Since his career in 2006, Mostafa El Khafif has always been passionate about marketing in general and advertising specifically. He began his marketing career and has explored its different branches, from marketing research to product management and, finally, communication, all incorporating setups. What interested him the most throughout his career in the marketing field was the communication branch due to the deep involvement of creativity and art in this specific marketing branch. This led him to leave the corporate world and specialize in communication in the form of advertising.

Exploring the advertising world, El Khafif has worked in local and multinational agencies. Finally, he founded his own agency, where he combines the best of both worlds: Marketing strategy and planning, and thinking with the advertising's creativity and artistic touch.

In 2015, Nelly Youssef joined CIB as the first data scientist on the team. Since then, she was promoted to senior data scientist in 2018 until she started leading the team as the data science manager later in 2020. Her role currently entails the team's technical and managerial leadership with a mission to support CIB with data-driven business decisions. Across her career in data science, she worked and supervised various types of analytics and machine learning projects, including; behavioral segmentation, recommender systems, anti-money laundry detection, facility location models, and agent scheduling models, among several others.

Youssef designed and built the first revamp for its retail banking segmentation based on its customers’ behavior. This allowed the bank to become more customer-centric, provide more tailored product propositions and enhance its overall customer experience.

Her work and the team were drivers for global awards for CIB, including the Global Finance The Innovators Award and the Middle East’s Best Bank Transformation Award from Euromoney in 2018. She also sponsors several project practicums with Carnegie Mellon University in Kigali, Rwanda, where the students build data science models under her team’s supervision and evaluation.

Before this, she had diverse experience across various areas within the financial industry, namely, corporate banking, research, and life insurance. She started her corporate banking career in 2012 as a Credit Analyst at CIB after completing the CIB Credit Course as one of the top analysts.

Later, she worked in risk management research at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFOA) in the UK. She also worked as an actuarial analyst at Chubb Life Insurance in Egypt.

Youssef graduated with the highest honors and highest GPA in her class from the American University in Cairo in 2012 with a BSc. in actuarial science and a double minor in economics and business administration. Later in 2013, she received an academic scholarship to study in the UK. She holds an MSc. in actuarial science with Merit from City, University of London – Cass Business School. She is also a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFOA) in the UK.

Sherif Eskander received a bachelor's degree in computer science with honors from Ain Shams University (2003). He worked in various local and multinational companies within different domains financial, genetic engineering, HVAC, and others.

Eskander is currently providing technical leadership and governance of the big data team. He is responsible for designing and implementing the infrastructure needed to store solutions to ingest and process large data amounts with different velocities, types, and formats using real-time and batch processing techniques. He is also involved in providing overall architecture responsibilities such as roadmap, leadership, planning, technical innovation, and security.

Mohaira Barakat, a certified credit analyst, is currently working as a commercial international bank's consumer banking transformation manager. At the same time, she holds more than thirteen years of professional experience in the banking industry since she graduated with Cum Laude Honors from the American University in Cairo in 2007.

Barakat, a seasoned banking and financial services professional, has held different roles across diverse functional areas – Branch network, wealth management, corporate banking, consumer banking transformation, and change management over thirteen years of banking experience.

As a consumer banking transformation manager, she drives change within an organization to move towards customer-centricity and uniquely positions the organization differently compared to completion. She leads the consumer banking transformation programs and initiatives through identifying, directing, managing, and controlling schedules, which enhance customer experience, grow revenue, increase productivity, optimize process/cost, and maintain market leadership. In addition to that, she contributes to the formulation of the consumer Bank's overall strategy and plays a role in decision-making.

Nonetheless, Barakat has always had a passion for exercising and playing sports. Marathons and CrossFit were on her list until she found what she is best at, Pilates. She is now finishing her certification to start her fitness-instructing career parallel to her banking career.

