right from the start, the company he dreamt of working for was Google.

“I spent the year figuring out how I could join the company. I met lots of people, lots of alumni, and I tried to develop a better understanding of what Google was doing at the time,” he remembers. It was 2008, and Google was still relatively small compared to what lay ahead. Nakache secured a role at the EMEA headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and over the next 14 years, worked in various areas, building a network and spending much of his time on partnerships with publishers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

While Nakache worked his way up the ladder, Google began investing heavily in the new possibilities presented by AI. In August 2017, it published a report explaining how it was working on an easily trained system that could accelerate the speed and accuracy with which machines could carry out tasks such as language modeling, machine translation, and question answering.

At the end of 2021, an opportunity arose for Nakache to join the team in Dubai. “Over the years, I developed a fascination for the Middle East. I found it to be a very vibrant region, so when the opportunity came up, I seized it,” he recalls. He also thought it would be a good chance to connect

with his roots, as his father was born in Algeria. In February 2022, he took the role of regional head of Google in MENA based in Dubai.

A year later, in February 2023, Google introduced Bard to the world, a conversational AI service building on the company’s work with large language models. Bard can rapidly research and respond to questions, create short and long-form content to order, and converse with users using human-like prose. In the future, it may put many content creators out of a job. For now, it’s an experiment—but one that is expanding fast.

When it first launched—nearly three months after Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s own large language

model-based chatbot ChatGPT hit users—access to the tool was limited. A mistake during its promo video launch in February caused Alphabet stock to drop $100 billion in value overnight, and by March, Bard was still reportedly only available to some users in the U.S. and U.K. However, it recovered fast. In May 2023, Google announced that it would be expanding access to Bard to more than 180 countries and territories, including Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Egypt. In July, it launched across Europe and Brazil, having allayed the Irish Data Protection Commission’s concerns regarding transparency, choice, and control. As of August 2023—just six months after launching—Bard was available in 230 countries and territories and in more than 40 languages, including Arabic.

As he makes sure that MENA continues to stand out for Google globally, the partnerships

Google’s new state-of-the-art office in Dubai’s Internet City covers two floors and over 5,000 square meters.

Nakache is overseeing in the region vary widely from governments to big businesses, SMEs, news organizations, publishers, app developers, and YouTube stars, helping them create more appealing content and monetize it. In the Middle East, Google has trained around 15,000 journalists, including students and media professionals, and it has run innovation challenges and awarded over $1.8 million in grants to help publishers create new products and services. It also has a partnership with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Saudi Post in Saudi Arabia that it says has helped over 100,000 locallybased companies to use a “Business Profiles” solution to help them manage their online presence, maximize visibility, and attract new customers.

In May 2023, Google announced that it was partnering with the Department of Municipalities and Transport in Abu Dhabi on a “green light” project that will use machine learning to optimize traffic lights and reduce pollution caused by stop-and-go traffic. At the same time, it revealed that it’s working with the U.A.E. Ministry of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications on an “AI Majilis series”—private quarterly meetings to discuss and advance AI principles and policies. “We had our first

session a couple of weeks back,” reveals Nakache. “The concept is to bring leaders of the government and leaders of the public sector, along with leaders of the private sector, to talk about AI, its use cases, risks, opportunities, and so on. We talked about the risks and how to work together to mitigate these risks. That was really a dialogue we encourage.”

Balancing the opportunities of AI against the risks has been a hot topic for a number of years, and it’s getting hotter. On the one hand, it can have tangible positive effects. According to an Economist Impact report sponsored by Google in 2022, global investment in AI rose from $800 million in 2010 to $78 billion in 2021, and MENA could accrue up to $320 billion by 2030 from value added by AI through automating processes and improving products and services. On the other hand, there are very real concerns around how, as the sophistication of the technology accelerates, and users become more reliant on generative AI—for example, in systems such as Google’s Bard, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Microsoft’s Bing, among others— it could lead to mass job losses, data privacy breaches, and the spread of incorrect and damaging misinformation. Some experts predict that generative AI could account for up to 25% of all data produced by 2025. “The

The World's Largest Tech Companies In 2023

figure likely will be even higher in some industries like media and communications,” says Jim Hare, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “There’s pent-up interest and demand from users wanting to use GenAI to assist them with certain tasks but not from those users that feel threatened by these tools, such as actors, graphic designers, paralegals, etc. Enterprises are also interested in GenAI to increase employee productivity and customer experience/ engagement but without the risks related to data privacy, security, and accuracy.”

But while change is inevitable, there should still be a place for humans in the future. “There is no doubt that generative AI will have an impact on the job market,” says Costi Perricos, Deloitte Global AI and Data Leader. “As with many highly disruptive technologies in the past, we humans have shown ourselves to be highly adaptive to embracing new technologies and developing ourselves further. We are now seeing that models trained on vast amounts of synthetic content actually grow weaker and suffer some model version of human autophagy syndrome. We believe that in the future, large foundation models will differentiate themselves based on the data they are trained on, and this will still require human creativity, intuition, and experience.”

In March 2022, an open letter was published on the Future of Life Institute website calling for all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. By August 2023, it had over 33,000 signatures, many of them belonging to AI scientists and tech industry experts, including Turing Prize winner Yoshua Bengio, owner of X, Elon Musk, and cofounder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. The pause, so far, has not happened. (Incidentally, Elon Musk launched his own AI company, xAI, in July 2023 and is reported to be building his own large language model.)

As far as Nakache is concerned, pausing would not be beneficial, but regulation might be. “There is merit in having these conversations, but it’s unclear what we can achieve with a pause, and it’s unclear what a pause of some companies would mean to the AI agenda globally,” he adds. “AI is a broad technology; it can be used for many things. Some things don’t have risks; some have massive risks. So, we need to create policy frameworks that have risk-based applications so you can really create trust in the technology and minimize the impact. It’s too important not to regulate right.”

When it comes to data usage, Nakache is keen to emphasize that Google treats its users’ and customers’ data in line with its privacy standards and

protects their information through multiple security layers, including data encryption and access controls, as it develops its products and services, including AI models. Google published comprehensive AI Principles in 2018, grounded in the beneficial and responsible use of AI and avoidance of harm.

What the future holds for us all and what AI’s role will be in it remains open to debate, observation, and imagination. But as far as Nakache is concerned, anything is now possible. “We believe that it’s the most profound technology that we’re working on at the moment,” he stresses. “Yes, we need to work on the risks, and we need to get it right, but as a result, we will benefit.”

Googling It

last 25 years.

• August 1998

The first Google Doodle featured a stick man standing behind one of the Os, representing the fact that founder Sergey Brin and Larry Page were attending the Burning Man festival.

• September 1998

Google was officially launched.

• October 2000

Google AdWords was launched with 350 advertisers. Today it has over 1.5 million.

• April 2004

Gmail was launched, with the ability to store 1GB of data for free. Today, it can store around 15GB.

• August 2004

Google’s IPO raised $1.9 billion.

• November 2006

Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. YouTube ads earnt Google $6.69 billion in revenues in Q1 2023 alone.

• September 2008

Google Chrome and Android OS were launched.

• August 2015

Google is restructured to create the Alphabet holding company.

• February 2023

Bard is officially launched.

ANTHONY NAKACHE

Here are a handful of Google’s biggest milestones over the

GLOBAL MEETS LOCAL 2023

International Giants Are Attracting FDI And Stimulating Economic Growth.

International companies have been playing a pivotal role in driving economic growth and development in MENA for decades. Their presence fosters healthy competition, driving local companies to innovate and improve their offerings to remain competitive, spurring economic diversification. They also contribute to transferring knowledge, expertise, and technology into the region and to local partners, making it more attractive for further investments.

