Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

Interviews

Amin Magrabi, CEO

Vision giant Magrabi eyes IPO and global expansion

Magrabi Retail could be set for international expansion and an upcoming IPO, according to Amin Magrabi, CEO of the Middle Eastern ocular powerhouse.  With 142 stores, an estimated market share of 40 percent, 1,350 employees and revenue of $220 million a year, Riyadh-headquartered Magrabi Retail plans to double in size by 2025. “International expansion is […]

Nidhima Kohli, the founder of Beauty Tribe

Nidhima Kohli, CEO, Beauty Tribe

What does your company do?  Beauty Tribe is the first regional beauty pure play e-commerce site offering customers a curated shopping experience provided by beauty professionals – with a unique three-hour delivery time.  It improves on the experiences shoppers are having elsewhere online: struggling with many counterfeit products, long delivery times, or lacking information on […]

Ziad Bushnaq and Faisal Al Majali, Delektia founders

What does your company do? We are a UAE-based food product development company that produces frozen, fully-cooked, and ready-to-heat-and-eat meals that are healthy and free of preservatives. We like to think our product line gives consumers a taste of home.  How I got to the top: Erika Blazeviciute Doyle, Drink Dry How I got to […]

Make UK's Stephen Phipson hopes the UK-GCC trade talks reduce non-tariff barriers

UK manufacturers see non-tariff barriers as key to GCC trade

Make UK CEO Stephen Phipson advises the British government on behalf of 20,000 UK manufacturers. He talks to AGBI about trade with the GCC As negotiators begin to thrash out a UK-GCC free trade deal, there’s one thing above all else dominating the minds of British manufacturers as they seek growth opportunities in the region: […]

Sky Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of Pure Harvest Smart Farms, a fast-growing agtech business

Pure Harvest aims to grow UAE’s next $1bn unicorn startup

“Why did such a promising young man leave Silicon Valley to grow tomatoes in the desert?”. It’s a question Stanford University business graduate and former private equity investor Sky Kurtz says he gets asked a lot, even by his own father-in-law.  “My wife’s father thought I’d lost my mind. He was literally like, ‘there’s something […]

Mamad Kashani Akhavan, CEO, Powerhouse Real Estate

What does your company do?  We’re aiming to reinvent real estate by educating brokers and expanding their knowledge in the field. We’ve implemented a simple training programme for each new joiner to ensure their quality of performance in the market. Once they’re released into what we call “the sales floor”, they’re ready to enter the […]

Heidi Shara, CEO and founder of Wear That

How I got to the top: Heidi Shara, CEO and founder of Wear That

What does your company do? Wear That is a digital platform that creates personalised looks for women to try on before they buy in the comfort of their own home, with a real-life personal stylist. What inspired you to develop your idea? Having styled thousands of women all over the world in both luxury and […]

Erika Blazeviciute Doyle, managing director at Drink Dry

How I got to the top: Erika Blazeviciute Doyle, Drink Dry

What does your company do? Drink Dry is the UAE’s first and only non-alcoholic drinks marketplace. We aspire to open the world to new and better ways of drinking. We sell and distribute premium non-alcoholic drinks in the UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. What inspired you to develop your idea? The business idea […]

How I got to the top: Aidan Christofferson, co-founder, Flashy

What does your company do? We are a 10 month old startup tech company, based in Dubai, which provides a platform for scalable photography solutions for GCC customers. Whether you’re a sole entrepreneur looking to capture images for your product, or a multinational enterprise looking for thousands of images a week, our platform takes care […]

Why Pyypl power will accelerate MENA fintech growth

The founder and CEO of Pyypl tells AGBI about ambitious expansion plans for the UAE-based company Already one of the fastest-growing fintechs in the Middle East and Africa region, UAE-based Pyypl is planning to “inject more petrol into the tank” in a new phase of expansion. Antti Arponen, founder and CEO, told AGBI that the […]

Face, Person, Human
  • How I got to the top

Ayham Gorani, co-founder and CEO, Pemo

What does your company do?Pemo empowers businesses across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan by offering them a fast, transparent, and simplified way to manage their company spend. We’ve built a platform that addresses the day-to-day spend management challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region. Our offering includes smart corporate […]

Elie Habib's Anghami generates close to one billion streams a month with a catalogue of more than 72 million Arabic and international tracks

Make some noise for Anghami’s Elie Habib

The Lebanese music streaming mogul talks to AGBI about the meteoric rise of his Nasdaq-listed company, its battles with music pirates, relocation to Abu Dhabi and his ambition to launch Arab music stars Elie Habib fell in love with coding early. He started selling software at the age of 17 and launched several companies in […]

Person, Human, Female

How I got to the top: Mona Jaber, founder of Maison Tini and Jayleen Finds

What does your company do? Jayleen Finds is the first company dedicated to sustainable kids furniture in the UAE. I also recently launched Maison Tini, which is an experiential kids concept store in Al Quoz, Dubai, housing 50 local small businesses, offering furniture, décor, clothing, shoes, books, toys, artwork and more.  At Maison Tini, kids […]

UK-Gulf deal will be ‘tough nut to crack,’ says top Johnson ally

The co-chairman of the UAE-UK Business Council and former chief strategic adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the upcoming UK-Gulf trade agreements could be delayed but bilateral opportunities remain immense Lord Udny-Lister, co-chairman of the UAE-UK Business Council and one of Boris Johnson’s closest political allies, cuts a distinguished figure amid the sumptuous surroundings […]

How I got to the top: Kamal Al Samarrai, co-founder, Verity

What does your company do? Verity is a UAE-based fintech startup on a mission to teach kids and teens how to earn, save, give and spend responsibly, while offering parents the ability to guide their money management. By integrating our family banking and financial literacy app with a personalised pre-paid debit card, we’re making learning […]