Lauren Maillian is the Founder and CEO of LMB Group, strategic marketing, and brand advisory company; was a Founding Partner at Gen Y Capital Partners, an early-stage venture firm focused on investments in mobile and consumer-facing technology-enabled companies, and is the author of the instant bestselling business memoir, The Path Redefined: Getting To the Top On Your Own Terms. Lauren’s passion for innovation-through-entrepreneurship and her unique ability to story-tell brought her talents as an expert onto television as the Master Marketer and co-star of the startup focused docu-series, Quit Your Day Job, on Oxygen (NBCU).

At age 19, Lauren cofounded a boutique winery that quickly became an internationally recognized award-winning wine brand, making her the youngest self-made winery owner in the country. She served as the Chief Operating Officer of the company from inception through the brand’s acquisition in 2011.

As a change agent, connector, influencer, and media spokesperson, Lauren has demonstrated her ability to create messaging that resonates with brands, millennials, and women. Lauren has worked with brands such as J.P. Morgan Chase, DeVry, Cover Girl, Bumble and Bumble, and Secret Deodorant to humanize their brands and better tell their stories to more authentically connect with the consumer. 

Her multi-dimensional expertise has catapulted Lauren into a new type of marketer who has global influence as both a brand strategist and ambassador. 

Lauren’s experience is both vast and distinctive given the roles and responsibilities she’s had ranging from entrepreneur, investor, advisor, talent, client-focused strategist, and brand marketing thought leader.

Lauren’s global market leadership leverages media, culture, strategy and technology to grow brands. Lauren is an innovative marketer, who is passionate about deeply understanding people and products to create an emotional connection through storytelling.

She is driven by the belief that there is always an impactful solution to every problem. She develops marketing initiatives with a concentration on the creation and implementation of dynamic yet strategic plans that are rooted in authenticity to build brand identity, influence and notoriety.

She is a detail-oriented strategist with a deep understanding of business operations, management, and formation across various industries. Having traveled the world to more than 40 countries, Lauren has a global perspective and a fresh forward-looking approach to content creation that is sensitive to the cultural nuances faced in global media and the highly-engaged digital consumer landscape.

Maillian has sustained and deepened her influence internationally through speaking engagements to address topics that include marketing, branding, business development, venture capital, women’s leadership, innovation, and technology. 

She has spoken at prestigious institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University, Cornell University; Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Shell, Dell, Ernst, and Young (EY), Prudential, Ogilvy, Weber Shandwick, L’Oréal and Bloomberg; and at industry-leading conferences and events such as Social Media Week, ColorComm and AdWeek.

She has invested in several startups and serves on the advisory board of Digital Undivided, a social enterprise that increases the active participation of minority women in the digital space; CoSign, a technology company that allows you to monetize your social media and shareable content; LIQS, a brand of pre-mixed single-serve cocktail shots; Levo League, a career content community for Gen-Y women; and Pipeline Angels.

Lauren’s work has been featured in national media outlets including Forbes, American Express OPEN Forum, Interactive ONE, Sirius XM Radio, 1010 WIN’s, HuffPost LIVE, AOL Build, Inc. Magazine, Mashable, UPTOWN Magazine, Jet Magazine, CNBC’s Nightly Business Report, MSNBC, FOX 5, CBS New York, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Black Enterprise. In 2011 she was recognized at The White House by the Kauffman Foundation as an Empact100 Award honoree which lists the top 100 entrepreneurs under 30 and in 2013, Essence Magazine named Lauren a “Shot Caller” to watch in business. 

In 2014, the New York Urban League’s Young Professionals awarded Lauren the honor of Philanthropist of the Year for her charitable involvement and dedication to giving back, in 2015 Kia Motors and UPTOWN Magazine awarded Lauren for being Inspirationally Crafted for her leadership and fearless entrepreneurial journey and in 2015, Smart CEO Magazine named Lauren as a Smart CEO Brava Award Winner. 

