Conversations with Loulou

We talk to Jonathan Labin about his move from a high powered career at Viacom and Facebook to taking a 1 year sabbatical and then shifting gears to startups. In 2020, Jonathan joined Unifonic, a Saudi born startup co-founded by brothers Ahmed and Hassan Hamdan. In his role, Jonathan was responsible of taking the company to the next level, and in 2021, Unifonic raised a whopping US$125 Million to scale. We discuss startups versus scale-ups, cultural, technical and organizational debt and we wrap up with Jonathan's 2022 tech trends including the metaverse!

Talal Tabbaa is the Co-Founder & Chairman of CoinMENA, a crypto business that was founded by Talal and his Co-Founders Dina Sam'an and Yazan Barghuthi - and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain - that aims to provide crypto based financial services such as borrowing, lending, investing and more. He joins us to discuss the business of crypto exchanges and why we need them particularly in the Middle East and North Africa region. A thought provoking and energy filled conversation about ICOs, technology infrastructure inversion, the utility of money, the emergence of private currencies, Bitcoin at $600,000 and more.You can find Talal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talaltabbaa/For more on this show visit: www.conversationswithloulou.com

Shant Oknayan is the Head of Global Business Solutions at ByteDance (TikTok) across Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. He joins us to discuss his role in building the regional footprint of one of the fastest growing startups globally. In this episode we zoom in on challenges of leading in a pandemic and we focus on culture. We discuss the evolution of our digital lives and we close with a deeply personal story from Shant and we learn about its impact on his leadership style.You can find Shant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shant-oknayan/For more on the show visit: www.conversationswithloulou.com

Mohamad Ballout, a serial entrepreneur and the Co-Founder and CEO of Kitopi, a cloud kitchen startup, has recently joined the exclusive and extremely coveted "unicorn club", with Kitopi's valuation topping US$ 1 Billion. He joins Loulou to discuss building a global business out of the UAE, the challenges he faces as he scales Kitopi beyond the UAE, the complexity of running a "food platform" and shares his views on fundraising and managing the Board of Directors effectively.You can watch this episode on YouTube and you can reach out by visiting the show's website: www.conversationswithloulou.com

Nadine Mezher, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Sarwa, and her 2 partners Mark Chahwan and Jad Sayegh want to bring smart investing, trading and saving to the Middle East. In 2017 they launched Sarwa.co, a venture backed fintech startup with US$25M in funding to date. Sarwa is democratizing investing for the young professionals and as a result has witnessed tremendous growth. We talk to Nadine about investing, her own entrepreneurial journey and advice for budding entrepreneurs about having co-founders and fundraising. For more on Nadine and Sarwa visit: www.Conversationswithloulou.com

Our guest is Dr. Saliha Afridi, Clinical Psychologist and Founder of The LightHouse Arabia, a premier mental health and wellness center in the UAE. We check in on mental health in our "new normal" and we discuss unlocking our potential as individuals and business leaders, listening to our spirit, taking back our power, unleashing creativity and healing both our body and mind. If you're looking for inspiration, this episode is for you!Find out more about The LightHouse Arabia by visiting their website: www.lighthousearabia.comThank you to our sponsor Astrolabs. To avail exclusive discounts visit: www.astrolabs.com/loulouTo reach out to us, visit: www.conversationswithloulou.com

Emaan Abbas is an American Egyptian entrepreneur who has recently moved to the UAE to follow her dream of working with her idol Huda Kattan, the famous Co-Founder of the Billion Dollar Huda Beauty brand. Working under the stewardship of the Kattan sisters, Emaan quickly learned everything about product development and gave herself the permission to dream about creating her own, one day.We talk to Emaan about grasping opportunities as they arise, pitching her dream business to her boss and mentor Huda Kattan and then kicking off her journey with Ketish, the Middle East and North Africa's first luxury feminine and sexual wellness brand.

We talk to Cedric Betis, an athlete and wellness expert who works with Ministers from the Dubai government and CEOs from the private sector to help them achieve their health and wellness vision for themselves, their companies and their city.We discuss how COVID has changed the dynamics in terms of wellness on a corporate level and why it is no longer a "nice to have" a wellness program and why the role of "Chief Wellness Officer" would become ubiquitous.Cedric offers tips to companies, individuals and parents who are looking to achieve their health & wellness goals and how to make these goals sustainable.PS: please excuse the glitch in the sound in the last 10 minutes as my microphone was accidentally disconnected!

We talk to Noor Sweid, the General Partner at Global Ventures about building a top tier Venture Capital firm in the Middle East & North Africa region. We cover her recent startup exits with e-commerce startup Mumzworld that has undergone an M&A transaction and Kitopi, a cloud kitchen startup that has recently raised $415M via Softbank’s Vision Fund. We discuss fund return expectations in MENA and we wrap up by touching on Noor’s own journey as an entrepreneur and investor.

Ramez Shehadi is the Managing Director of Facebook for the MENA region. In 2020, Ramez was ranked among the top 20 of the 'Top 50 Regional Executives Heading International Companies' by Forbes. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Aramex, the Board of Trustees of BeMA (Beirut Museum of Art), the Board of Directors of MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) and is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute's Middle East Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network to name a few. What is striking about Ramez though is not his accolades, it is his humility. In this episode Ramez speaks openly about the differences between his lifelong consulting career and his leadership role at Facebook. He shares some of the hard lessons he had to learn along the way. Ramez talks about a stronger and more prosperous MENA region and why he has faith in the region and its capabilities. We talk about Ramez's own experience as an entrepreneur and the outcome of the startup he co-founded. He continues to love and give back to the startup space by mentoring and personally investing in startups via R&R Ventures, a boutique VC he co-founded. We chat about the skills of the future and what advice he is currently giving his daughters who are transitioning from high school to university. We conclude with a recommendation for governments that are currently launching funds to invest in local startups and SMEs. This conversation is a peak into Ramez's mind and would certainly leave you more optimistic about the future. For more on Ramez and his work, please check out his biography. If you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe, share and leave us a review!