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welcome to Sloanies talking with Sloanies , a candid conversation with alumni and faculty about the MIT Sloan experience and how it influences what they're doing today. So what does it mean to be a Sloanie over the course of this podcast, you'll hear from guests who are making a difference in their community, including our own very important one here at Sloan. I'm your host, Christopher Riker .
Hi, I'm Christopher accurate . Hi, I'm North Suede and welcome to Sloanies talking to Sloanies. So welcome door to our fourth in the series. Tell us a bit about where you work and about the last few years of your life.
Well, thank you for having me. I run a venture capital firm based in Dubai, investing in emerging markets and companies that are scaling globally.
I have a list of your , actually of your activities. So here gonna take a deep breath, but actually I won't read them all, but I mean one of them was , I'm interested in is the a , the zen yoga. Tell me about that whole adventure.
So Zen Yoga was the first yoga studio in the Middle East in Africa, and we established it with the thinking that we really want to embrace wellness and teach wellness. And there was a massive opportunity to do a lot of market education on what wellness meant and how to access health and wellness beyond the tunnel , meaning western methods of medication.
So we established 2006 as the first kind of yoga to head teachers, that Rowe Yoga alliance certified and really trying to uplevel the amount of education information about wellness in the region. Zen quickly grew to become the largest wellness chain across the region and the 6,000 unique students, 72 teachers in a few years. So we scaled that quite rapidly and we sold it to a private equity firm, largely because every time I'd walk into the studio I'd be inundated with business problems.
I couldn't practice yoga, so it defeated the purpose.
So you started doing it for your own wellness? Yeah,
it was very selfish of me. I thought I wanted to practice yoga. I can't be the only person in Dubai at the time that I went to the yoga studio. So I thought the best way to solve my problem was to fix it and build one. And how did you manage to scale? Um, slowly and steadily and traditional businesses. A surface business, slow and steady.
And so what did you and your first year realized , Hey, we can do another one or two or five or,
well, it was accidental. So I started zen yoga as a project. I had a full time job. My full time job was scaling a business that was at the time a family business. So when I joined our family business in 2005, it was about $60 million in revenue. It's an interior contracting company. It was in six markets. By 2008 we had reached $600 million in revenue, 22 markets, the largest interior contractor globally. What does that mean into your contract contracting ?
Well, we take buildings or just cement and steel and we do everything on the inside and give you the front door. The only thing we don't do as design, right, because somebody else designs. So that's the depot is it? So that was step by depth limited. Right. So Zan was a project because I couldn't find a yoga studio and I needed my yoga to distress after a long day at DARPA. And so again, it doesn't exist. You see a market need, you approach it and building it.
And that was then so zen scaled at the same time as that phone [inaudible] we IPO, I let the process with Morgan Stanley and UBS in April, 2008. So just before the financial crisis, it was a dual listing in London and the Nasdaq, Dubai. And that was a great success story for the region because it was a debased company that had become a global success story and really reinvented the market.
So when you ask me about scalings and Yoga, I find it ironic because that was actually a harder than scaling data.
Right. And was that your family business or so , so how was that working with family , uh , as well and then having your own separate business.
So the family business occupied, I would say 90% of my time, but the learning from me was that it's much harder to scale from zero to 10 than to go from 60 to 600 right . And working with family was fine. My father had founded the business in 96 so I came in nine years later. I came in for three weeks. That turned to three months. That turned to eight years. The first thing I did when I came in was build out governance.
So I thought that governance was very important and institutionalize it business. That made it a lot easier to work within the confines of family at the same time. The second thing I did was a private placement. I mean it went hand in hand with the governance and that capital of $120 million injection allowed the company to scale and scale very rapidly.
So with these novel concepts to your, to your father or your the family generally, like what is this? What are you doing here? This seems like we're going to lose control. Any that, any of that friction in the process?
No, I think everyone was excited about the fishing . Right ? So I think that when it comes to scaling companies, vision is paramount. If you're aligned on the vision, the strategy shifts depending on market dynamics, regulatory frameworks, and the people you have around you. The vision is paramount and the capital is paramount. So without that capital, it's unlikely we'd be able to scale without the capitalist . And Yoga had, in the beginning it was unlikely then Yoko to scale .