Within the Retail Banking organization, Ramy El-Khangary leads the bank’s efforts in creating a business strategy and value propositions targeting the mass market with a particular focus on the millennials. This is in addition to developing cost optimization initiatives that leverage the bank’s digital channels.

Before joining the financial services industry, El-Khangary occupied several leading roles in the telecom industry, including his positions as a commercial program manager at Orange Egypt, management consultant at Booz and Company, and research and development expert at Orange Labs.

In his educational background, he is an Electronics and Communications Engineer who later pursued his MBA from the American University in Cairo.

Traian Carjeu's experience includes approximately 10 years of design expertise in civil, structural, and architectural areas for major steel, and reinforced concrete works both above and below ground, drainage, and completion work. Carjeu's experience includes earthquake engineering, and linear and nonlinear static and dynamic structural analysis. Mesoscale modeling and contact analysis. Preparation and managing budgets, material requisitions, and sub-contracts. Besides site engineering and supervision covering brown and greenfield construction, CSA asset refurbishment includes buildings, structural steel and concrete, drainage systems, and drainage structures.

Mohamed Radwan is a senior chief software engineer with PhD, MSc, and BSc in computer and systems engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, Ain-Shams University in 2015, 2012, and 2006.

Radwan pursued the research track in silicon and automotive industries dedicated to intelligent solutions for automated digital design verification, advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS), and vehicle communication systems (Digital Mobility).

Honored as Valeo top-maker and Valeo top inventor with two proofs-of-concept and three P3 developments leading to four product adoptions in 2016-2018, and sixteen patent proposals with ten granted patents in ADAS in 2016-2020.

Mohamed Mansour is a construction management and controls professional with more than 15 years of experience. He graduated from the AUC in 2005 with a BSc in Construction Engineering and was further granted a Master of Engineering degree in 2011. In 2017, he received his PhD in Civil Engineering from Purdue University, US.

Since graduating, Mansour has worked on several complex construction projects, including airports, hospitality, residential, and commercial real estate developments. Currently, he is working for SODIC as the project controls director responsible for the budgeting, cost, schedule, and contract management of a portfolio of real estate projects with a combined total construction budget exceeding 20 billion Egyptian Pounds. Part of his job involves target-setting, planning, analyzing, forecasting, and reporting on cash flows, progress, and construction profitability to ensure that key performance indicators are achieved. His department is also responsible for settling all claims and disputes with contractors.

Nahla Kamal has 20 years of professional experience. Her professional experience includes roles such as CEO of accelerating consulting, country projects manager at UNIDO, director of corporate governance at Logic Consulting, deputy executive director at the Egyptian Institute of Directors, Deputy Minister of Investment, head of the information unit at the Ministry of Investment, senior economist at the Ministry of Trade. I started with Nestlé in June 2017 and was an economist at the Ministry of Economy.

Kamal's memberships include board members in the Egyptian Junior Business Association, members of the Egyptian Women in Business Association, and past membership in the Association of UK Graduates Education board. After attaining her bachelor's degree in economics from Cairo University, she gained a master's degree in economics and social policy analysis from the University of York in the UK and an MPhil in corporate governance from the University of Plymouth, UK. She holds a PhD in corporate governance and CSR from the University of Plymouth in the UK.

Farah Montasser is the sales revenue manager for Mashreq, based in Cairo, Egypt. In her role, she is responsible for creating trade activities across channels to grow the business, forecasting and setting targets across all brands, managing trade spending and budgets across the categories, and driving each type's strategy across all the different sales channels.

Montasser is a business administration graduate with almost nine years of experience in FMCGs. She began her career at Unilever, where she worked in Sales across traditional and modern trade, and then she moved to marketing, where she managed Lipton Brand. She later moved to Mondelēz, where she joined the trade marketing department, starting as a channel trade marketing lead and then moving to category trade marketing across all Egypt and Levant categories.