Most importantly, those companies bring foreign direct investment (FDI) into the region, injecting much-needed capital for infrastructure development, technology transfer, and job creation, stimulating economic activity and modernizing industries, and improving production capabilities.

In 2022, FDI reached a total of $51.8 billion in 15 Arab countries, according to the UNCTAD. The U.A.E., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia attracted a total of $22.74 billion, $11.4 billion, and $7.89 billion, respectively.

In an era of increasing globalization, our eleventh annual Global Meets Local ranking explores how multinational corporations are effectively navigating the unique business landscapes of the region while simultaneously contributing to its economic growth, development, and cultural integration.

This year, the list features 103 executives from 100 companies. These are the top companies on the annual Forbes Global 2000 list that have significant regional offices in MENA, 48% of which originate from the U.S., with the rest based in 17 other countries.

The companies hail from 33 different sectors, reflecting the diversified activities that multinational corporations are conducting in the region. The technology sector tops the list with 15 entries, followed by 11 pharmaceutical companies and seven firms operating in the automotive industry.

The executives represent 41 nationalities. France, India, and Lebanon, lead with 10 executives each, followed by the U.K. and Germany with eight and six executives, respectively.

Methodology

To compile our Global Meets Local 2023 ranking, we first looked at this year’s Forbes Global 2000 list and identified those companies with significant operations in MENA. We then identified the top-ranking executive at the company’s regional headquarters and analyzed their impact and achievements. Executives had to be living in MENA to be considered.

We ranked the executives based on the following criteria:

• The impact that the executive has had on the region and the markets that they serve.

• The achievements and performance of the executive in the last year.

• The number and extensiveness of the sustainability and CSR initiatives led by the executive.

• Their designation and the geographical area that they oversee.

• The size of the business in terms of the number of employees, revenues if given, project value, and product reach.

• The number of years of industry experience the executive has and the time served in their current role.

• The rank of the global organization on the Forbes Global 2000 list.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Total $51.79 billion

• U.A.E. $22.74 billion

• Egypt $11.4 billion

• Saudi Arabia $7.89 billion

• Oman $3.72 billion

• Morocco $2.14 billion

• Bahrain $1.95 billion

• Jordan $1.14 billion

• Kuwait $758 million

• Tunisia $713 million

• Sudan $574 million

• Lebanon $458 million

• Palestine $233 million

• Algeria $89 million

• Qatar $76 million

• Iraq $-2.09 billion

To nominate yourself or someone else for our lists, email: info@forbesmiddleeast.com

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1 Samer Abu-Ltaif

• Corporate Vice President & President—Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa

Company: Microsoft Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Abu-Ltaif joined Microsoft in 2004. He assumed his current role in February 2023, when the company merged its Central and Eastern Europe operations with its Middle East and Africa operations to form its CEMA division. Today, Abu-Ltaif leads Microsoft’s operations across 109 countries. In 2022, Microsoft’s Africa Transformation Office launched a new initiative to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups.

2 Omar Channawi

• CEO—Middle East, Pakistan and Global Entrepreneurial Markets & Senior Vice President of Sales—Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa

Company: Procter & Gamble (P&G)

Nationality: Moroccan

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Consumer Goods

Channawi joined P&G in 1993 and assumed his current role in 2019. He oversees a team of 500 people. He was appointed to the board of directors at the Dubai International Chamber in July 2023. In the Asia, Middle East, and Africa region, P&G increased the representation of female directors from 16% in 2019 to more than 35% in 2023.

3 Yasser Abdul Malak

• Chairman and CEO—MENA

Company: Nestlé Middle East

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Food and Beverages

Abdul Malak has been working at Nestlé since 1999 and assumed his current role in January 2022. He leads a team of more than 14,000 people across MENA. In November 2022, Nestlé announced a $1.87 billion ten-year investment strategy for Saudi Arabia. More than 1,300 individuals under the age of 30 were hired in MENA in 2022, exceeding the company’s commitment two years ahead of its goal to create 1,000 jobs in the region by 2025.

4 Dimitrios Dosis

• President — Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa

Company: Mastercard

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Dosis joined Mastercard in 2005 and assumed his current role in 2021. He leads a team of 1,000 people and oversees the company’s strategy across 81 markets. In June 2023, Mastercard signed an MoU with Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism to form a Digital City Partnership to accelerate the emirate’s growth in line with the Dubai Economic Agenda.

5 Kuljit Ghata-Aura

• President—Middle East, Türkiye and Africa

Company: Boeing

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Aerospace

Ghata-Aura joined Boeing in 2010 and assumed his current role in 2021. He oversees over 750 people. Before joining the company, he was a founding partner of Eversheds in Abu Dhabi. In January 2023, Boeing supported Emirates Airlines in testing its first aircraft run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel in one engine. At COP27 in Cairo, Boeing launched its “STEM for Sustainability” program, which aims to equip students in Egypt, Morocco, and the U.A.E. with skills and

6 Anthony Nakache

• Managing Director—MENA

Company: Google

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Nakache joined Google in 2008. In July 2023, Google launched its generative AI experiment “Bard” in Arabic. Powered by PaLM2, Google’s latest language model, Bard understands questions in over 16 Arabic dialects, including Egyptian colloquial Arabic, Saudi colloquial Arabic, and modern standard Arabic.

knowledge on sustainability through STEM education.

Anthony Nakache

7 Ronaldo Mouchawar

• Vice President— MENA

Company: Amazon

Nationality: Syrian-American

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Mouchawar is the cofounder and former CEO of Souq.com, which was acquired by Amazon in 2017. Amazon.ae plans to host 100,000 local businesses by 2026. Amazon launched the Ramadan “Iftar on Wheels” meal donation program in March 2023 in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia in partnership with the U.A.E. Food Bank and Saudi Food Bank.

8

Shazia Syed

• General Manager — North Africa, Levant and Iraq & Arabia Senior Customer Development Lead

Company: Unilever

Nationality: Pakistani

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Consumer Goods

With over 34 years of industry experience, Syed assumed her current role in 2021, in which she leads a team of over 1,870 people. In 2023, Unilever initiated an equity, diversity, and inclusion board and several initiatives to ensure a more equitable workplace for women, including extending its paid maternity leave policy from three to six months in North Africa, the Levant, and Iraq.

9

Andrew Buckingham

• Vice President and General Manager—Middle East Company: The Coca-Cola Company

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Food and Beverages

Buckingham joined the Coca-Cola Company in 1999 and assumed his current role in February 2023, leading a team of 6,000 people. In 2022, the Coca-Cola Company was the global partner for the FIFA World Cup Qatar, in which the company used 100% recycled bottles across all venues.

10

John W. Nicholson

• CEO—Middle East Company: Lockheed Martin

Nationality: American

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Aerospace

Nicholson joined Lockheed Martin and assumed his current role in 2021. He oversees a team of 600 people. In February 2023, Lockheed Martin partnered with four companies in the GCC to provide instrumentation, calibration, and repair services for its aircraft ground support equipment as a part of its Product Support Provider Network.

11

Walid Sheta

• President—MEA

Company: Schneider Electric

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Capital Goods

Sheta has been working at Schneider Electric for almost 29 years. He assumed his current role in 2021 and oversees a team of over 6,000 people. In June 2023, Schneider Electric held its first Innovation Summit in Saudi Arabia, where it opened its first distribution center in Riyad and launched a new production line for “Made in Saudi” energy products.