But because it was so difficult to scale , then I realized that entrepreneurship is indeed where I want it to work with other founders, which is why now I'm an investor and venture capitalist and really helping companies scale across global markets.
And so who are you, who's approaching you and who you approached and what sort of, what's the nature of the businesses that , uh, that you're working with now and global ventures?
So we like enterprise tech. So business to business company is focused on global scale. So really entrepreneurs with a global mindset. A lot of them live in Dubai. Dubai is a six hour flight from about 3 billion people. So we have, you know, and the time it takes to get from east coast to west coast in the u s we have half the world's population almost. So it attracts a lot of talent. It's a great place to be. It's become an innovation hub for emerging markets.
And we work with founders that are building out of the region, so out of the Middle East and Africa into Asia and to the u s one of our companies today launched in London. It's a food tech company, so we're very excited and they're scaling massively. They've grown 12 x on good based revenue in the last six months. So we're seeing massive scalability, great opportunities in terms of valuation and an abundance of talent on our side of the world.
50% of the population is under age 30 and the publications just who are 400 million people.
So I see you started at Accenture way back, way back when, way back when and that led to Sloan . Yes. And then you're obviously very versed in, in the area that you're working in in terms of like the dynamics of it, the language of it, all the pressures of it. How , how, tell me about that path from, from undergraduate, which was here in Boston, right?
Yes. I went to BC for Undergrad. So you know, I think life is always full of opportunities if your eyes are open to find them. I learned how to code about 30 years ago back in basic, basic, basic, interesting. I stopped coding ultimately, but I used to ta all the computer engineering classes at BC to make it a little bit of an income.
Although I was a finance economics prelaw so it didn't seem to be a fit at the time after BCI went to Accenture because I wanted to delve into biotech, so I worked a lot in Biopharma and Accenture because if you're interested in an industry but you have a finance degree, consulting is the only way to really explore that industry . A good way to get into it. And again, back to kind of the wellness and health space, which is a , is a theme in my life.
After Accenture decided that I wanted to stay in Boston, I was living here with my sister. I live literally a two minute walk from Sloan. So it seemed incredibly convenient. You know, I think that when I attended the classes in the four schools, I was fortunate enough to apply to . And for me MIT felt like a complete , um, I guess mixture of my passion and early exposure to tech as well as my understanding and skill set in finance.
And so I think that the, the crossroads in my life that have led me to where I am today in venture capital, which is an intersection of technology and finance and they just seem to be themes that keep coming back. It's where the world is going. It's down the street from where I used to live. So I didn't have to move. And most importantly I felt , I thought as I, as I , uh , contemplated amongst the schools, I was fortunate enough to, to look at when I attended classes at Sloan.
It just really struck me how much people raised their hands to ask questions as opposed to raising their hands to answer questions. And I walked away feeling that this is a place that people come when they actually want to learn and explore. And there's an innate curiosity in most of the students here. And for me, if , if I was going to take two years out and do something, I wanted to be around people who were as intentional about their learning as I was. Did you meet your husband here?
I did meet my husband here . That's the real reason I came . Did you know him prior? Did you meet him? No, we met first week of school, so he is , he is started a year before me. So we met because we both come from similar backgrounds and someone thought, Oh, you guys should meet [inaudible] as the Middle East club. Um , he used to run it. I ended up running it and we got married two weeks after graduation.
Wow. That's , that's intense. So you said you grew up in Dubai or did you grow up? Where did you grow up and how did you, it was going back to Dubai going home or is that where everyone moved eventually?
I now recommend that there's a term for, for what I am, which actually makes me feel much more comfortable. So apparently I'm third culture, which means you're from one place, you grew up in another and you live in a third. Right. Okay. And so now there's a generation of people who are third culture. They've , they've termed it third culture and they brought a three for you. So I was born in Boston, but I grew up in London and Saudi and Dubai, right when we moved to Dubai when I was 15.