Nancy Sherif is the sales capability manager for North Africa and Levant, based in Cairo, Egypt, where she’s responsible for sales team capability building by assessing team needs and addressing those needs through a sales training curriculum for the different sales layers.

Moreover, Sherif is driving talent management development programs to prepare the team for future roles.

She is also responsible for unifying distributor practices and processes across different areas and regions and designing various recognition programs and initiatives to enhance team performance, productivity and competitiveness. Is a graduate of Pharmacy-Ain Shams University and has over 13 years of experience in Sales across FMCGs and pharmaceutical industries.

Sherif started her career as a medical sales representative at AstraZeneca Egypt, where she held several roles in field sales, then got promoted to field sales trainer in 2012, where she coached and supported the sales team on the ground. This is in addition to delivering training sessions for sales teams. Then she joined Mondelēz in 2013, where she started as sales capability lead for Egypt. Then her role expanded over the years to include the Levant and Morocco.

An experienced executive with over 16 years of experience in top leading multinationals. Hussein’s journey started back in 2004. After graduating from AUC (BA/MBA), he joined the PepsiCo marketing team as an assistant brand manager. With his strategic vision and drive for growth, Abo El Rouss led and managed key marketing positions in top multinational organizations such as Unilever and L'Oréal.

At L'Oréal, he joined the marketing team as a grouper in 2012, then was promoted to lead the marketing function for the world's iconic beauty brand L'Oréal Paris. After successfully establishing the brand, Hussein moved to France's head office as a marketing coordination manager for Africa and the Middle East. Upon returning from Paris, Abo El Rouss was nominated to be the Business Unit Manager for Makeup and E-commerce. He successfully managed the transformation of the channel shift and consumer buying behavior to lead the beauty market.

Early in 2019, he was appointed GM for the LUXE Division. He started a new journey of establishing the foundation for building the Egyptian market's right luxury brand experience.

Kareem A. Monem joined PepsiCo Egypt in January 2017 as a public policy and government manager with over 12 years of international development, cooperation, and public policy. His current role at PepsiCo is to monitor and prioritize all political, legislative, and social actions in Egypt to provide strategic directions for PepsiCo’s business interests. His role also includes creating and facilitating a platform for mutual understanding with key government stakeholders on business matters.

Before PepsiCo, Monem had several roles in the international development sector, as a program manager for Innovation and ICT at the EU Delegation to Egypt. Monem holds a master's in public policy (MPP, Class 2011) from AUC and a BSc in pharmacy and biotechnology from GUC (Class 2008).

Mohamed Zain ElAbideen has over 13 years of experience in the telecom industry, with different rotations across Network, IT, and Cyber Security domains. Zain ElAbideen participated in Vodafone Egypt's digital and agile transformation programs and is currently leading cybersecurity Baseline implementation across Vodafone. He has recently been certified as an ISO/IEC 27001 lead auditor (Information Security Management System) and ISO/IEC 27701 Lead Implementer (Privacy Information Management System).

Assem Effat Ghonemy is currently managing a software development team responsible for delivering and developing customer care tools and integration layers. He has been working in the telecom industry since 2005. During those 14+ years, he has delivered solutions that supported various divisions, including customer care, retail, finance, commercial and technical teams in going about their daily tasks and achieving their strategic goals. On a personal note, Ghonemy is a family man whose hobbies include football and Formula One racing.

Noaman Khalid is currently an associate director at Arqaam Capital, working on macroeconomics and strategy, with over seven years of experience in the field of financial economics. Prior to joining Arqaam, Khalid worked as a MENA economist and strategist at CI Capital’s research department, covering Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi, along with MENA indices rebalancing and strategy calls. He also developed a couple of strategy and macro products during his presence at CI Capital. Prior to this, he was the economist/strategist at CI-Capital asset management, as part of both the fixed income and equity teams, where he handled the formulation of all macro-driven investment strategies. He holds a degree in economics from the American University in Cairo and is now pursuing his master's degree in financial economics from AUC, where he is expected to graduate next May. Khalid is also a frequent news commentator in both local and regional news agencies, in addition to having several economic pieces published in key newspapers and outlets. He has worked parallel to being a trainer and speaker at several events.

