Does the MENA region need a new investment model? Investors’ perspective

[Music] ladies thank you so much for joining us we're gonna start right away with something that I do for my day job which is covering economics um of the Middle East um my I want to start with you by talking about you know you've been here for a while you've opened launched pjt you know denovo 14 years ago and you've seen this region transform over the past decade or so I want to talk about something that we cover quite a lot at Bloomberg which is the diversification push that has been happening particularly in the UAE in Saudi Arabia how do you think has that diversification push away from oil how has it impacted your investment practices the way you advise you know the people you talk to sure it's a pleasure to be here and thank you for the question if you think back about where this region has come from it is a region that was entirely dependent on oil and gas and for the past many many decades that was the main source of income that has come through but you saw over the past um number of years a whole diversification strategy and plan that has started and evolved and over the past 5 years alone the UAE has shifted about 15% of its GDP is coming out of areas outside of oil and gas Saudi 20% has actually Diversified because they've come from behind and have really sort of uh uh tried to you know supercharge what all the diversication that they're doing so you're seeing a lot of changes happening here because the the leadership has set back and said look I mean at the end of the day we are going to get to a world that has overgrown oil and gas we're not there yet but we continues to be valuable today so we're going to use that productivity that cach the generation of of of wealth that is coming out of that for us to completely diversify as much as we can away from it number one to give our youth um a a plan for them to be employed gainfully employed and for them to be able to produce from that two for our economies themselves to sustain themselves Beyond just the source of wealth and that comes from the oil and gas and and three to just really have an ecosystem around that can attract people from outside to come in and actually be productive in this in this environment so the amount of strategies and and and and processes that have been put together and and the whole ecosystems that have been developed around the diversification program has been nothing short of impressive be that in the uee OR in Sai Arabia or frankly in the broader region as well and they started off in investing that Petr gas in Investments internationally in stock markets in the US and stock markets in Europe and in Asia but the more recent strategy has been to actually deploy it domestically and actually develop a whole system of whether it is in in infrastructure in in in um chemicals in uh uh travel in tourism in fintech in education and in healthcare I mean you name it there's a lot of Investments that are happening outside of that and the beauty of it all for someone like me who's been here now for the past professionally at least I've been here for the past 18 years what I've seen in 18 years is nothing short of impressive in terms of how the recycling of the dollars that come back domestically for them to actually evolve their ecosystem around a diversified plan Beyond gas and then just sticking with you for a second and you know we're here at Abu Dhabi Finance week and we see the momentum of foreign investors coming in I mean just this week you have the likes of Larry f Ray doio uh you know the CEOs of large investment Banks do you think foreign investors have adapted to this economic change that has been happening in the region over the past few years oh completely if I think about even in in my role in Investment Banking and back then I was with Morgan stany ahead of setting up a denovo and now pjt denovo they used to all come here literally with bags that are empty and leave with bags that are full so cash used they would come here to just take the cash for them to invest in their own strategies outside and what whether it's Black Rock whether it's Black Stone whether it's CVC whether it's Carly I mean you name it all of them would come in and take the investment capital from this region and take it with them to invest in their strategy outside now it's very different talk about we're talking about Larry Fang let's talk about Black Rock for a second Black Rock now has an investment team that's set up in Saudi Arabia they have $5 billion worth of a fund that was given to them by PF for them to invest within the infrastructure field inside of uh this Saudi Arabia they also have funds that I've been given to them to invest domestically here Blackstone the same uh schwarzman now comes here and takes money to invest back domestically people are taking those those investment Petro dollars um but with the ask the sumon w funds to me are are the heroes in this whole story because the someone wealth funds who are the biggest source of funding are now saying we want that cash we want that investment to come back and invest domestically not just internationally so we'll give you the funds but you put the team here and you invest over here and that that cycle has started and we're seeing it we're seeing it quite aggressively in multiple things which is really quite quite uh quite nice to see Courtney moving on to you with a two-parter you know going into the diversification push you you know we're just telling me that you live in Saudi Arabia which is the topic the country that is headlining most of the you know economics of the region right now would you agree with May's take on you know whether investors have adapted to this div diversification push um absolutely and maybe to give a little bit of context and Nuance to to my response uh our firm 500 Global invest in over 90 countries but we uh predominantly deploy our Capital within the United States uh but more recently you know as uh as early as 2018 we actually opened our first office in Riad