In 2016, Walker’s Legacy named Lauren to their WL50Power List that honors women making strides in the business and philanthropic community.

Lauren is involved in various philanthropic organizations that affect youth, poverty, education, and the arts. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Multicultural Audience Development Initiative (MADI) Committee, as Vice-Chair of The Apollo Theater Foundation Young Patrons Steering Committee, New York Urban League’s Development Committee, is a founding member of the Young Entrepreneur Council, and a Lifetime Member of the Children’s Aid Society. Lauren has a Bachelor of Science, Magna Cum Laude, in International Trade and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She currently resides in New York City with her two children, Jayden and Chloe.

Graduated mechanical engineering at AAST Egypt then further aerospace studies along with management courses in City University London.

Worked as a teaching assistant in engineering subjects then later as an engineer in Schlumberger.

Started two companies, one in renewable energy and other in F&B.

Have been investing for 8 years in various sectors like F&B, manufacturing, Automotive Services, Consumer services, real estate, online platform.

My passion goes for impact investing and innovation, through enabling extraordinary education to my community and utilizing all the resources.

Walid Mansour Partner and Chief Investment Officer Walid have more than 15 years of experience in Venture Capital, strategy, corporate finance, and engineering within the digital, telecom, software, and new media industries.

Prior to joining MEVP in 2010, Walid was a lead associate at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and before that he worked as a strategy manager at the UAE’s Prime Ministry Executive Office focusing on public policy initiatives.

During his stay in Dubai, he worked on setting-up entrepreneurship-related programs and developing incubation in the Arab World through several Dubai based initiatives such as the Mohammed Bin Rashid Foundation. Prior to that, Walid worked at Booz & Company as a consultant covering telecom & media. Prior to Booz & Company, Walid worked as an industrial engineer in France.

In 2009, he completed Morgan Stanley's summer associate program within their investment banking M&A division in London. Walid holds an industrial and urban planning engineering degree from Institut National des Science Appliquées de Lyon (INSA de Lyon) and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

David S. Rose is an Inc. 500 CEO, serial entrepreneur, super angel investor, best selling author, and keynote speaker who has founded or funded over 100 pioneering companies.

He has been described by Forbes as "New York's Archangel", by BusinessWeek as a "world conquering entrepreneur", by Crain's New York Business as "the father of angel investing in New York", and by Red Herring magazine as "patriarch of Silicon Alley". He is the New York Times best-selling author of both Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money & Having Fun Investing in Startups and The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Business.

Systems Analyst turned Tech Strategy Advisor, Public Speaker and Angel Investor, Harry ‘Tomi Davies (TD) is Collaborator-in-Chief at TechnoVision, co-founder of the Lagos Angel Network (LAN) and President of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN).  

For nearly two decades after graduating from the University of Miami TD led the implementation of innovative technology-led transformation initiatives in the Oil & Gas, Retail, Information Technology and Telecommunications industries for influential global brands Elf Aquitaine, Marks & Spencer, Ernst & Young and Sapient across Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia. 

In 2000 his focus shifted to Africa where he helped create the African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF), led the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative in Nigeria and delivered a World Bank pilot of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) that uncovered over 20,000 ghost workers in the Nigerian Government payroll system. Leading these kinds of innovative initiatives in Africa using his goal-oriented approach to project delivery which consistently delivered effective results inspired his 2014 book “The African Project Manager”.

TD is Chairman of TextNigeria (Telecoms) and Non-Executive Director at MBO Capital (Private Equity) and Big Cabal Media (Media & Entertainment). He is a member of the Lagos State Science, Research & Innovation Council (LASRIC) and sits on the board of Laptops4Learning (L4L) Nigeria, the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) and the Global Business Angels Network (GBAN). 

As a thought leader with increasing knowledge gained from nurturing entrepreneurs in a growing portfolio of tech-enabled early-stage business ventures originating from Africa, TD’s personal mission is “to help drive Africa’s development by supporting young entrepreneurs using innovation and technology to create social impact and economic value.”