And then I moved back to Boston and I was 17 and when I left Dubai, I never thought I'd go back because when you move around all the time, and Dubai in the 90s was not Dubai today, but my family stayed there and so I would keep going and coming. And after Sloan I had an offer with Booz Allen. My husband had an offer with McKinsey, both were in Dubai. And so , um, it kind of made sense to try it out for two years and we're still there 14 years later.
Right. Sounds familiar. I moved to Australia accidentally and I thought I must stay there for six months or a year. And I ended up staying 13 years. So it's funny how life got it . Takes that adventure 85 broads,
way back when , way back when, what is called , what a funny name. But now it's , it's now it's called elevate, right? Sallie Krawcheck isn't it? Yes. Yeah , exactly. Um , 85 broads was named off of 85 broad street, right, which is the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. And The lady who founded it was at Goldman and left Goldman and , uh , missed the female network of Goldman and then included HBS and Sloan and all the business schools and all the undergrads.
And now it's the largest, I think, professional network of women globally. So when I moved back to Dubai, I really missed that network. And so thought to start a chapter, which very quickly became the second largest chapter outside the u s um, and we had within a couple of years, 450 members or professional woman network. Um, we until now host the largest conference and the region for females so that within 48 hours at 500 seats, I no longer run it.
There's an amazing woman called Donna and I watched her as her own podcast called the when woman, when , who runs that , um, and he, she's done an incredible job with it , taking it to another level.
So you , um, you were , you were part of an organization , uh, running an a company into your contracting company. So that's like the day nitty gritty of running a business, Zen Yoga, same thing, running a business and now while you are running global ventures, but it seems to me that it has a different focus, right? Which is a lot of, with nascent businesses. What's the draw to you for that?
I'm solving a problem. The problem I find is the access to capital. So consistently in our part of the world and emerging markets, there's less capital for young companies on there as globally. So specifically in the Middle East, in Africa, less than 0.02% of GDP goes towards venture capital . That number is about 0.2% in Europe and 0.3% of the West. So it's 10 times loss on a per capita or GDP basis, however you slice it or dice it.
So that means that as founders have great opportunities, they get to a million or 5 million in revenue. They want to scale, they need to hire people. They're super excited by what they're doing. They found their product market fit, they have clients, but then they hit a wall. And so when I look back at the opportunities that I've had been fortunate enough to have access to capital and we've successfully scaled because of that.
So I believe that even with the best strategies and the best people, or without the right capital, it's very difficult to grow, especially in emerging markets where sales cycles can be longer. So the problem we're solving now is access to capital where it's just happens to be called VC and by providing the right capital tools and access and network to these young companies. And we invest to be clear in series A's and B's, nothing pre-revenue.
So yeah , north of $1 million in revenue, at least five clients. So you're there, it's just you need to grow by providing them with capital, we expect that not only will they grow rapidly, they will also employ, because we have 40% youth unemployment and they will create jobs and they will become regional success stories that thereafter reinvest in the ecosystem and grow that ecosystem.
So with the growth of Dubai as a city, right? I mean if from what it was you said what in the 90s you said [inaudible] to now, does that create opportunities for new businesses to , there's an ecosystem that's growing there or is that sort of happening at a different level that it's hard for people who aren't part of that to get into and are you sort of bridging that gap?
So it creates opportunities for people to innovate because we have a lot of innovators and trying new things, especially in industries where we're ahead of the curve. Um , so you have logistics, oil and gas, the food industry, all areas where actually we lead even by global standards. And then you have the emulations. So you know, this worked in the U S we, you know, change this slightly and it works here. So we do both. Dubai is a place where you can show up and start a business. It's not cheap
to live or just start a business
both just like you would expect in Boston or San Francisco. [inaudible] so it's the equivalent. It's exactly. So it's not like starting a business somewhere and a second or third tier city where you could expect it to be very cost competitive. So Dubai somewhere where anyone's welcome to come and start a business and scale that business is also somewhere where there are already founders.
So most large international corporations manage Minami, m Jasa , EMEA out of Dubai, size , some acronym of the region, you know, Europe, Middle East, Africa, out of Dubai. So from oracle to Google to Facebook, most of them have a few thousand people sitting in Dubai. Engineers , salespeople , as these people spend five, six, seven years there, ultimately they leave, they start their own businesses, they need capital. There is no capital we come in.
