Executive with strong entrepreneurial instinct, solid startup and business management experience in

a career spanning 20 years in international environment leading corporates to achieve Strategic and business alignments

Recent Experience

April 2018 – Onward General Manager | Youjad.com – Beirut, Lebanon

Being responsible for kicking off the project from scratch, from ideation to prototyping and execution, onboarding

investors versus equity,

• I conceptualized and devised the strategy of a multivendor E-Commerce Platform for inbound and domestic online shopping

translating an idea into an executable viable model.

• Furthermore, I set all automated features rendering the platform to optimize logistics and provide appealing customer touch

points inline with international standards.

• Major operational tasks include but not limited to Project Management, budgeting, conceptualization and design, GTM,

recruiting and training, vendor traction, digital marketing on top of managing the technical development team.

• In no time, scaled as a startup, we moved from the ideation phase into vendor and customer traction phase.

December 2017- March 2018 Board Advisor | “Fondation Diane” / VIRIDIS Investment Fund – Beirut, Lebanon

A Three months project aiming to set an ICSR policy and a Fund raising strategy while evaluating the current VC

investments. VIRIDIS is a venture capital investor in startups providing sustainable and eco-friendly environment

solutions.

• I conducted 8 startup valuation, and participated in round B fund raising for one successful startup that end up raising one

million USD and railed back the remaining startups through coaching and business advisory.

January 2012- October 2017

CEO & Managing Partner | Magenta For Industry and Technology – Cairo, Egypt / Beirut, Lebanon

I pulled a company, with obsolete inherited assets, from a doomed stage into a profitable, brands owner one.

Tangible achievements reflects in:

• Leading from a negative achievement into a profitable financial situation by slashing cost and optimizing capital usage and

expenditure.

• Achieved profitability starting first year and a growth of 40 % year on year for four consecutive years (EBIT of 12%) 2012, 2013,

2014, 2015, closing 2016 with 6M$ turnover.

• Minimized the risk of one brand portfolio into multiple brands in different categories and from several countries. Starting with

one brand, we ended up with six brands including two owned.

• I changed the internal culture from a hierarchical driven structure into a flat cooperative one and moved from 18 headcounts

into 120 to cover the whole territory of Egypt.

• Specially focused on customer’s portfolio. In a couple of years, it was multiplied and magnified implementing by that a healthy and balanced customer portfolio strategy while waiving away any credit risks.

• To increase return on investment, I created two brands “KRUS” and “GRENADINE” and outsourced production to factories in China, Portugal and turkey, where I conducted personally quality audit. This lead to successfully position the aforesaid brands in Egypt with impact, way ahead of Egyptian brands. (NB: focus on brand creation, branding the brand, marketing, and quality control).

Responsibilities included but not limited to:

• Set business and strategy plans; establish budgets, goals & objectives and set short and long term targets.

• Due diligence and risk management.

• Direct internal operations and logistics to achieve budgeted sales with desired financials, avoiding capital erosion and ensuring

fair return.

• Manage performance, profit and loss, compliance, people management and high level communication dynamics

• Human resources management, KPIs, marketing activities, campaigns, supply chain management.

• Provide the Board with comprehensive, regular reports on trends, issues, challenges, activities, revenues and expenditure.

• Open up new market and set up / expand sales network (distributors/retailers) in existing and new markets.

Previous Experience

Jan 2005 – Dec 2011

Managing Director | Universal Distributors Egypt (CIS Group) – Cairo, Egypt / Beirut, Lebanon

After several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Egyptian market, I took the lead for what became in a few years,

one of the top four IT distributors.

Tangible achievements reflects in:

• Creating a viable legal structure, conceiving an intricate logistic setup for importing IT products.

• Acquiring distribution partnership for Acer, Fujitsu Siemens, Unitek, Promate, etc., and set up several authorized repair centers

which positioned the company as a major player capable of leveraging on its goodwill assets.

• Achieving breakeven during the second year of operation (2006/2007), and consistently generating profit thereafter with

increasing sales and margin. Turnover hit 15M$ by end 2010 with 600K$ net profit.

• Controlling COGS 5% to 7% and decreasing OPEX by 2%to 3%.

Aug 2003 – Dec 2004

General Manager | Hiperdist Cameroon (CIS Group) – Douala, Cameroon / Beirut, Lebanon

Founded the company from scratch, managed all aspects of running a company right from its marketing, budgeting,

P & L management, vendor management, customer relationship management and recruiting and training the

personnel. Established a skilled after sales service center, implemented CRM/SIM. Handled the export sales for

parallel channels from the HUB in France

Tangible achievements reflects in:

• Founded a startup in Douala Cameroon, with related legal and logistic requirements.

• Signed Distributorship agreements with HP for Printers, Laptops, and servers, consumable.

• Positioned Hiperdist as #1 distributor for HP in Cameroon.

• Established an after sales repair center, and partnered with all retailers available.

• Generated a turn over of 1.5M Euro with a decent 11% net profit.

Jun 2002 – Jul 2003

Techno-Commercial Manager | CIS Cameroon (CIS Group) – Douala, Cameroon / Beirut, Lebanon

Led and trained technical team on HP Products such as Multi function purpose machine, Unix HP9000 servers, etc.,

conclude Service level agreements and provide presales consultancy to corporate customers such as oil & gas,

telecom.

Tangible achievements reflects in:

• Led and trained technical team on HP Products such as Multi purpose machine, Unix HP9000 servers, etc.

• Provided presales consultancy to corporate customers spanning oil & gas, telecom sectors, etc.

• Re-evaluated and restructured the after sales and technical department.

• Deployed several integration projects with MTN, Orange, Guinness, Shell.

• Improved the after sales service response time and quality, which generated an increase in after sales service revenue by 300K €

Feb 2000 – May 2002

Senior Technical Engineer | CIS Lebanon (CIS Group) – Beirut, Lebanon

•  Executed and deployed technical system projects: HP UNIX, Clustering, Windows Advanced Server, and pre- sales

solution

Credentials

Education

• DBA – M.Phil. Level (Qualitative and Quantitative Research methods), Maastricht School of Management.

• Master in Business Administration, IAE Paris Dauphine.

• Master in Computer Science, Notre Dame University.

Professional Development

• Project Management professional certified, PMP.

• Six Sigma Green Belt.

• Certified Management Consultant, Chartered Institute for Management Consultants CIMC.

• Certified Digital Marketing Strategies, Columbia Business School

• Certified Digital Strategies for Business: Leading the Next Generation Enterprise. Columbia Business School

• Several other online courses related to digital marketing practices, data analytics, Google Ad words, SEO, and such

Professional Affiliation

• Member of the Chartered Institute for Management Consultants.

• Candidate for the FCA Investment Foundation Program

• Member of the Project Management Institute, Lebanese Chapter.

• Member of the ISACA Lebanese Chapter.

Personal Particulars

Languages Known: English, Arabic, And French