Ronaldo Mouchawar

CHAIRED BY H.E. DR. THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI UAE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN TRADE

12 Reem Asaad

• Vice President—Middle East, Africa, Türkiye, Romania & the Commonwealth of Independent States

Company: Cisco

Nationality: Egyptian-American

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

With 25 years of industry experience, Asaad joined Cisco and assumed the leadership of the Middle East and Africa region, including Türkiye, in 2020. In mid-2023, her responsibility was expanded to include the Romania & The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) territory. In March 2023, as a part of Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration program, the U.A.E.’s Ministry of Economy announced a new

digitization initiative that supports the “Entrepreneurial Nation 2.0” program for the growth of small and medium enterprises in the country.

13 Patrick van der Loo

• Regional President—Middle East, Russia and Africa

Company: Pfizer

Nationality: Dutch

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Van der Loo has been working at Pfizer since 1997 and assumed his current role in September 2022. He leads a team of 2,200 people and is also a non-executive board director of Pfizer Export BV. The company is expecting to launch more than 55 products in 2023. In March 2023, Pfizer

partnered with the Dubai Academic Health Corporation and AXDEV Global to enhance care for patients with chronic illnesses.

14 Gabriel Podskubka

• COO

Company: Tenaris

Nationality: Argentinian

Global Headquarters: Luxembourg

Sector: Industrials

Podskubka began his career with Tenaris in 1995. He assumed his current role in April 2023. The company generated $612 million in tube sales in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa in Q2 2023. The company’s Q2 2023 sales included $20 million from Global Pipe Company (GPC), a Saudi large-diameter pipe producer which became a majority-owned subsidiary of Tenaris Saudi Steel Pipe in May 2023.

15 Nour Suliman

• CEO

Company: DHL Express MENA

Nationality: Bahraini

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Logistics

Suliman oversees the management and strengthening of partner relationships in the region, leading a team of 5,800 people across 19 markets. He joined DHL Express 45 years ago and assumed his current role in 2011. In 2022, the company completed solar panel installations at its facilities in Jordan, Iraq, and the U.A.E. and introduced nine new electric vehicles to the region.

16 Johannes Hummer

• Head of MEA

Company: Vodafone

Nationality: Austrian

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Telecommunications

Hummer has more than 22 years of experience in the ICT industry, of which 13 years are with Vodafone. Prior to joining Vodafone, he was the deputy head of International Account Management Department at Telekom Austria Group. In May 2023, Vodafone and (e&) entered a strategic relationship that enables collaboration across a broad range of growth areas including the evolution and adoption of OpenRAN.

Nour Suliman

17 Sunil Kaushal

• CEO—Africa and Middle East Company: Standard Chartered

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

Kaushal joined Standard Chartered in 1998 and assumed his current role in 2015. He was previously the regional CEO of Standard Chartered in South Asia and India. He leads a team of 9,000 people. Standard Chartered signed the first sustainability-linked loan by a private company, Landmark Group, in 2022 and issued the first Green Guarantee in Qatar in partnership with Siemens Energy in March 2023.

18

Thierry Sabbagh

• President—Nissan Saudi Arabia & INFINITI Middle East and Managing Director—Nissan Middle East

Company: Nissan Motor Corporation

Nationality: Italian-Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Japan

Sector: Automotive

Sabbagh joined Nissan in 2018 and assumed his current role in 2022. He oversees a team of 225 people. In January 2023, Nissan announced its first regional launch in Saudi Arabia with the introduction of the Nissan X-TRAIL. In April 2023, Nissan Middle East partnered with the Jebel Ali Freezone Authority to distribute Iftar boxes.

19 Sandeep Walia

• COO—Middle East, Egypt, and Türkiye

Company: Marriott International

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Hotels and Hospitality

Walia joined Marriott International in 2005 and assumed his current role in 2021. With over 26 years of international experience in the hotel industry, Walia leads a team of 45,000 people and manages 230 operational properties and more than 100 properties in the pipeline. Marriott International opened nearly 30 properties across the Middle East in 2022 and the first half of 2023, including its 50th hotel in Dubai.

20 Jack Uppal

• President and Managing Director— Africa and Middle East

Company: General Motors

Nationality: Canadian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Automotive

Uppal joined General Motors in 2001 as district sales and service manager at GM Canada and assumed his current role in 2022. He oversees a team of 1,200 people. In April 2023, Chevrolet Boltbased autonomous vehicles were used to test autonomous vehicle technology in Dubai. General Motors Middle East recorded a 20% growth in sales in 2022 compared to 2021 and a 26% growth in Q1 2023 compared to the previous year.

21 Ebru Pakcan

• Managing Director Head of MEA

Cluster Citi

Company: Citigroup

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

Pakcan joined Citigroup in 1997. She assumed her current role in 2021 and leads a team of over 4,800 people. Pakcan has served on the board of CHAPS Clearing Company in the U.K. and the board of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C. in the U.S. She has also served as a director on the board of Citibank Europe Plc in Ireland and is currently a director on the board of Citigroup Saudi Arabia.

Sandeep Walia

22 Ashraf ElAfifi

• President—IMEA

Company: Henkel

Nationality: Egyptian

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Consumer Goods

With 31 years of experience in the industry, ElAfifi assumed his current role at Henkel in 2010 and oversees a team of 5,000 people. In June 2023, the company launched two Net Carbon Neutral Production Units in the region. Henkel aims to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions per ton of product by 67% by 2030, compared to 2017. Henkel’s regional sales grew 7% in 2022 and accounted for 6% of global sales.

23 Mazin Khoury

• CEO—Middle East & North Africa

Company: AMEX

Nationality: Bahraini

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

With over three decades of experience in the industry, Khoury assumed his current role in 2012 and leads a team of 600 people in 18 markets across MENA. He was previously the CEO of American Express Saudi Arabia, where he was responsible for establishing and managing the joint venture for American Express in the kingdom. Since launching its Shop Small campaign in 2021, the company has gained over 650 small business partners.

24 Amr K. El Leithy

• Head of Middle East and Africa

Market Company: Nokia

Nationality: French-Egyptian

Global Headquarters: Finland

Sector: Telecommunications

El Leithy joined Nokia in 2009 and assumed his current role in 2015. He leads a team of around 3,200 people. In April 2023, Nokia signed a multi-year deal with Zain Jordan to supply 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment across 3,000 sites in Jordan. In December 2022, the company and Etisalat from e& demonstrated the fastest passive optical network (PON) speed in the MEA region.

25 László Svinger

• Managing Director—Middle East and Africa & Global Vice-President

3M Healthcare Business Group

Commercial Operations

Company: 3M

Nationality: Hungarian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Diversified

Svinger assumed his current role in 2020 and oversees 1,600 people. Supporting the Malala Fund since 2022, 3M has extended its educational goal for 2027, aiming to enhance STEAM education in 13,000 public high schools in Pakistan. The initiative seeks to provide educational opportunities to over 12 million children.

26 Amine Bel Hadj Soulami

• Head of Middle East & Africa

Company: BNP Paribas

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

Soulami has over 35 years of experience in the banking sector and assumed his current role in 2021. He oversees seven geographies and over 600 people. In February 2023, BNP Paribas closed the sale of its retail and commercial banking activities in the U.S. to BMO Financial Group conducted through its subsidiary, Bank of the West.

27 Frédéric Claux

• Managing Director, Flexible Generation & Retail, AMEA and Country Director, GCC & Pakistan Company: ENGIE

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Utilities

Claux has over 20 years of experience at the company and currently leads a team of around 5,600 people. In July 2023, ENGIE signed an MoU with the Public Investment Fund for the joint development of green hydrogen projects and their derivatives in Saudi Arabia to contribute to Saudi’s Vision 2030.