with the sense that the region itself was going to become more and more dominant politically economically and really all things considered um I think we heard back then from the sovereigns across the GCC that they intended to diversify to a non oilbased economy and every year since we've only seen more and more capital and more and more focus on not only deployment as you said to abroad based managers to come back here but also capacity and talent building locally and investment locally um that is really critical for the continuation of these relationships so I completely agree the The Flyin fly out mentality those days are definitely over and you know today as a manager you need to be able to you know show what the Strategic value and the performance is that you're going to be generating you know on account of these relationships um and I actually believe that we're still in early endings uh of what this is going to mean not just for the region but the whole reset for the capital landscape um if you are an asset manager you know really needing to have um a distinct solid kind of future proof strategy for this region and that's from an external perspective of investors coming in but we were also chatting about the internal perspective you know you are based in Saudi uh uh you know you do a lot of business within the kingdom how has the internal View over um investment changed in your experience within Riyad or The Wider Saudi Arabia you know I think maybe speaking specifically to um the asset class that we involved in which is venture capital I think you know 2016 2017 2018 there was kind of a growing belief that perhaps Venture could be a contributor to GDP and economic development I think what you're starting to see within the kingdom and within uh uh the Emirates as as well is some proof right some proof points that have now happened you have a much broader kind of um investable portfolio of startups of Technology driven companies that are again affecting these really key sectors um that the sovereigns are really focused on right now so if anything I think you're going to see as I said earlier um more excitement more energy um probably more expectation and measurement related to whatever you know is being funded locally as well right um and I think as well you know what we're starting to see a little bit of in the Emirates especially is more consolidation of the strategies that are actually um you know being developed right uh and I think that's going to produce even stronger outcomes than what we've seen so far so continued excitement continued investment uh but also you know continued uh increasing purpose and really measurement of what is actually working and what's going to continue to be funded right M moving on to you and you've held multiple leadership roles not just at B and but at different global companies So based on your experience and how you you know you've been based in the region you have seen the region transform over the past decade again how in your experience are you viewing you know the wider umbrella of the diversification away from oil how has it impacted your business your business and investor practices in your realm yeah and we're really talking about two vectors of diversification here right one is sort of sector diversification and then the diversification in terms of foreign more foreign investors and assets coming into the region so on the former on technology which is MySpace and fintech in specific I actually think domestic investors started embracing this diversification before it even became sort of area of focus for leadership and government right and I think investors in this region have been very courageous and very patient sort of backing startups and backing entrepreneurs for the last 20 30 years um and now we're starting to see some momentum around Exit activity Etc so hopefully those efforts will pay off but actually they spotted the potential in this region quite a while ago and then when it comes to um foreign investors yes uh yes of course uh we can we've all seen the news but to give you a concrete example um at bny which is a global Capital markets infrastructure platform um I help lead a business called growth Ventures where we build and invest in new technologies uh last year we set up a wealthtech company uh out of adgm in Abu Dhabi uh called ala with our partners adq and lunate uh this company was given 300 million million dollar of funding from day one we contributed team IP capabilities um our partners have contributed Capital we've contributed some capital and we have almost 100 people now in Abu Dhabi building that Tech and product here we didn't want to just export the wealth Tech that b had built in the us but we really wanted to build it from and for the region to meet local needs and I actually think from here we could well export the product that's being built here to the rest of the world because actually it's more advanced than uh some of the some of the other uh wealth Tech platforms we've built in the past right um so that's one example we intend to do something similar with our other themes which are so one of our themes is data analytics and AI for financial services we have a scaled software platform for this globally but we don't want to just sell it into this region as a vendor um we actually want to co-build with strategic Partners here right so let's say we have a strategic partner who contributes domestic Cloud capabilities uh we bring the software and the team so that's really the way we're approaching it uh with a combination of both capital and uh talent and technology and really Building from here um and and we think this is quite aligned with both our strategic objectives but also National objectives in the kingdom and and and the UAE so um at least speaking for bny but we're also seeing this from other investors I think the entire sort of mindset mindset is Shifting to ex away from extraction and to actually co-creating co-building and then potenti exporting from here uh to to the world so I mean I I wanted to