TD can be reached at www.tomidavies.com and on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as TomiDee

Peter Cowley, a Cambridge university technology graduate, founded and ran over a dozen businesses in technology and property over the last 40 years.  He has built up a portfolio of 75 angel investments with nine good exits (including one that is 107X his investment and returned all the cash he has invested) and thirteen failures.  He is a board member of the Global Business Angel Network (GBAN), President Emeritus of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN), former chair of the Cambridge Business Angels and was UK Angel of the Year 2014.  He has mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs and is on the board of nine startups.  

In 2011, he founded and ran Martlet: a Corporate VC, investing (currently £10M) from the balance sheet of Marshall, a £2.5bn revenue Cambridge engineering company.  He is a fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Cambridge Judge Business School and is on the investment committee of the UK Angel Co-fund.  He has also had 16 years’ experience as chair, treasurer and trustee of the boards of seven charities. 

With his son, Alan, Peter is sharing his and others’ experience and anecdotes in order to educate angels and entrepreneurs via  The Invested Investor which publishes two books and 75+ podcasts.  Peter is a public speaker on entrepreneurship and angel investing throughout the world.

• Ahmed El Alfi is a veteran investor & VC with over 25 years of entrepreneurial and TMT-related experience spanning across different regions Named as one of the most creative people in the world by Fast Company, Ahmed El Alfi has been an early stage/growth investor for the past 25 years, translating to extensive experience in funding, nurturing early-stage companies.

  El Alfi founded Hybrid Capital Partners in 1990, a private investment partnership. Hybrid Capital has funded, helped grow and exited several successful companies: among them are PC Mall, a USD 1bn rapid response supplier of technology services for businesses, governments and consumers; ATML, an owner and operator of over 1,000 ATMs; Banquet, an extreme sports portal, and community site; Internet Brands, a leading the operator of e-commerce and community websites; and The Genetics Institute a genetic diagnostic company. During 2006, he served as CEO of EFG-Hermes Private Equity (“EHPE”). From 2010 to present he founded Sawari Ventures, FLat6Labs, Nafham, and TATP (GrEEK Campus). Sawari Ventures aims to help transform the Egyptian and MENA region economies through the creation of sustainable, high impact businesses. 

  In 2011, Sawari Ventures created and funded Flat6Labs, since then Flat6Labs has grown to become the MENA region's leading startup accelerator. Nafham is the top Arabic online video educational platform covering the Egyptian, Saudi, and Syrian public school curriculums, Nafham currently gives free video lessons per day to over 1 million students monthly. In addition to Sawari Ventures' portfolio of investments, his current portfolio includes Triporati, an innovative online travel company; Pacific Toxicology, a leading Toxicology laboratory in the USA, as well as Zignal Labs a big data analysis company. Prior to becoming an early-stage investor in 1990, El Alfi was Senior Vice President of Jefferies & Company, where he worked for 10 years. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Waqf Endowment. He has also served on the Boards of Directors or Advisors of the Polytechnic School in Pasadena, Claremont Graduate School of Religion, as well as several for-profits corporate boards.

Marcia Dawood is an investor in over 100 early stage private companies. She is a Venture Partner with Mindshift Capital and a part of the investment committee for Next Wave Impact Fund. Previously, she was the COO of Portfolia (one of her portfolio companies) as well as a managing partner at BlueTree Capital Group where she was responsible for investment strategy, diligence research and member education. She was also a member of Golden Seeds in NYC and Dallas. She currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Board of the Angel Capital Association (ACA) with a co-chair position on the membership and marketing committee. She will become Chair of the Board in July 2021. Marcia also is a founding member and current chair of the Growing Women’s Capital group building syndication and collaboration among US investment groups focused on women-led companies. She received an MBA from the Global Executive program at UNC’s Kenan Flagler’s School of Business, OneMBA. During her graduate studies, her group acquired the franchise rights to a new sports team. She served on the Board of Directors and managed financial and legal matters for the organization. This gave her experience as an entrepreneur from the start through the exit of a business. Prior to becoming an active investor she was with Kaplan Higher Education for over 16 years.

