Tell us about yourself, your background and your journey to your role at ChangeLabs
I was born in Cairo to Egyptian parents but grew up in Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States. My dad was a pharmaceutical executive and we moved often, so we left Egypt when I was just a 1 year old. I attended Boston College in the late 90’s, when cell phones and the internet were still becoming mainstream, and the United States was debating whether Iraq posed a large enough threat to warrant a military intervention.
I joined an e-commerce startup after graduation and then joined the investment banking team at Swicorp, where I eventually ended up on the PE side of the business based in Dubai doing deals in the UAE, Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region. This is a little known fact, but in between different assignments at Swicorp, I founded one of the first incubators in Dubai in 2005 (no longer in existence) to gain more exposure to the startup ecosystem, before deciding to go back to NYC in 2007 to pursue my MBA.
After completing my studies in New York, I joined consulting firm Booz & Co., based between Cairo and New York, and the assignments included advising then Egyptian minister of finance Dr. Youssef Boutrous-Ghali on the country’s economic reform programs. The work was rewarding but my personal life took a big hit due to the demanding hours and work environment.
Looking to gain more direct investing experience, I then joined GE Capital back at their headquarters in CT, as an underwriter on large renewable energy (wind & solar) project finance assignments, where I became exposed to ‘Green’ investing and advanced financial modelling. The learning curve was steep and valuable but I felt constrained and unable to be innovative/creative.
An opportunity then arose to join financial giant Barclays Capital in Manhattan, working directly with the COO, on small M&A transactions and strategy for the sales and trading organisation’s growth and development, so I spent around 4 years there and was appointed to the bank’s global ESG committee, since impact investing was gaining increasing traction in financial markets. My experience at Barclays was certainly rewarding and I was exposed to amazing colleagues and managers, but I still felt a disconnect between my personal goals and how I was spending most of my waking time.
Then my life took an unexpected turn. Faced with the illness of a close family member, and the responsibility of caring for her, I quickly realised that the traditional path on wall street wasn’t compatible with my new situation, and I decided to use this life-altering experience to change the course of my career to be more aligned with making an impact. I joined the Hult Prize Foundation as COO, and began designing and organising learning and accelerator programs and mentoring impact-aligned startups across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and beyond. I helped expand this innovative social entrepreneurship program to a number of Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, and started spending more time on the ground for the first time in my life, learning more about the Middle East and its challenges. I quickly realised that our region, especially the Levant and North Africa, has tremendous potential, and that entrepreneurship and innovation could be the cornerstone for much needed change. After four amazing years with the Hult Prize, being coached and mentored by one-of-a-kind professionals including working closely with the founder, I felt ready to focus all my energy on founding Changelabs, an organisation dedicated to building and promoting the Middle East’s innovation ecosystem.
What does your role at ChangeLabs involve on a daily basis?
I wear many hats at Changelabs, as do most of our team members, and no two days are the same. When we’re running leading industry events I’m involved in thematic design, speaker recruitment, and general event planning and sometimes vendor negotiations or even furniture selections. When we’re running a learning program for funds or startups or companies I’m involved in all the marketing materials and the curriculum design and the fundraising and outreach and screening and selection process. I basically oversee everything and get involved in whatever is needed, including making sure tablecloths are set if necessary, re-drafting social media captions, writing proposals and motivating the team, and training/coaching/supporting my colleagues. I also double as a fundraising expert given my background. So, my role basically involves a bit of everything – whatever the company needs at this stage.
What does ChangeLabs do?
Changelabs runs events and learning programs that promote the innovation ecosystem. We serve funds, startups, companies, and investors operating in our region. This includes designing and running end-to-end industry events like the Egypt VC Summit (incl. website, registration, design, execution, etc) and designing and running learning programs like our new CVC Builder program which targets large Egyptian corporates who wish to enter the VC space, or designing and running startup learning programs like our Scale Up to Green Accelerator which helps green startups raise funding and reach their next major milestone. We also publish research, support startups individually, occasionally make investments, and more.
How do you help entrepreneurs and start-up companies?
We help entrepreneurs and startups prepare themselves for fundraising and investment. This includes working on their pitch deck, building their financial model, refining their business model, acquiring partnerships, communicating and tracking their impact, signing on customers, hiring new team members, learning about their industry, designing their go-to-market plans, finalising their marketing materials (website, deck, etc), developing their product and technology, and of course introducing them to investors. We leverage industry-leading expert practitioners in delivering the above and offer perks and discounts with leading service providers as well.
What makes ChangeLabs unique?
Our focus on SDG-aligned companies that are looking to improve outcomes for customer and community to tap into this massive opportunity.
Our established VC relationships and access.
Our leading expert-practitioners.
Our commitment to excellence through our team.
What has been your biggest success since launching ChangeLabs?