Ahmed Lasheen, a graduate of the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University (2008). Lasheen joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2009 and served on multiple desks, including the Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs, Asia department, and Sudan affairs. He has also completed two overseas tours in Jakarta and Abu Dhabi over the course of the past ten years. Currently serving as a member of the HR department within the ministry.

Ashraf Abdelhamid has a bachelor's degree in political science (Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University). He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 2008.

Throughout his diplomatic career, he served in the Asian and Arab Affairs Departments in Cairo. He has been posted to the Egyptian Embassies in Kathmandu, Nepal (2009-2012) and Budapest, Hungary (2015-2019), and is currently serving in the diplomatic and consular corps section (HR) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Cairo. 

Mohamed Helal is currently a lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he teaches public international law. He holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.B. from Ain Shams Faculty of Law, and a BA and MA from the American University in Cairo (AUC). From 2010-2014, he was a teaching fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he taught global governance. He was awarded the 2014 Kennedy School Dean's Award for Excellence in Student Teaching for his service. Helal also has substantial policy experience in international law, multilateral diplomacy, and human rights. From 2005 to 2009, he served on the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. He advised Egypt's foreign minister on international human rights issues and matters relating to the United Nations and other international organizations, including the non-aligned movement and Islamic cooperation organization. Before joining the Egyptian Diplomatic Corps, Helal was a legal officer on the League of Arab States' secretary-general.

Jennifer Rasamimanana is the Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Cairo, leading the mission’s press, cultural, and educational programming. Prior to moving to Egypt, she was the Consul General at the US Consulate General in Casablanca. A United States diplomat since 1999, she has served in political, consular, economic, and public diplomacy postings in Morocco, France, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Tunisia, Syria, and Togo. While posted in Washington, DC, she served in the cabinets of Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.

From 2010 – 2012 she was the State Department’s Arabic Language Spokesperson, leading engagement with Arab-speaking publics from  Oman to Morocco. Throughout her career, she has worked to interest others in joining diplomacy, serving as a Diplomat-in-residence and professor at SciencesPo Paris and on the Foreign Service Board of Examiners, which chooses the next generation of U.S. diplomats.

Yasmine Saleh is currently an editor at Zawya Arabic (owned by Refinitiv- a joint venture of Thomson Reuters and Blackstone). Saleh is a journalist with 17 years of experience in on-field reporting, working under tension, covering bloody conflicts and wars, and filing stories under strict deadlines. Her experience includes covering stories for Thomson Reuters, Reuters, The International Herald Tribune, and The Daily Star (later named The Daily News).

Yasmine graduated from the American University in Cairo in 2004 with a bachelor’s in journalism and mass communication and a minor in psychology. She received her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from AUC in 2010.

Ramy Georgy has been in the digital market since Netflix was still an insignificant competitor with Blockbuster, and the projections were that Netflix would fail. He has witnessed online trends rise and fall. Georgy graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from AUC in 2002 and has always had an eye for user experience and design. He forecasts that tech will be leading the world into the foreseeable future, but without proper design and easy-to-use systems, no one will use it, which is where he specializes.

Georgy's professional experience includes working at ITWorx, LINKdotNET, JWT, and now his own agency (bni), where he leads a team to create creative and easy-to-use websites and apps.

Ahmed Samhout has over eight years of industry and consulting experience in the Middle East and Europe, developing and implementing national strategies and large-scale transformations in the Middle East. Leveraging an IT background and four years of technology consulting experience with a track record of effectively leading delivery teams and establishing strong client relations, Ahmed brings agility, innovation, and structure to projects in order to help tackle the clients' issues and make tangible progress on the ground.