H.E. Dr. Nabeel Koshak is the CEO and a Board Member of Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC). Nabeel is the Founder and Angel Investor at Athaal (Angel Investors Group). He is the Chairman of GEN (Global Entrepreneurship Network) Saudi. Nabeel is a member of the Investment Committees of KAUST’s Innovation Fund. Formerly, he is the Founding Dean of Prince Mohammad Bin Salman College (MBSC) of Business and Entrepreneurship at King Abdullah Economic City. Nabeel is the Co-Founder and the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Wadi Makkah Company (Startup Accelerator, and Venture Capital Fund). Nabeel is a mentor at Endeavor Saudi Arabia. He is a Board Member and the Chairman of the Investment Committee at King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Innovation (Mawhiba). Koshak is a Member of the Executive Committee of King Faisal International Prize. Formerly, he was a Board Member of Oqal (Angel Investors Group) Jeddah branch and a mentor at Flat6Labs Jeddah (Startup Accelerator).

Nabeel is the former Co-Founder and Director of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) GIS Technology Innovation Center. He is the former Co-Founder and General Supervisor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute. Nabeel is the former Co-Founder and Chairman of Board of Directors of Transportation and Crowd Management Innovation Center.

As an entrepreneur, Koshak was the Founder and CEO of five tech startups.

Nabeel received an Executive Education in "Venture Capital and Private Equity" from Harvard University in 2019, an Executive Education from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in "Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program" and "Management, Innovation, Technology" in 2017, a PhD in Design Computing from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002, and a Master of Architecture (Computing in Design and Planning) from the University of Colorado in 1997. 

Omar Almajdouie is the founding partner of Raed Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with exceptional founders building transformative companies in the MENA region. Raed’s AUM exceeds SAR 500m and backed by top investors in the region including PIF’s Jada, SVC, Mubadala, Almajdouie Holding and many more. As an investor and entrepreneur, Omar founded Raed Ventures in 2016 as part of Almajdouie Holding diversification strategy, which has funded more than 32 innovative startups to-date.

He is the former CEO of Almajdouie Manufacturing Co. and he’s currently the Vice Chairman of the Saudi Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, as well as a chairman and board member of several leading tech startups and companies. Omar has more than 20 years of enriched experience in various managerial and executive positions. 

Courtney is the COO of 500 Global. Courtney is tasked with helping 500 scales globally and explore new opportunities across both new and existing markets. She is responsible for driving day-to-day operations across the team to pursue 500’s mission.

Courtney is no stranger to the 500 family. She was co-founder and CEO of PublikDemand, part of Batch 4. She went on to become CEO of Agent Pronto, one of the largest real estate agent referral services in North America, recently acquired by Fidelity National Title Group.

Amal Dokhan is a seasoned professional with experience in startup investments, corporate innovation, and consulting in the MENA region. Amal is the partner at Sanabil 500 MENA fund where the focus is to invest in early stage comapnies and support them throughout the journey of thier startup life. Previous to joining 500 Startups Ms. Dokhan was the CEO of Global entrepreneurship Network Saudi and the Managing Director of Babson Global for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Previously She was the manger of learning and Design at the Entrepreneurship Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology where she Led TAQADAM accelerator and Corporate Innovation Programs. Prior to that she worked at KAUST seedfund developing marketing and events, while also providing a range of services to startups. 

Ms. Dokhan sits on the board of several organizations and startup comapnies. Amal is also active in angel investing as she initiatied the Angel investors forum in Saudi under te ministry of commerce and Monshaat were many angel investors got hands on experince on the practice, she also invests personaly as she has 13 comapnies in her personal portfolio. Amal attended many executive programs at MIT, UCBerkely, Design school and Insead.