go back to mice point because I do hear it a lot about you know how investors have changed from old days of coming here with their bags full wanting to take that money outside would you agree that that mindset again in your realm would you agree that that has indeed changed would you think would you say that investors do indeed see value in asset allocation within the region I would say it's a multi-pronged approach so I don't think you know one approach is canceling out the other I think there's two or three things that are happening right one is there is an expectation of investment here and I think that's happening um at the same time uh asset managers will continue to raise funds from this region and deploy those funds internationally and that will continue and should continue right uh and it's also in the interests of the kingdom and of the Emirates to be deploying their funds internationally as well for the diversification of their own s of sovereign assets um and a third prong in and and something we are pursuing for example is speaking to Sovereign and other investors here but actually co-investing alongside us so as we look at our um thematic areas digital assets wealth Tech data analytics and AI for financial services alternative assets distribution to retail investors these are some of the sort of deck themes we're focused on sure we have certain acquisition or investment Targets in mind globally whether it's in Europe in the US Etc and we're sort of bringing those those opportunities to investors here that have mandates to invest abroad so for us it's a three Bron strategy investing in and building here um raising funds from here for core Investments uh overseas and then for others that are but we're a platform business so that's a bit different we infrastructure provider others that are asset managers will of course continue to raise funds here for deployment overseas and that works as well I think it's a combination of these three approaches that can be very powerful and meet multiple needs sure now I've been to a lot of conferences this year and I know you guys have as well and it did feel that this year in every single conference whether in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or anywhere in the world the main topic was two letters Ai and I don't understand it I have designated myself as AI reporter but you know I don't think anyone fully understands how AI is going to impact the world there's us usually this blanket term AI is going to change everything and the question is always okay how so may when it comes to the investment landscape particularly how do you see artificial intelligence changing uh the way we do things when it comes to investment well I'll tell you the interesting thing is that in my in the last conference I was in there's now a new word which is Agi I mean you thought it was a two-letter world having a hard time now there's an artificial generative intelligence so it's it's evolving and I think the one thing for certain is that we all need to understand it a lot better M and we all need to live with it and we all need to use it and I think if we ignore these three things we are going to get left behind um and what is interesting is our children are far far better and far more versed in using all of these tools than perhaps we are um and I think our generation has seen the biggest single evolution in the world uh that we become where these things are now there for us to use and we can't be scared of them we need to use them as tools now how do we use them as tools is a big question like in our industry for example there's a debate that's going on which is how much should we use it because it's learning from us so when you feed an information it learns more but you're feeding an information that's proprietary or information that's confidential or we sign ndas or our clients and then we kind of upload things in it well have we now uh violated the agreements that we've signed Etc so we're we're trying to figure it out we we don't have the answers yet but for sure it is a tool that we all need to figure out how to best use it for us to become more productive not to kind of shy away from it but use it for our enhancing and increasing our productivity now what does that mean for the next generation is one thing that we were having a debate with our team earlier on with our Juniors and our team which is on one hand the AI is coming in it's going to help take away the mundane tasks that our teams work on but I have to say the mundane tasks that I've done growing up in the IND industry is what allows me to do what I do today which is I can be more conversed more versatile able to discuss anything and mayble understand when I see a a document of balance sheet and income statement Etc what it really means and what's in it Etc so what are we doing are we changing the pathway of the next future People Like Us by not having the ability to go through the kind of myua that we go through I don't know I mean a lot of these things we haven't we don't have answers to but it certainly is a tool that we need to figure out how to best use and when we use that tool in our toolkit maybe we can achieve a lot more than we have achieved maybe we can the Le frog a lot better than than we have but it is certainly a big big word that's being used and I'll say one last point which is you also look around to see what what the UAE and um and Saudi have announced the uee announced this massive hundred billion dollar big AI Centric focused organization where they've got where they've teamed up with the likes of Black Rock and others that kind of are all sort of looking at evolving across that and they're incredibly focused and very keen to make sure that they're part of that new Evolution or revolution Saudi then just a few weeks ago also announced a big hundred billion dollar some similar numbers hundred billion doll massive kind of combination of all of their Ai and with them there's Google that has come in and also helped power some of that so we're looking to say I mean it