28 Joseph Anis

• President and CEO—Europe, Middle East, and Africa, GE

Vernova’s Gas Power business

Company: GE Vernova

Nationality: Egyptian-American

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Energy

Anis has 30 years of industry experience and currently leads a team of 8,800 people. In 2022, Anis led a team in Egypt that executed a proof-of-concept project illustrating that it is possible to generate low-carbon, reliable, on-demand power by running hydrogen-blended fuels in gas turbines, which allowed GE Vernova’s gas turbine to run on hydrogen-blended fuel for the first time on the African continent. In February 2023, the company signed Principles of Cooperation with Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity to further support the development of the energy sector in the country.

29 Jerome Droesch

• CEO – Domestic Health & Health Services, Cigna International Markets

Company: Cigna Healthcare MEA

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Insurance

Droesch joined Cigna in 2019 and assumed his current role in 2022. In this role, he oversees a team of around 4,500 people. In February 2023, Cigna became the first

30 Arosha Wijemuni

• Corporate Vice President – EMEA Business Unit

Company: McDonald’s Middle East Development Company

Nationality: Sri Lankan

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Food and Beverages

Wijemuni has over 30 years of industry experience and is currently responsible for managing 37 markets across 36 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He oversees the operations, training, brand, franchising, security, and business

expansion across the region. Globally, McDonald’s recorded $5.9 billion in revenues and $1.8 billion in net income in Q1 2023.

31 Moosa Al-Moosa

• President—Middle East, Africa, and Türkiye

Company: Dow Chemical

Nationality: Omani

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Chemicals

Al-Moosa joined Dow Chemical in 2005 and assumed his current role in April 2023. He leads a team of 50 people and manages all shareholder issues related to Dow’s Sadara joint venture with Aramco. He is also a board member at Samco in Saudi Arabia and the U.S.-Saudi Business Council.

international health insurance provider to receive an official branch license from the Saudi Central Bank.

Joseph Anis

32 Hamid Haqparwar

• Managing Director Company: BMW Group Middle East

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Automotive

Haqparwar joined the BMW Group in 2005 as an intern market development manager. He assumed his current role in October 2018. In 2022, Haqparwar led discussions between the U.A.E. Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure and BMW Group Middle East to sign an agreement to expand the electric vehicle charging network across U.A.E. federal roads and destinations. In June 2022, Haqparwar became an advisory board member of Platz Am Tisch, a non-profit organization for mentoring socially disadvantaged young adults. He is also a member of the German Emirati Joint Council for Industry and Commerce.

33 Helmut von Struve

• CEO—Middle East and U.A.E.

Company: Siemens

Nationality: Austrian

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Industrials

Struve joined Siemens in 2000 and assumed his current role in 2020. He currently leads a team of around 2,000 people. In 2022, Siemens was selected to supply electric vehicle chargers for Saudi Arabia’s Electromin nationwide charging network. In May 2023, Siemens provided automation and building technology for the Dubaibased Bustanica, the world’s biggest vertical farm.

34 Lennaert Rijken

• Regional Vice President—Middle East, Africa & Russia

Company: AbbVie

Nationality: Dutch

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Rijken has been working at AbbVie for 11 years and oversees a team of around 1,200 people. In October 2022, AbbVie signed a Declaration of Collaboration with the Department of Health in Abu Dhabi during GITEX Global. The collaboration focuses on research and clinical trials, innovation and health

technology assessment, manufacturing in Abu Dhabi, and medical education.

35 Leila Serhan; Saeeda Jaffar

• Leila: Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager—North Africa, Levant and Pakistan

• Saeeda: Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager—GCC

Company: Visa

Nationality: Leila: Lebanese

Saeeda: Emirati

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Serhan and Jaffar joined Visa in 2021. In January 2023, Visa partnered with Injaz Egypt to run two financial literacy programs—Personal Economics and

San3ety Schools Program—to upskill young girls. In May 2023, Visa invested in Tarabut Gateway, an open banking platform that allows banks to comply with local open banking requirements.

36 Saad Toma

• General Manager—Middle East and Africa

Company: IBM

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Information Technology (IT)

Toma has been with IBM for over 30 years and assumed his current role in July 2021. In 2022, IBM launched an innovation hub with Saudi Aramco to address industry challenges, including the circular economy, AI, material discovery, sustainability, and supply chains, using IBM technology.

Helmut von Struve

37 Pelin Incesu

• Area Vice President—Middle East & Africa

Company: AstraZeneca

Nationality: Turkish

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Incesu assumed her current role in 2020 and leads a team of 2,200 people. AstraZeneca launched Cancer Care Africa at COP27 in 2022 to co-create solutions for cancer. In March 2022, the company launched its AZ Forest Ghana initiative in partnership with local collaborators, which resulted in the planting of over four million trees. In 2022, AstraZeneca MEA recorded over $1 billion in sales and completed 53 launches of different medicines in the region.

38

Alexis Lecanuet

• Regional Managing Director—

Middle East

Company: Accenture

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: Ireland

Sector: Technology

Lecanuet joined Accenture in 1996 and assumed his current role in 2018. He leads a team of 1,600 people and is responsible for defining and executing Accenture’s strategy, leading client portfolios, and managing local operations. Lecanuet is also a board member for the non-profit Injaz U.A.E. In 2022, Accenture partnered with NGOs such as Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, The Big Heart Foundation, Dubai Cares, and Saudi Alnahda to work toward achieving the SDGs. The company aims to achieve net-zero emissions and zero waste by 2025.

39 Arshad Ghafur

• President—MENA

Company: Bank of America

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

With 27 years of industry experience, Ghafur has held various senior roles in global markets and investment banking. He has been in his current role at the Bank of America since joining in 2012. Ghafur also sits on the DIFC Higher Board and the U.S.U.A.E. Business Council. In February

2022, the Bank of America became the first corporate global financial institution to invest in the AgriBusiness Capital Fund.

40 Mohammed Mohaisen

• President and CEO—Middle East, North Africa, Türkiye and Central Asia

Company: Honeywell

Nationality: Jordanian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Diversified

Mohaisen leads a team of around 3,100 people at Honeywell. He previously worked with GE for over 20 years. In June 2023, Honeywell Middle East signed a specialized training contract with Sonatrach to advance local competency development

in autonomous technologies and control systems.

41 Aziz Koleilat

• Vice President, Sales & Marketing and General Manager—Middle East, Türkiye, Eastern Europe & Russia/CIS

Company: GE Aerospace

Nationality: Lebanese-Canadian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Aerospace

Koleilat has 30 years of industry experience. He joined GE Healthcare in 2006 as a sales leader and assumed his current role at GE Aerospace in 2017. In January 2023, Emirates, Boeing, GE Aerospace, and other companies partnered to operate a milestone demonstration flight powered with 100% sustainable aviation fuel for the first time in MENA.

Pelin Incesu

42 Jean-Paul Scheuer

• MCO Lead and General Manager

Specialty Greater Gulf Company: Sanofi

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Scheuer joined Sanofi in 2008 and assumed his current role in 2016, in which he leads a team of 800 people. He was previously country chair and general manager at Sanofi Gulf from 2016 to 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, the company launched over 40 products, with over 13 launches in 2022 alone.