Vijay is a serial entrepreneur, a seasoned CEO, and a technology investor. He is the Managing Director and Head of MENA at Techstars; the world’s most active pre-seed technology investor; with a portfolio of 3,800+ companies with a combined market capitalization at USD $90Bn. As a seasoned CEO and a serial entrepreneur, he has 40 years of hands-on experience in founding and growing several companies spread over 7 different industries in Southeast Asia; including Fashion Retail, Clothing Manufacturing, Hi-Tech Safety Helmets, Association Management, Events Production, Property Development and Corporate Venture Capital. Prior to Techstars, he was the former Global CEO and Chairman of the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) based in Washington D.C. He is an Advisor to Scholar of Finance and a Trustee at Richmond University, in addition to holding several board roles in early stage tech companies. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Marketing from Richmond University (UK) and furthered his executive education at Stanford University. He was the recipient of the Global Entrepreneur Person of the Year by GOPIO and EO.

A Saudi Unicorn(s) builder, a winner of self-made entrepreneur of the year 2021 in Saudi Arabia, with more than 22 years of experience in information technology, research and innovation, and digital transformation. Built himself a unicorn that's the MENA region's leading e-commerce platform "Salla", and an Angel Investor in 5 more MENA Unicorn(s).

Karima El Hakim is the Country Director for Plug & Play in Egypt, the global leader in corporate innovation and one of the top early-stage Venture Capital investors in the world. Karima's work revolves around ecosystem building, VC investment and startup acceleration/incubation which was duly recognized throughout her previous work at Fawry, Falak Startups and Orascom Development Holding. She holds a BSc. in Business Administration from the American University in Cairo and a MSc in Market Intelligence and Research from Sciences-Po Paris (IEP).

Chiara is the co-founder and partner of AGCC. She is a seasoned entrepreneur, advisor, and investor, launching her first tech company in 2008. She is engaged in various mentorship programs, accelerators, and network organizations (e.g. Aspen Institute, Rotary International).

Dalia Ibrahim is a business leader & angel investor with more than 25 years of experience in publishing, education,digital solutions,& entrepreneurship. In 1994 Dalia she played a key role in co-founding several ventures aimed at providing comprehensive educational solutions. These ventures include Nahdet Misr Digital Solutions, Nahdet Misr Advertising,Nahdet Misr Periodicals (founded in 2004, publishing popular entertainment magazines in Arabic such as Disney & National Geographic),&Nahdet Misr Trading & Distribution. As the CEO of Nahdet Misr since 2011, Dalia has implemented transformative changes, establishing the company as a global provider of integrated educational, digital,& publishing solutions. In 2017, she founded EdVentures, the first venture capital firm in the MENA region dedicated to supporting and investing in EdTech and cultural innovation startups. In 2021, Dalia established Ta’heal for VET Skills Excellence, a specialized service provider offering vocational education solutions aimed at enhancing the availability & quality of the workforce. In 2024 she was selected as top 100 powerful women in Forbes.In 2023, she received the Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan "Women in Leadership & Entrepreneurship" award in the Arab world. She was also honored with the "Lifetime Achievement" award at the Africa Women Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum Awards in 2023. Dalia was selected as the first runner-up in the "Leadership Award" category of the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards for 2022-2023. In 2020, she was presented with the "CSR Award" for Arab Women, acknowledging her contributions to CSR & societal betterment. Dalia has been recognized as one of the top 50 most influential women in Egypt and was honored as the best "School of Business Alumni" by the AUC. Dalia actively supports young entrepreneurs & serves on the boards of organizations such as Endeavor Egypt, Education for Employment, Women Entrepreneurs Network, Tiye Angels, &Injaz Egypt.

After several years as a corporate banker, where he used to manage a diversified portfolio of companies, Hussain AlMarhoon joined his family business as a Deputy General Manager, where he managed the Finance & Investment Division. In 2014, Hussain co-founded a Corporate Investment Fund which invested in various Asset-Classes including Venture Capital. In 2018, Hussain co-founded HALA Ventures, one of the pioneering venture capital firms in Saudi and MENA region.