Amr Fayed is a double major in economics and political science from the American University in Cairo. His experiences range from educational tutoring development and procurement transformation to supporting military organizations in streamlining their processes and designing efficient operating models. Fayed worked on managing PMO activities for a large-scale modernization program with 20+ workstreams and a team of 80+ consultants and advisors for a defense institution (GCC ministry).

Graduated in 2010 with a BSc in mechanical engineering from the British University in Egypt with a double degree from Loughborough University, UK. Right after graduation, she started her career as a wireline field engineer at Schlumberger Egypt. In 2015, she started working as an equipment readiness engineer and then became the equipment and maintenance lead for Wireline Kuwait. In February 2019, she moved to HR as Recruiting and University Relations Manager for the Northern Middle East and is now focusing on fresh-out recruiting and university relations for Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, and North Africa.

Sarah El Sokary graduated from AUC with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She earned a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Walden University, specializing in trauma and crisis management. As a certified clinical psychologist, she also provides individual counseling and couples and family therapy. El Sokary earned her PsyD. (doctorate of psychology) in organizational and industrial psychology from California Southern University. She offers organizational psychology services to corporations and organizations of varying fields. She collaborated with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation on presenting a Webinar to advocate for mental health and its importance for employees. She offers different O/I psychology services, including productivity enhancement, setting culturally relevant policies and regulations, providing training, assisting in the hiring process, conducting career and personality-related assessments, spreading awareness about work-life balance, motivating employees, conflict resolution, and communication and leadership skills.

Ayman Maher is currently a senior researcher and a project manager at the Aswan Research Center and a lecturer at Cairo University, Faculty of Science. He graduated from Cairo University, Faculty of Science, in 2008. He started his career as a lecturer assistant at Cairo University and received his master’s degree in human breast cancer molecular biology in 2012. He was next granted a scholarship from the Egyptian Higher Ministry of education and the National Academy of science and Technology to perform his PhD work at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, in the field of molecular cell biology and extracellular matrix remodeling, and he received his PhD in 2016.

Maher then joined Aswan Research Center in 2016 as a post-doctorate fellow, where he launched his work by establishing and solidifying biochemical, molecular, and histopathological technical platforms in the research laboratory, in addition to his significant contribution in establishing the induced pluripotent stem cells technology and the in vitro modeling of cardiovascular diseases. His main research interest is the extracellular matrix remodeling in various cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and its association with the transcriptomic and proteomic signature of stromal cells, mainly fibroblasts, within the human heart tissue.

Along with his research projects at Aswan Research Center, he has conducted successful scientific visits at the University of Oxford-Department of Pharmacology, UK, The Magdi Yacoub Institute/Harefield Hospital, UK, and Tulane University of Medicine, USA, to explore the field of using stem cells as a model for diseases, and the cross-talk between various stromal compartments such as fibroblasts and macrophages in the tissue matrix.

Marina Sous is the scientific project manager of the life sciences department at the Aswan Heart Centre – Magdi Yacoub Foundation (MYF). She completed her Bachelor of Science at the American University in Cairo with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry.

In 2017, she obtained her Doctor of Pharmacy Degree (PharmD) from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), Boston, Massachusetts, with the highest honors. Sous has gained valuable knowledge and experience as a pharmacist from working in different pharmacy settings. She is currently managing the pulmonary hypertension clinical trial and the Ballana Heart longitudinal population study. Sous's main field of interest is examining cardiovascular disease prevalence and epidemiology, strategies for disease prevention, and the development of awareness campaigns to promote cardiovascular health.

Sarah Halawa is currently a research scientist/postdoc at Magdi Yacoub Aswan Heart Centre (Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation) (AHC). She finished her PhD in applied sciences and engineering with a specialization in biotechnology, particularly data science and bioinformatics, in December 2020 as a collaboration between AUC and AHC.