43 Jérôme Hénique

• Executive Vice President and CEO

Company: Orange Middle East and Africa (OMEA)

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Telecommunications

Hénique assumed his current role in April 2023, overseeing 18 countries and more than 146.2 million customers. In June 2023, OMEA signed a partnership agreement with Digital Africa to support African startups through Orange Digital Centers, which are ecosystems currently present in 17 countries in the Middle East and Africa and eight countries in Europe to support, train, and guide young people and innovators. Hénique previously held several senior positions at Orange, including CEO in Jordan, Consumer Market Director in France, and Marketing Director in Spain.

44 Tarek Rizk

• President—MENA

Company: SLB

Nationality: Canadian-Egyptian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Rizk joined the company in 2000 and assumed his current role in 2020. In 2022, SLB announced a joint agreement with Saudi Aramco and Linde to establish a carbon capture and storage hub in Saudi Arabia with the capacity to store up to nine million metric tons of CO2 per year by 2027.

45 Hugo Hagen; Jean-Baptiste Boulay

• Hagen: Senior Bayer Representative and Country Division Head—Middle East

• Boulay: President—North Africa, Managing Director—SA Morocco

Company: Bayer

Nationality: Hagen: Norwegian

Boulay: French

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Boulay joined Bayer in 2000 and assumed his current role in 2018. Hagen has been with Bayer since 2011 and has been in his current role since November 2022. Bayer is investing in expanding its Nouaceur production site in Morocco to become a major pharmaceutical manufacturing

center—the first of its kind in Africa.

46 Mohammed Amin

• Senior Vice President—Central Eastern Europe, Middle East, Türkiye and Africa

Company: Dell Technologies

Nationality: Egyptian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Information Technology (IT)

Amin has over 30 years of industry experience and assumed his current role in 2012. He previously led EMC’s operations in the TEAM region, becoming vice president in 2010 and senior vice president in 2011. In June 2023, Ooredoo and Dell Technologies signed an MoU to simplify digital transformation initiatives and explore new growth opportunities through Dell’s APEX multi-cloud portfolio.

Jean-Paul Scheuer

47 Samir Cherfan

• COO—Middle East and Africa

Company: Stellantis

Nationality: French-Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Netherlands

Sector: Automotive

Cherfan joined Stellantis as COO for the Middle East and Africa and became an executive team member in January 2021. He was previously the executive vice president at Groupe PSA for the Middle East and Africa. The company recorded $5.1 billion in net revenues in the first half of 2023 in the Middle East and Africa, a 54% increase compared to the year before. In February 2023, the company signed an agreement with the Egyptian Authorities to set up an automobile plant in the country. In June 2023, the company announced Mohsin Haider Darwish Automobiles as its official distributor in Oman.

48 Shahzeb Mahmood

• General Manager—Middle East, North, East & Central Africa (RoA) and AMEA Exports Unit

Company: Kellogg Company

Nationality: Pakistani

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Food and Beverages

Mahmood joined the Kellogg Company in April 2021 as general manager for the Middle East and Pakistan. He assumed his current role in June 2023. In March 2023, the company announced it would spin off into two companies, Kellanova, and WK Kellogg Co, by the end of 2023. Kellogg Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa reported $770 million in net sales in the quarter ended April 2023, compared to $718 million in the same period of 2022.

49 Dietmar Siersdorfer

• Managing Director—Middle East

Company: Siemens Energy

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Energy

Siersdorfer joined Siemens in 1987 and assumed his current role at Siemens Energy in 2020 following the company’s spinoff from Siemens. He leads a team of

around 3,000 people. In 2022, Siemens Energy launched the Alliance for Industry Decarbonization with the International Renewable Energy Agency, bringing together more than 50 international companies to decarbonize heavilyemitting sectors.

50 Zaher Ibrahim

• Vice President, Europe, Middle East & Africa

Company: Baker Hughes

Nationality: Canadian-Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Energy

Ibrahim has more than 22 years of experience in the energy industry. He has held various field, operational, and leadership roles with GE and Baker Hughes. He joined Baker Hughes in 2017 and assumed his current role in May 2022, where he is focused on driving business growth, working closely with IOCs and NOCs across the region. In November

51 Ahmed AlFaifi

• Senior Vice President and Managing Director— Middle East Africa North

Company: SAP

Nationality: Saudi

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Technology

AlFaifi joined SAP in 2012 and assumed his current role as VP in 2016, but his responsibility was expanded in Q1 2023 to include more countries, where he now oversees 27 countries and nine offices across MENA. He leads a team of more than 1,100 people. In Q2 2023, AlFaifi launched MENA’s first SAP Innovation & Experience Center in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

2022, Baker Hughes and ADNOC signed a strategic technology collaboration agreement to support the development of technology proofs of concept, technology scale-ups, and technology pilots.

Dietmar Siersdorfer

52 Ayman Mokhtar

• Regional President—Middle East, North Africa and Eurasia

Company: Viatris

Nationality: Egyptian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Mokhtar joined Viatris in 2018 and assumed his current role in 2022. In 2022, the U.A.E.’s Ministry of Health and Prevention signed an MoU with Viatris to support the ministry’s efforts, workshops, initiatives, research, and campaigns to achieve the objectives of the National Strategy for Wellbeing 2031.

53 Fares Akkad

• Regional Director—Middle East and Africa

Company: Meta

Nationality: American

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

With 25 years of industry experience, Akkad joined Meta in 2017 and assumed his current role in 2021. He leads a team of 250 people. Meta finalized the launch of the 2Africa submarine cable in 2020, providing 30% of the internet connectivity to Africa. Akkad is also a board member of CAFU, KIDZONET, and Enhance Fitness. He is a board advisor to Aliph Capital and also serves on the board of

NGOs TAKREEM Foundation and Ard Dyar.

54 Fadi Pharaon

• President—Middle East & Africa

Company: Ericsson

Nationality: Swedish

Global Headquarters: Sweden

Sector: Telecommunications

Pharaon leads a team of over 4,500 people. He assumed his current role in September 2019 and oversees sales, delivery, and business operations for 70 countries. He has also been a member of Ericsson’s executive team since 2019. Ericsson is working to achieve net zero emission by 2040 and partnered with e& in 2022 to use the latest radio system portfolio, which resulted in a 52% reduction in energy consumption.

55 Majid Kaddoumi

• Senior Vice President and President—Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia

Company: Medtronic

Nationality: Jordanian

Global Headquarters: Ireland

Sector: Healthcare

Kaddoumi has over 25 years of experience in operations, services, and medical technology. He joined Medtronic in 2012. In 2022, the company opened a diabetes clinic in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to improve patient outcomes and care for type 1 diabetes across the kingdom.

56 Olfat Sami Berro

• Area Head—Middle East

Company: Roche

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

In 2019, Berro became the first female regional head for any major pharmaceutical company in the Middle East. She joined Roche in 2003 and became country manager for Lebanon in 2015. Between 2016 and 2017, she was the interim country manager for Jordan and Palestine. In 2022, she oversaw Roche’s partnership with Microsoft, and Roche signed an agreement with King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh.

Ayman Mokhtar

57 Ashraf Mallak

• Associate Vice President, Managing Director—GCC

Company: Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD)

Nationality: Jordanian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Mallak joined MSD in 2002 and has almost 20 years of industry experience. He oversees a team of around 328 people in his current role. In 2022, MSD launched an oral antiviral medicine for Covid-19 in the GCC and also introduced its broad pneumococcal vaccine in the region.

58 Mufazzal Kajiji

• CEO

Company: Zurich International Life (Middle East)

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Insurance

Kajiji joined Zurich International Life in the Middle East and assumed his current role in June 2022, where he leads a team of around 400 people. According to its Customer Benefits Paid Report released in May 2023, Zurich has paid out claims amounting to $160 million in customer benefits over the last three years, representing a 57% year-on-year increase since 2016.