Angela Lee is an award-winning professor and former Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business School where she teaches venture capital and leadership courses. Angela started her career in product management and then moved to consulting at McKinsey. She has started 4 startups and is also the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated over 20000 startups, invested in 100, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp. She also serves as a venture partner at Fresco Capital, an early-stage venture fund that focuses on the future of work, digital health, and sustainability. Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is an expert in teaching online and making learning scalable. She is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business. She was recognized by Crain’s as a Notable Women in Tech, by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch, and by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch. In 2020, she was awarded the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School and she was awarded the Singhvi Prize for Scholarship by the class of 2022.

Racha Ghamlouch is the co-founder of the Digital Digest and Neuron, the MENA region’s digital economy news and market intelligence aggregator. Racha Ghamlouch has 10 years of experience in community development, events, and content creation. She led content, initiatives and programs at ArabNet for 7 years and moved on to build community engagement at BECO capital, after which she switched to focus on the Digital Digest, a digital economy news aggregator and consulting companies on the MENA region’s digital economy. Neuron is a data intelligence solution for marco economic activity and research.

Rafeh Saleh is an experienced executive, entrepreneur, venture capital expert, trainer, executive coach, and management consultant where he advised numerous companies of all sizes on growth, turnaround, and business restructuring strategies. He is a Consultant for the World Bank and Founder of Cubit Ventures and SNF Ventures. Rafeh formerly held the following roles: Managing Partner of CID Consulting, Board Member at Falak Startups, Governance Committee Member at Egypt Ventures, and Country Director at Founder Institute. Rafeh obtained his MBA from Paris based ESLSCA business school.

Mohamed Okasha is the Founder & Managing Partner at Disruptech Ventures. Mohamed also serves as the Chairman of the Investment Committee. Okasha is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with more than 25 years of experience. Most recently, Mohamed was Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fawry (CASE: FWRY), the leading electronic payment company in Egypt. Okasha co- founded the company in 2009 and grew it through multiple rounds of financing until taking it public in 2019 in a 30x oversubscribed IPO. Prior to Fawry, Okasha served as Head of Marketing at Vodafone Egypt, where he led various commercial operations. Okasha started his career at Raya Holding, where he spent 10 years across several of the group’s subsidiaries, culminating with him becoming General Manager of the Information Technology subsidiary. Okasha holds an MBA from the ESLSCA Business School Paris, and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the American University in Cairo. In addition to completing the Management Development Program at the IMD Business School.

Mohamed Emera is Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at ILLA Logistics Holding. His role at ILLA covers new market expansion, investment and M&A. Emera is also an angel investor with a core focus on fintech, mobility, and supply chain in the African market. He also used to be an advisor to two Africa-focused family offices Emera is passionate about value chain innovation and creating synergies among ecosystems

Noha has ~10 years work experience in the financial services sector spanning across different areas such as investment banking, corporate banking and asset management and recently, she has pursued her passion for entrepreneurship by joining Endeavor. Graduating with honors from the American University in Cairo, Noha holds a BA in Finance with a minor in Economics. She furthered her educational journey by studying Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, and joined Endeavor ~3 years ago, solidifying this passion of entrepreneurship and innovation. She is currently a Manager of the Entrepreneur Selection and Growth Department where she identifies and supports high-impact entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. Additionally, she runs the first Scale Up Program at Endeavor, a program aimed at empowering earlier stage companies across all sectors, expand internationally and raise capital, currently managing 22 companies from cohort 1 and 2.

I love engaging with developers and decision makers and help them succeed in A.I journey. I provide them training, resources, support, and feedback they need to succeed. I am passionate about Artificial Intelligence with focus on large scale computer vision. I also have experience in natural language processing and general machine learning. For 15 years I dealt with different A.I. projects involving supervised, self-supervised, unsupervised and active learning. I dealt with discriminative and generative A.I. tasks and dealt with Edge, on perm and cloud architectures.