Her PhD aimed to elucidate the difference between the mitral and aortic valves at the epigenetic (molecular regulatory level). Assessing the molecular regulation of non-diseased human aortic and mitral valves will ultimately improve the understanding of valve biology. It will potentially have implications in valve tissue engineering approaches and improve the diagnosis and treatment of valvular heart diseases.

She obtained her MSc in physics in 2014 at AUC and her BSc in electronics engineering from AUC with a minor in mathematics in 2011 at AUC. Her multidisciplinary background enables her to work with highly qualified teams on challenging interdisciplinary projects that focus on cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) specific to the Egyptian population.

In addition to expanding on her PhD work, she currently works on many projects focusing on translational bioinformatics and the integration of bioinformatic techniques into genetic and clinical research to improve health outcomes for patients.

Yasmine Aguib is a member of Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation’s Aswan Heart Centre  Management Board, where she is a founding member and deputy director of the Research Centre.

Aguib is head of the life sciences division and honorary senior research fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London (UK). She is Co-PI in several diseases and population-based studies, such as the Fondation Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence for ‘Redox Regulation of Cardiomyocyte Renewal,’ the Egyptian Healthy Volunteers Study, and the Ballana Heart Study.

Aguib holds a master’s degree in molecular biotechnology and MOT (Management, Organisation, and Technology) and a PhD in biotechnology and molecular medicine, both from the Technische Universität München (Germany). She has supervised several graduate and post-graduate students during the past 15 years.

In 2011 she was appointed scientific consultant to the TUM president in the fields of life sciences and international strategic alliances within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative, where she contributed to establishing the TUM Global Strategy and the EuroTech Universities Alliance. Aguib’s multidisciplinary career is focused on advancing science and innovation in the field of precision medicine. She was involved in projects improving the understanding and therapeutic approaches for cancer, infectious and neurodegenerative disease, and, currently, cardiovascular disease.

In her current role, she contributes to the implementation and execution of the AHC Research and Innovation Strategy with a focus on Precision Medicine in Africa and Global Health.

Dina Negm’s passion for writing motivated her to leave behind 11 years of experience in the IT industry to pursue her dream of being a scriptwriter. Driven by the desire to tell stories about people and connect them with reality. Negm’s work includes two hit series, Zay el Shams and Leh Laa.

Ahmed Harfoush is an Egyptian jazz and pop vocalist living in London and performs around the world. Harfoush was a staff member at The American University in Cairo, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the United Nations before pursuing a full-time career in music.

He received training at Mountview Academy for Theatre Arts in London and The American University in Cairo and has been a member of many established choirs in Cairo, his birthplace.

After establishing the HarfousH Jazz Band in 2015, he performed at Royal Albert Hall in London, the Dubai Opera House, the Cairo Opera House, the Egyptian Art Academy in Rome, the Egyptian Embassies in Berlin, Melbourne and Vienna, Skopje Opera House with the Macedonia Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamburg’s Jazz Cotton Club, the International Music Festival in Slovenia, Damascus’ MarMar Jazz Club with the New York Chris Byars Jazz Quartet, Memo Jazz Club in Milano, Athens, Budapest, Larnaca, Prague and many bands and orchestras around the United Kingdom including the 2018 and 2019 London Jazz Festival and the Egyptian Ambassador’s Residence in London.

Some of his studio and live recordings are found on SoundCloud, and more info is on his website.

Diaa Eladany received his BSc degree in automotive engineering from Ain Shams University. Before joining P&G, Eladany began his professional career as an automotive technical instructor at Omatra Egypt; then, he joined General Motors Egypt as an automotive product engineer. In 2013, he decided to switch his career and joined the FMCG industry as a production manager in P&G, followed by his role as operations department manager till he decided again to make another interesting switch in his career, but this time within P&G. In 2018,  Eladany joined the supply chain realm as an inbound logistics department manager. Eladany's main hobbies include leading adventurous international group trips; he also enjoys baking while being at home.