59 Christopher Cook

• Managing Director—U.A.E., Oman and Qatar

Company: Maersk

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: Denmark

Sector: Logistics

Cook has been with Maersk for over 20 years and has been overseeing operations in the U.A.E., Qatar, and Oman since 2019. In July 2023, Maersk opened a 12,500-square-meter cold store in Dubai, which is the company's third W&D facility in the country. In May 2023, Maersk launched its ocean shipping service, Al Maha, which will rotate between ports across the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, and Morocco.

60 Bassel Kakish

• CEO—Middle East & Türkiye

Company: Publicis Groupe

Nationality: Jordanian

Global Headquarters: France

Sector: Media

Kakish has 21 years of industry experience and assumed his current role in 2021, managing a team of over 3,600 people. In February 2023, the Publicis Groupe global network started a donation drive and awareness campaign for earthquake survivors in Türkiye and Syria. In April 2023, it launched “The Grand Masters,” an internship program for retired professionals to promote knowledge sharing across generations.

61 Jobin Joejoe

• Deputy Managing Director Company: Sony Middle East and Africa

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: Japan Sector: Electronics

Joejoe joined Sony in 2007 and assumed his current role in 2022. Over the last 10 years, Sony has replaced approximately 379 tons of virgin plastic with recycled plastic in digital cameras and digital video cameras. The company has created recycled flameretardant plastic, SORPLAS, which is used for manufacturing various products with minimum impact on the environment.

62 Hady El Khoury

• General Manager—MENEAT

Company: GE HealthCare

Nationality: French

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Medical Devices

El Khoury joined GE HealthCare in 2005 and assumed his current role in 2022. He oversees a team of around 1,000 people. In January 2023, GE HealthCare spun off from its parent company General Electric, became independent, and started trading on The Nasdaq Stock Market. It was launched in more than 160 countries and employs approximately 51,000 people worldwide.

Mufazzal Kajiji

63 Mostafa AlGuezeri

• Managing Director—U.A.E., Gulf, Near East and Pakistan

Company: Hitachi Energy

Nationality: Egyptian

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Technology and Utilities

AlGuezeri has been at the helm of Hitachi Energy since 2020. He previously spent nearly 23 years at ABB. In May 2023, Hitachi Energy signed an agreement with ENOWA and the Saudi Electricity Company to provide three HVDC links for a total power capacity of nine gigawatts in Western Saudi Arabia.

64 Tuna Gulenc

• Vice President Company: Daikin Middle East & Africa

Nationality: Turkish

Global Headquarters: Japan

Sector: Manufacturing

Gulenc joined Daikin in 2006 in Türkiye as one of the first two employees appointed in the country. He assumed his current role in 2017. He is responsible for managing the Middle East and Africa’s direct subsidiaries based in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt, as well as sales offices in Nigeria and Morocco and independent distributors in Africa and the Near East Region. The company offers product planning, promotion, sales, after-market service, and support for air conditioning products across the GCC and Africa. In 2022, Daikin opened its first factory in Saudi Arabia.

65 Ahmad Alkhallafi; Mohammad Alrehaili

• Ahmad: Managing Director—U.A.E. and Africa

• Mohammad: Managing Director— Middle East

Company: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Nationality: Ahmad: Emirati, Mohammad: Saudi

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Information Technology (IT)

Alkhallafi has been with HPE since 2020 and

became managing director for the U.A.E. and Africa in November 2022. Alrehaili joined HPE as managing director for Saudi Arabia in 2022. Alkhallafi became a board member of the Dubai International Chamber in 2021. In February 2023, HPE and Alfanar announced their intent to invest in high-tech production in Saudi Arabia.

66 Herjit S. Bhalla

• Vice President—Canada, AsiaPacific, Middle East and Africa

Company: The Hershey Company

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Foods

Bhalla has over 22 years of industry experience and joined the Hershey Company in 2018. He leads a team of around 1,480 people. In May 2022, Hershey opened a new R&D center in Johor, Malaysia, as a central hub for the company’s operations across

67 Nadim Najjar

• Managing Director—Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa

Company: London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG)

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Financial Services

In 2019, Najjar led the divestiture of Refinitiv from Thomson Reuters, creating a $6 billion global data provider. In 2021, LSEG acquired Refinitiv for $27 billion. Najjar has 30 years of industry experience and supervises over 1,000 people. He is also an advisory board member of Reach, a non-profit mentoring program for young professionals, and is a supporter and advocate for the MEA chapters of LSEG’s diversity and inclusion networks.

Tuna Gulenc

68 Vincenzo Ventricelli

• CEO—Middle East, Türkiye & Africa

Company: Philips

Nationality: Italian

Global Headquarters: Netherlands

Sector: Medical Devices

Ventricelli has been working at Philips for more than 26 years. He started his career in the region as marketing director for Philips Consumer Lifestyle, Middle East and Africa in 2008. He assumed the leadership of the Middle East and Türkiye in 2020, and his role was expanded to include Africa in 2021. In 2022, the Philips Foundation and Philips Lebanon contributed to SESOBEL, a Lebanese NGO, to improve access to oxygen concentrators and ventilators.

69

Ertug Ayik

• Managing Director—Middle East and Africa

Company: HP Inc.

Nationality: Turkish

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Electronics

Ayik has been working at HP for almost 25 years and has held multiple executive roles within the company. Globally, HP recorded $63 billion in net revenues and $3.2 billion in net earnings in the fiscal year that ended October 31, 2022.

70 Nicholas Maclean

• Co-Chairman & Managing Director – Middle East

Company: CBRE

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Real Estate

Maclean established CBRE Middle East in 2005, which encompasses CBRE’s Advisory operations across MENA. He is also a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a chair of the Member Services Committee, a board member of the Advisory Council of Dubai International Chamber of Commerce, and the Scottish government’s trade and investment envoy to the U.A.E. The CBRE Group has over 1,300 people in the Middle East, operating out of nine offices across six countries.

71 Hiroyuki Shibutani

• Managing Director

Company: Panasonic Marketing Middle East and Africa (PMMAF)

Nationality: Japanese

Global Headquarters: Japan

Sector: Manufacturing - Electronics

Shibutani first joined Panasonic in 1999 before leaving in 2004. He rejoined the company in 2008 and assumed his current role in 2019. In 2022, Panasonic launched the SMART CARE app, a digital warranty system, in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Pakistan. It will soon be introduced across all regional markets. In 2023, the company planted 170 mangrove trees in the Al Zorah Nature Reserve in Ajman in the U.A.E. to support the country’s target to plant 100 million mangrove trees by 2030.

72 César Habib

• Regional Director

Company: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Middle East & Africa

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Automotive

Habib joined the BMW Group in 2000 as a parts business consultant and took over his current role in 2018. In 2022, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars opened its first private office outside the U.K., in Dubai. The company opened two new showrooms —one in Doha and one in Riyadh— in March 2023, in which the Marque’s all-electric super coupé, Rolls-Royce Spectre, made its first public appearance outside the U.K.

César Habib

73 Elda Choucair

• CEO

Company: Omnicom Media

Group MENA

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Media

Choucair assumed her current role in 2021 and oversees a team of 900 people. In 2022, Omnicom Media Group MENA achieved 46% in female representation and 103 in its pay index in favor of female executives. Choucair is also the vice chair of the Advertising Business Group and a founding board member of the Unstereotype Alliance, among other roles.