My biggest success since launching Changelabs is the team that I’ve managed to recruit. We struggled a lot in the beginning with company culture and with finding competent staff in the Middle East who can write a proper email in English, or prepare a basic document with no errors, or take responsibility. You might think this is very simple but believe me I am surprised on a daily basis, and amazed that Universities who collect tens of thousands of dollars each year in tuition fees can’t teach basic technology and communication skills.
On the project side we’re very proud of the Egypt VC Summit initiative that we co-founded with GIZ (now in it’s third edition) which has become the leading VC event in Egypt, and possibly beyond. We’re also very proud to have completed 4 cohorts of our Scale Up to Green Accelerator, which was one of the first green focused programs of its kind in the region.
What is your most in-demand program right now?
Our new CVC Builder program, in partnership with Significa Ventures and EPEA is in high demand and fills an important market gap. It aims to train large Egyptian corporates on how to invest in VC, with a view to increasing the availability of capital for startups and funds.
Our Fintech for a Future Accelerator, in partnership with SANAD Entrepreneurship Academy, Disruptech, Indrive New Ventures, CIB, FMO, WRK+, and more is also in high demand as we have just received 100 applications and are launching an innovative new matchmaking program between established Egyptian Fintechs and new entrepreneurs.
Finally, our next edition of the Egypt VC Summit, which is scheduled for February 2025, is also in very high demand among the VC ecosystem in Egypt and Africa.
What are the current trends in the VC market in Egypt and the Middle East region?
The trend is that the VC market is growing both in Egypt and the Middle East, albeit with a focus on companies that generate foreign currency revenues and that have significant potential for fast scale (i.e. fintech and tech-enabled).
Many people with much more experience than I have comment on this topic regularly, but I will say that the capital is there, it just needs to be unlocked. Both on the supply side – we need more family offices, corporates, local investors, and global investors participating in this fast-growing market – as well as on the demand side, we need more investment ready startups across multiple sectors.
Naturally, we also need a more complete value chain with linkages between VC and PE investors and ultimately more active capital markets and easier regulation. Egypt is one of the largest markets in Africa and the Middle East in terms of consumer population and industrial base and needs to maintain a leading role.
We also need to work very hard to reverse the brain drain and maintain ownership and IP in Egypt. Many successful entrepreneurs are being lured to the GCC (and this is an active strategy on their part) with funding and better legal frameworks and other benefits. Partnership with our neighbouring markets is a must, but the dilution of our innovation resources is not.
What are the key factors that make a startup investment ready?
A strong management team with deep experience in the target sector is probably first, and close second is meaningful traction with a strong idea/business model. When we accelerate startups, we try to ensure they have the right team and fill in gaps if required, and we also try to ensure they develop traction with customers early on. If that traction needs more product development, then we support that, and so on. Our focus on storytelling and the pitch deck, for example, may seem contradictory to the above, but not when you understand that your pitch deck is like the ‘map’ of your business – it helps identify gaps that we help startups fill in order to generate traction and a stronger business model. The deck itself and the financial model and the data room follow.
What are your top tips for startups looking for investment?
Put yourself in a position where you don’t need to raise investment if you can. That may sound impossible but fragment your business and your offering into stages and seek customer and market validation at every stage, in the form of revenue. Take informed steps based on this market validation and only invest additional time and resources after each step. Try to build your business one step at a time so you don’t need large infusions of capital before you’ve validated your business model. If that’s not possible, and either way, make sure you have deep industry expertise through your team – fill in those gaps early on because you can’t usually find that experience in books or learn it in a few months – you need someone on your team who knows the industry inside out and already has networks. Obviously, also take the time to set up a data room, to get your legal documents in order, and to draft a coherent pitch deck and financial projections; but those are secondary to the above.
What advice do you offer founders looking at launching into the MENA market?
The Middle East shares a language and elements of culture but the markets are quite different. Generally speaking you need to be on the ground either directly or through a strong local partner; you need to be aware of legal considerations around company registration, fundraising, and repatriation of capital; you have to be in tune with cultural considerations that may differ from abroad that could affect product acceptance/sales; and you have to notice the differences between ME markets (Dubai is very different than Cairo, and presents different opportunities).
What are your growth plans for the next 5 years and beyond?
We intend to build Changelabs into an end-to-end service provider to the development and corporate sectors with regards to the innovation ecosystem, ultimately promoting entrepreneurship (investor + startup) in Egypt and the Middle East both for local and international players. This means beefing up our writing, design, media, impact, and technical expertise with resources, and expanding our list of partners in the ecosystem. We hope to continue launching and running leading industry events and game-changing startup learning programs but also hope to do more corporate training/partnership as well as publish more research. As a result, we hope to grow the team significantly and capture more market share both from donors as well as corporations.