Right? So , uh , so where are they? Where are you investing? Are they located in Dubai or are they kind of you in the whole Mena region? How far away? What's your, what's your kind of reach or your,
so our reach is everything from Africa to Pakistan, all the under AHCA , under ecosystems. We ultimately find that as companies start to scale, they moved to Dubai largely because it provides, first of all , infrastructure. And I mean this is the UAE in general, so it can be able to be, right. So it's first world infrastructure. So you have, you know, electricity that doesn't cut internet, that works really well. Right? Good Times , good transportation. You can attract talent.
Global companies headquartered there so they can become your clients. So it works in , in that sense. And so as they start to scale, they relocate there as they seek funding. They come there. So generally we see most things from Africa to Pakistan, not everything. No one sees everything. Um, but most of it passes through at some point.
Are you seeing any, any pressures or advantages that you can take in that you can still take advantage of with Brexit or with London becoming, you know, uncertain and as a financial center that you can then
sure . We saw a little bit of advantage there. We also saw advantage in , you know, your own politics out here. Um , especially [inaudible] hang on a minute by your own, I mean, you know us, I'm not going to claim my Australian citizenship for this podcast. Well, you know, I think that I'm sure that the u s politics have made it more attractive for people from the region to stay in the region. Yeah , keep the talent. They're exactly right.
I think that's, that's it's been very helpful to our brain drain.
It seems so shortsighted and it's great. People are taking advantage of it. So Sloan , you were in Boston and you were working at Assensure and you chose Sloan to get your masters for finance. How did it, Tom, do you have any, any memories you want to share of your , your time at Sloan besides meeting your husband and getting married
is , that's the most important memory. Everything else is just, you know, a far second after that. [inaudible]
is that, do you have memories of or intellectual you or that you can [inaudible]
some professors? Um, some professors were very influential. I think the learnings I took or , um, or just across the board. Fascinating. But I think more importantly, I made such great friends, right ? So a lot of people who I'm still in touch with and especially as now, you know, for almost 14 years later, you know, a lot of us have regained touch. So I think it's a really nice community. We're all very close to each other.
Um, whether it's the females , so a lot of my girlfriends are as low knees and when I'm in San Francisco, I see them when I'm in New York, I see them when I'm in London, I see them. It's a really global network of amazing woman and men. But from where I sit, that's what I took from it more than anything else.
So when you were to to to join the MIT Sloan Alumni board, what was your thinking in, in deciding to do it or , or, or just generally being engaged with swollen ?
So really I think that the school has an opportunity to engage its alumni more and to speak the story of kind of who it is through its alumni. Some of the most incredible and smartest people in my personal network are silent alarms from years before me, years after me. And I thought that it, you know, it would make sense to participate as long as the ability to kind of help Sloane shine through its alumni was something that we could do.
[inaudible]
. Did you find any, any particular areas that you were particularly interested in that irritated you perhaps over the years that you're thinking, no, now I have a chance to change that
or improve it or alter it or have a conversation about the first thing I think is that the, the way that the school communicates with its alumni as not as , um, as forceful or as, as pervasive in our lives as it could be. So I don't remember everyday that I miss London alum . Right . I think that other people from other schools probably remember every day where they lived or where they're going, where they went to school. Right.
I also think, and especially cause I spend a lot of time in the bay area, San Francisco, this Stanford network there is fantastic. And in my head it really is pervasive in the culture of the way doing things. So I think that, you know, bringing more of that to the MIT and Sloan and ums was great and why not, right?
That we'll learn from the best around us and the way that they leverage each other's networks and the way that they're all really well connected to each other, which Sloan alums could be a bit more of.
And I , I would be remiss if I didn't mention the, your recent Forbes, what is it, an award and how do you list, your , mentioned them on the list of forms is one of the top , uh, most prominent venture capitalists in the Mena region. How did you find out about that? What's been the, what's been the , uh , the reaction to people around you and has it made any difference to you?