75 Irina Zaporozhet

• Associate Vice President and General Manager—MEA

Company: Eli Lilly and Company

Nationality: Canadian-Russian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Zaporozhet joined Eli Lilly in 2001 and assumed her current role in January 2023. In June 2023, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health signed a Declaration of Collaboration with Eli Lilly Suisse S.A. to establish a framework for collaboration on clinical research, real-world evidence, and healthcare technology.

76 Shashank Sharma

• Executive Director and General Manager—Middle East, Türkiye and Africa

Company: Lenovo

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: Hong Kong

Sector: Manufacturing - Electronics

Sharma joined Lenovo in 2011 as COO for the Middle East and Africa. Currently, he leads a team of over 320 people in the Middle East, Türkiye, and Africa. Lenovo is a leading PC brand in META, with a 24% market share in the 2022/23 fiscal year. In June 2023, Lenovo recorded an annual AI infrastructure revenue of over $2 billion and announced an investment in AI of $1 billion over three years.

74 Georg Schroeckenfuchs

• Head Gulf and Saudi Country Group, Innovative Medicines

Company: Novartis Pharma Services

Nationality: Austrian

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Schroeckenfuchs has been working with Novartis for almost 22 years. In his current role, he oversees a team of over 450 people. In March 2022, it partnered with Pharmax Pharmaceuticals to enhance access to treatment for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes in the U.A.E. In June 2023, Novartis also partnered with the Emirates Dermatology Society to raise awareness of skin diseases.

77 Manfred Bräunl

• CEO

Company: Porsche Middle East and Africa

Nationality: German-Canadian

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Automotive

Bräunl joined Porsche in 2014 and became CEO of Porsche Middle East and Africa FZE in 2019. He leads a team of 85 at the company’s Dubai office. Bräunl has 31 years of automotive industry experience. He has been a guest professor at Tongji University in Shanghai since 2017. Globally, Porsche’s sales increased by 20% in 2022. Porsche’s Esports Racing Team placed first at the Gamers8 Festival in Saudi Arabia in July 2023.

Irina Zaporozhet

78 Boyd Chongphaisal

• Vice President and General Manager—Gulf

Company: GSK

Nationality: Thai

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Pharmaceuticals

Chongphaisal has been working at GSK for almost 13 years. The company employs more than 250 people in the Gulf. In 2022, GSK signed a manufacturing agreement with Bioventure Healthcare FZE through which GSK will transfer the secondary packaging of 20 of its key products to the U.A.E.

79 Taha Khalifa

• Country Manager–GCC

Company: Intel Corp.

Nationality: Egyptian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Khalifa joined Intel’s U.S. operations in 1995 and has since held a variety of senior engineering, sales and marketing, and management roles. He assumed his current role in 2017, leading a team of 150 people. He also serves as an advisory board member at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Khalifa University, and Ajman University Innovation Center. Intel established an AI Research and Development Center in Dubai in 2022.

80 Khaled El Dabag

• CEO—MENA Region, Managing Director, Investment Banking

Company: Barclays

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.K.

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

El Dabag joined Barclays in 2014 and assumed his current role in 2021. He has 27 years of industry experience and heads a team of 170 people. Barclays has been in the Middle East for more than 150 years. Since 2022, Barclays has grown its business across all divisions, serving sovereign wealth fund clients, government-related entities, banks, large corporates, and family offices. El Dabag is also an advisory board member for

81 Reham AlMusa

• Vice President – Business Applications, Public Sector and Managing Director - Saudi Arabia

Company: Oracle

Nationality: Saudi

Global Headquarters: U.S. Sector: Technology

AlMusa assumed the leadership of Oracle's operations in Saudi Arabia in 2022. In February 2023, Oracle announced plans to open a third public cloud region in Riyadh as part of a planned $1.5 billion investment into expanding cloud infrastructure capabilities in Saudi Arabia. AlMusa is also an active member of the Oracle Women’s Leadership (OWL) group, a global development program that aims to

engage and empower current and future generations of women leaders at Oracle.

82 Nishant Ranjan

• Chief Executive - GCC Operations

Company: Bank of Baroda

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: India

Sector: Banking and Financial Services

Ranjan assumed his current role in January 2021. He was previously general manager for the bank in Mumbai. As of December 2022, the Bank of Baroda’s U.A.E. branches had $4.8 billion in assets. The Bank of Baroda opened its first branch in the U.A.E, in Dubai, in 1974. Today it has five branches in the country and is the only Indian Bank with a full-fledged banking operations license from the central bank.

the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Taha Khalifa

83 Udo Huenger

• Vice President—Middle East and Egypt

Company: BASF

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: Germany

Sector: Chemicals

Huenger leads a team of 400 people at BASF and manages the company’s business in the Middle East, Egypt, and Iran. Before assuming his current role in January 2019, Huenger held several leadership roles within BASF, including his last role as director of refining catalysts for EMEA.

84 Giorgio Turri

• Managing Director Company: Ferrari Middle East

Nationality: Italian

Global Headquarters: Italy

Sector: Automotive

Turri joined Ferrari in 2012, moved to the U.A.E. in 2015, and assumed his current role in 2018. In his current position, he leads the regional branch in Dubai and the sales and marketing and business development team in eight countries with official importers in

the Gulf, Lebanon, and India. Ferrari Middle East has partnerships with several dealers in the region, including Alfardan Motors in Oman, Euro Motors in Bahrain, Alfardan Sports Motors Company in Qatar, and Al Tayer Motors in Dubai.

85 Stuart Deeson

• Vice President of Operations— Middle East and Africa

Company: Hyatt

Nationality: British

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Hotels and Hospitality

Deeson joined Hyatt in 1995 and is currently responsible for operating hotels across the region, with a portfolio of 30 properties across seven brands, including Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Alila, Andaz, Hyatt Centric, Hyatt Place, and Hyatt House. In September 2022, the opening of Grand Hyatt Kuwait marked the brand’s debut in the country.

86 Ram Ramachandran

• Senior Vice President and Head— Middle East and Africa

Company: Tech Mahindra

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: India

Sector: Information Technology (IT)

Ramachandran joined Tech Mahindra in Singapore in 2009 and moved to Dubai in 2015. He assumed his current role in 2020. He is a member of Tech Mahindra’s Global Leadership Council and a board member for Tech Mahindra Arabia. He oversees 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa and more than 4,000 people. In 2023, Tech Mahindra signed an MoU with the Saudi Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to establish a Data, AI, and Cloud Centre of Excellence in Riyadh. It also established its first Global Delivery Centre in Egypt and an Innovation Centre in Oman. Ramachandran is also a member of the FICCI Middle East Chapter and sits on the Advisory Council of IDC in the region.

87 Venkatasubramanian Hariharan

• Managing Director

Company: Canon Middle East and Türkiye

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: Japan

Sector: Electronics

Hariharan became managing director of Canon Middle East and Türkiye in 2021 to oversee the post-pandemic transition and long-term business recovery plans. Hariharan has 29 years of industry experience. Before this role, he was the B2C Business Unit Director for the Middle East. In October 2022, Canon Middle East received the Dubai Chamber of Commerce Advanced CSR Label certificate for the third time.

88 Rawad Sarieddine

• Vice President–META

Company: CrowdStrike

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Information Technology

Sarieddine has almost 20 years of industry experience. CrowdStrike was established in Dubai, and Sarieddine assumed his current role in 2017. He was previously the sales director of FireEye META for four years. In the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, CrowdStrike provides its managed detection and response solution to GMG online customers, helping it target up to 10,000 monthly incidents through 3,500 endpoints.