Ayman Ismail is the Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor at AUC School of Business and the founding director of AUC Venture Lab and AUC Innovation Hub. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Egypt Ventures and PayMob, and a co-founder, angel investor or board member in several fast-growing tech-startups and financial institutions. Previously, he was a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s New York office and the World Bank, a co-founder and managing partner at Enovio Consulting, and a Young Global Leader (YGL) at the World Economic Forum (WEF). He received his PhD in International Economic Development from MIT.

Investing In Deep Tech and Tech Enabled startups in Africa and Pan Arab Countries.

Sunny Side Venture Partners would like to activate the world from Africa together with entrepreneurs of good ambitions. We invest in ambitious early-stage startups in the Middle East and Africa(MEA), especially focusing on North Africa from Fund 1. Sadaharu Saiki(a.k.a. Sada), Founder & GP based in Cairo, Egypt, is passionate about finding startups with good ambitions and supporting them in scaling their businesses and their impact into the world, having invested in 15 companies so far. He worked at Dentsu Inc., one of the largest advertising companies in the world, for 6 years in Tokyo, Japan and 3 years in Bangalore, India, engaging in helping Japanese multinational corporations with marketing and communication. He is also an alum of McKinsey & Company. Sadaharu holds a Bachelor in Integrated Human Studies from Kyoto University and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) with distinction from Harvard Business School.

Jacopo joined EBAN in 2015 as the association’s Director General. He is responsible for managing the organization and its network of members, expanding the association’s reach and influence, tracking issues of strategic importance to the early-stage investing ecosystem, and representing the association externally. He is knowledgeable on key topics such as cross-border investment, investment syndication, impact investment, public-private co-investment; and startup investment readiness, among others. Jacopo is also an angel investor with startup investments made in Space sector-related ventures. Jacopo holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master of Science degree in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Thanks to his education and his strong academic background both in marketing and in financial management, Jacopo has a successful track record with international work experiences.

Eng. Ahmed Tarek Khalil (ATK) stands as a visionary investor and serial entrepreneur, renowned for his innovative pursuits in various sectors. He is the mastermind behind Allianz Middle East Ship Management LLC, where he serves as Founder and General Manager, as well as the esteemed Chairman of Swiss Co and Allianz Logistics & Services Holding, an ADGM entity. Demonstrating strategic acumen, ATK has orchestrated several acquisitions, such as Arab Developers, and assumed the chairmanship of Kaumeya Language Schools S & El Rowad Language Schools, fostering a student body of 5,000 and cementing his footprint in the education realm. Recognized as a disruptive force, ATK thrives on challenges and is presently at the forefront of pioneering endeavors. One standout project includes a revolutionary healthcare platform harnessing artificial intelligence. This initiative is poised to revolutionize healthcare accessibility for over 10 million patients in Egypt and the Middle East, underscoring his dedication to innovation and societal progress. Ahmed Tarek Khalil epitomizes unwavering dedication, boundless innovation, and an unyielding commitment to excellence in all his ventures. His transformative leadership continues to redefine the landscape of business, education, and healthcare throughout the region.

Mahamad (Moe) El Tanahy is an entrepreneur and angel investor with 20 years experience in entrepreneurship, product and technology.  He founded several companies including Bright Creations (a software house who worked for the likes of Google), Mindsalike, a network of 3,000+ entrepreneurs, angel investors and VCs across the Middle East and has recently founded DAZU, a new fintech platform to be launched in 2024.  He recently returned to Egypt after completing his masters at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and is based between Cairo and San Francisco.

Wael became an entrepreneur at an early age, co-founding and managing ITWorx one of the early Egyptian tech startups for 20 years. In 2015, Wael joined the Sawari Ventures group helping launch Sawari's Venture Capital arm

Serial Entrepreneur.

Architect specialized in

evolutionary computation.

2 0 years o f experience i n

Saudi Arabia, Malaysia,

Dubai, Turkey, a n d Egypt.

Master's in Digital

Architecture from Spain