So the Forbes , um , the world's top 50 women in tech list as something that was published. I found out about it two days after I was on it when someone congratulated me. And it's ironic because it's a great, I know three people on that list. They're all people that I admire. I was very honored and humbled to be on that list. I think it's good because it kind of helps me in one of my missions, which is to rewrite the narrative about Arab woman.
So it shows that, you know, there's at least an Arab on there. We are competitive globally and especially in this space, which is incredibly exciting.
Right. And so again, I'll put co calling up on my phone here. Kind of the list of all the things you've been part of . Generous partners , independent chief investment officer as you know, IPO, first woman led IPO in , in the Middle East now global ventures before blissed married. Do you have any children? Do you have two boys? So, so what is your definition of success if you think about all the things you're doing and what drives you?
Well first my three boys. Um, so there are now 10, eight and five and a half and they drive me nuts. No, I think it's important to , especially back to rewriting the narrative, right? It's important for our younger generation of men to open their eyes to the world and see that, you know, it's a fair world out there and that, you know, you can do whatever you set your mind to do. My definition of success is really to be able to do what you love. I'm very fortunate, I'm very blessed.
I'm lucky to have the job I have and to be able to work with founders and to be inspired by their stories and what they want to achieve and just to be a part of their story and their mission. We're very honored to be able to plan the ecosystem. Success, I think is a fleeting moment. And for me, success is just defined when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you should do is smile and just be grateful that there's another 24 hours for you to get up there and do what you love.
That's great. What , um, so, so global ventures is what, a year old now? Yeah , just, just, just over a year old , right? What's, what's the next, what do you think the next year or two or three or five is for that?
Well, we're very fortunate that we were able to do our first close make our first five investments, would like to see their portfolio grew up to 15 investments to do a final close in the next, I'm not sure how long and then to grow that as an emerging market venture capital firm, tapping into kind of the next billion, the rising billion that are underserved in terms of their capital needs and their growth opportunities and really taking a look at how we can build that out into something that's
the global best practice I have patient is your capital is your notion for the category ? My capital is more patient than me, so I'm in a very fortunate place. I patients is not one of the virtues that I put out .
How old unfortunately. So do you, so have you, when you pitched to , when you take on a company, do you kind of give them a timeframe or you're saying, you know, we're looking at one year, five years,
so it's a seven year fund. Which is very typical. We've kept everything and the firm as global best practice as we can. So we're really trying to build out something that's really at a high level. And that goes from our terms to our timeline to the way we operate , um , to diligence. This is something that's supposed to be long term . So we enjoy what we do enough that we can be as patient as we need to be. And our capital is very smart capital, so it understands how patient it needs to be.
And the entrepreneurs know that we're vcs, we're not strategic investors, right? So we're strategic in the sense that we can add expertise and network, but we're not there for a 20 year horizon.
Right. And are there any venture capitalists that you look to as good guides for how to set this up or build this, grow this are matured whether you look to California or do you look to Boston?
Of course. Boston. So Boston who's in Boston, general catalyst is a great firm. Um, I think they felt very methodically and thoughtfully the firm , the funds, they're portfolio companies. So that's, that's a great firm. There's many out there. I think the less often spoken off ones , um , are, are incredible to work with because they tend to have the time more than others.
Do you see partnering with him on some, maybe a larger investment or,
well, our last investment Xcel came into [inaudible] and [inaudible] came into out of Singapore. That's a large single per fund . So we try with every investment we do to bring in some international capital, we work with the [inaudible] globally and with our international LP base , um , to diligence and validate the companies we're seeing.
I would say half our capital comes from the u s the other half comes from the region and everyone is incredibly value additive and smart and willing to lend their expertise when we go through diligence, process and growth.
Interesting. All right, well this has been great. I don't want to know if you had any parting advice or thoughts for prospective students or for alumni for engaging with the school or what's next for you? How long are you in town for and then where do you,
I flew in last night. I leave tonight. I go back to Dubai and parting thoughts, you know, sharing words. Um, nothing really. I think that life is always full of opportunity and um, often we're so hung up on the past that we've made for ourselves that we forget to look around. [inaudible]
excellent. Thank you very much. This is neuro suede . Thanks for, thanks for joining us. We are honored to have you coming in from Dubai just for this, right? Absolutely.
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