Stuart Deeson

89 Frans Hiemstra

• Director, Regional General Manager—Middle East and Africa Company: Uber Technologies

Nationality: South African

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Transportation Mobility as a service

Hiemstra joined Uber in 2015 and assumed his current role in 2022. In March 2023, the company partnered with Healthtracka to provide free cervical cancer screening for female drivers in Nigeria. During FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Uber helped create 40% more economic opportunities for those looking to supplement their earnings during the tournament.

90 Julio de la Rosa

• Business Development Director for the Water Business—

Middle East

Company: ACCIONA

Nationality: Spanish

Global Headquarters: Spain

Sector: Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions

Jurado has 28 years of industry experience. He joined ACCIONA and assumed his current role in 2016. ACCIONA partnered with SEPCOIII in 2022 to construct the Jubail 3B Independent Water Project. The desalination plant will have the capacity to filter 570,000 m3/ day for two million people in Riyadh and Qassim by 2024.

91 Min Soo On

• Managing Director Company: Mobis Parts Middle East

Nationality: South Korean

Global Headquarters: South Korea

Sector: Auto Parts

On joined Hyundai Mobis in 1999 and assumed his current role at Hyundai Mobis’s subsidiary, Mobis Parts Middle East FZE, in 2020. He leads a team of over 255 people. In June 2023, as a part of its “Doing Good to Do Good” Go Green initiative, MPME recycled 100% of its expired EV batteries, which reduced 50-70% of the carbon footprint associated with producing a new EV battery.

92 Dirk Karl

• Group Executive and Chief Procurement Officer

Company: MTN Group

Nationality: German

Global Headquarters: South Africa

Sector: Telecommunications

Karl has 30 years of industry experience. He joined the MTN Group and assumed his current role in 2017. In 2022, MTN launched the first Agile Procurement Model in the industry, which helped the company save over $305 million. It aims to reduce Scope 3 emissions and achieve net zero by 2040.

93 Emmanuel Laurina

• Managing Director and Head— Middle East and Africa

Company: State Street Global Advisors

Nationality: Belgian

Global Headquarters: U.S. Sector: Investment

With over 26 years of experience, Laurina has been working with State Street Global Advisors since 2005 and assumed his current role in 2013. With two offices in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, he leads the company’s activities in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. Globally, the company achieved $3.1 billion in revenues in Q1 2023, a 0.6 % increase compared to Q1 2022.

94 Pierre Fayard

• CEO—MEIA

Company: Richemont

Nationality: Swiss

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Luxury Goods

Fayard has more than 37 years of industry experience. He joined Richemont in 2020 as MEIA CEO. In April 2022, Richemont partnered with the Dubai Future Foundation to launch a startup incubation program, “BEYOND: The Future of Luxury Retail,” to support emerging technologies in improving the luxury client experience. The program announced six startup winners in July 2022.

Dirk Karl

95 Joe Naoum

• General Manager—Middle East and North Africa

Company: Stryker

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Medical Devices

Naoum joined Stryker in 2018 and assumed his current role in January 2022. He has 19 years of healthcare industry experience and leads a team of 80 people. Naoum has previously held roles at Carestream, Wolters Kluwer, and Kodak. In 2023, Stryker opened a state-ofthe-art regional office in Dubai’s DIFC.

96 Mayank Patel

• Country Head—Middle East & Vice President Sales—EEMENA

Company: Adecco

Nationality: Indian

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Technology

98 Mazen Dalati

• General Manager—Middle East and Asia

Company: Alcon

Nationality: Canadian-Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Switzerland

Sector: Healthcare

Dalati joined Alcon in 2019 as general manager for the Middle East. He assumed his current role in January 2021. In June 2023, Dalati became a board member at the Canadian Business Council of Dubai and the Northern Emirates.

99 Ronald Boueri

• Regional Managing Director

Company: Olympus MEA

Nationality: Lebanese

Global Headquarters: Japan

Sector: Manufacturing

Patel joined Adecco in 2007 and assumed his current role in 2022. He started his career with Eli Lilly as an area manager and business manager. Patel is also a member of the CEO Clubs Network in the Middle East. He recently collaborated with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the largest skilling program of the Government of India.

97 Farah Hamdan

• General Manager—MENAT

Company: Zimmer Biomet

Nationality: Jordanian

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Healthcare

Hamdan has held her current role since joining Zimmer Biomet in 2022. She leads a team of 150 people. In 2022, Zimmer Biomet opened a regional office in Saudi Arabia and an innovation hub in Dubai. It also opened another innovation hub in Ankara in 2023. Hamdan previously held various senior roles in Medtronic, Abbott, Becton Dickinson, and Novartis Pharma.

Boueri has nearly 30 years of industry experience. He joined Olympus MEA and assumed his current role in 2022. In October 2022, the company launched a three-year medical endoscopy, surgical, and service strategy. In January 2023, Olympus revamped its processes and new GTM models in two key markets in MEA.

100 Mohamed Zouari

• General Manager—Middle East, Türkiye, and Africa

Company: Snowflake

Nationality: Tunisian-French

Global Headquarters: U.S.

Sector: Technology

Zouari joined Snowflake in 2018 to oversee a regional team of more than 20 people in sales and partner marketing. Zouari previously held roles with AXA, Logica, and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. The company plans to expand in Saudi Arabia. In March 2022, Snowflake launched a cloud deployment region in the U.A.E. to enable customers and partners to leverage Snowflake data cloud, which is used by brands, including Emaar, Property Finder, Kitopi, Mondia, and ArabyAds.

Farah Hamdan

The Under 30 Summit serves as a platform to showcase the exceptional talents featured in the 2023 Forbes Middle East 30 Under 30 list. Attendees can expect thought-provoking discussions, where these budding visionaries engage with industry experts and share their insights on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of business.

www.forbesmiddleeast.com

For general inquiries: event@forbesmiddleeast.com

For sponsorship opportunities: advertising@forbesmiddleeast.com

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!”

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

“No one’s really that great. You know who’s great? The people who put tremendous amounts of hours into it. It’s a game of tonnage.”

—Jerry Seinfeld

“In the lives of saints I look for confirmation of excess. Above all, they have no domestic virtues, preferring intensity to comfort.”

—Jeanette Winterson

“For me, purity of movement wasn’t enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.”

—Rudolf Nureyev

“From my point of view it is immoral for a being not to make the most intense effort every instant of his life.”

—José Ortega y Gasset

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

—Alexander Graham Bell

“Hire for passion and intensity; there is training for everything else.”

—Nolan Bushnell

“Life’s a brawl. You must fight for what you want.”

—Janet Skeslien Charles

Intensity

“In some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring that has propelled me almost compulsively to reach for perfection in music, often— in fact, mostly—at the expense of everything else in my life.”

—Stan Getz

“O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth! Then with a passion would I shake the world.”

—William Shakespeare

“If only my passion might be measured and put into the scales against my trouble.”

—Job 6:2

“If a man does not work passionately—even furiously— at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny and his God.”

—George Lois

“Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity.”

—Benjamin Haydon

“In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results— and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.”

—James Allen

“Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere.”

—Bruce Lee

FINAL THOUGHT

“Mastery costs. Skill beyond the ordinary, whether at work or play, whether as executive or artisan, comes from painstaking application.”

—B.C. Forbes

SOURCES: A FEW FIGS FROM THISTLES, BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY; THE WORLD AND OTHER PLACES, BY JEANETTE WINTERSON; ON LOVE, BY JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET; TAO OF JEET KUNE DO, BY BRUCE LEE; THE PARIS LIBRARY, BY JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES; AS A MAN THINKETH, BY JAMES ALLEN; THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN, BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Bruce Lee