basically says that this region is saying we're embracing it we want to be part of this whole new narrative and we want to be part of making sure that we are relevant to it and that we're open to it and we're welcoming off of it because we're going to need to use it and we will use it because that also happens to go coincide with our diversication program so again we we're living it today and we're going to see the result of that I think in the coming whatever it's not even decades in the coming years sure it's happening a lot faster so we we'll see where that whole Evolution gets us to but certainly is an important one and the Ambassador was earlier mentioning Sheik Muhammad's visit to Washington a couple of months ago and you know on the back of that and I think if there's any Embassy staff here they have been sufficiently annoyed by myself and my team wanting to know what were you know what was the purpose of that visit ahead of time um and I think you know after that visit the focus on Tech the focus on AI really shows you how much the UAE and then subsequently Saudi Arabia is is placing on on these new technologies so you know Courtney again may you know has a view of the region you live in Saudi Arabia are you at all implementing um AI practices or development in your business and what are you thinking um when it comes to to AI yeah I mean maybe going back to your original question around kind of the impact I heard a brilliant quote from Jeff Bezos who was saying that AI isn't an an invention it was a discovery right akin to fire so I think anybody who's in uh Venture Capital right now I mean if you just look at us already about 60% of our investment has gone into AI um in a very short time span uh between kind of when it became part of the popular lexicon and then what we were seeing in the deal flows we were already having to shift our you know our allocation very quickly um I think with regards to the region uh what's really interesting is that the AI opportunity gives the region I think uh an ability to take advantage of some of um some of the the speed in which it's able to move from a regulatory standpoint um the last couple of years if you're thinking about the US it's been a very antagonistic relationship between um the SEC and the regulatory bodies in the US and entrepreneurs and especially the large scale entrepreneurs the platforms that are trying to develop these Technologies and so as a result you were seeing the largest platforms whether it be data centers or the models themselves going and looking for opportunities in other countries where there was a more friendly regulatory environment and then the second aspect which I think is really critical for the GCC is a region that can support the energy needs for these large scale data centers and models to actually continue to grow and to reach you know the potential that we all hope they will so I think it's a massive opportunity for the GCC and for other parts of the world who can offer flexibility from a regulatory perspective um kind of a very positive friendly business environment as the leadership you know across uh the region has shown and being able to really support the energy needs and in terms of our business um you know I think you're hearing uh various players right now talk about whether or not they're using Ai and their decisionmaking um you know for us because we manage a portfolio of nearly 3,000 3,000 Investments worldwide about three billion in capital we're investing in over 90 countries and because of that we've had to build our own Tech stack just to be able to manage you know our portfolio and the tens of thousands of opportunities we look at every year so we will actually continue to build more and more AI into our own um you know our own kind of selection process but at the end of the day uh for now it's still a human being um on the investment committees that are making you know these decisions although I definitely agree from the analyst and for um you know all of us I think we'll continue to to utilize uh new tools to get to decisions and Analysis faster um and I because my kids now I mean they just don't use web browsers at all they use chat GPT or they search on YouTube and that's it it's like the browsers they just completely skipped that gen you know that that tool set so I think we're really just in the very again early Innings of of what we're going to see as a result of this you know platform shift and the flip point of you know that is is quite scary whenever I meet an AI expert or someone who heads an AI company my first question to them is when is it going to replace my job and their answer is always uh you know ask us something else uh but m going to you and you know how you use AI possibly um in your line of business is it something that you're focused on is it something that you think should be used more less no absolutely so we've been building AI for five years at bny right but what's exciting is now as of the last two years uh both our customers and our colleagues have gotten very excited about wanting to use everything we've been building right uh since uh since sort of chat GPT showed up but like I said we've been building for 5 years by the end of this year we will have 40 use cases in production for AI um and and just to talk about two or three areas where we're deploying it at the highest level one we have an Enterprise AI system internally her name is Eliza um and she helps our colleagues do whatever they're doing faster more productively and in an easier fashion so a lot of that is about productivity whether you're inlegal or compx cents or marketing there's a set of tools you can build your own GPT using Eliza and and sort of make yourself much more productive and spend time on frankly work that's more interesting and more impactful for customers we're doing a lot of what we call our a lot of our Focus has been on what we call Predictive Analytics so basically using machine learning data and analytics to enable our customers to make better decisions um so for example we have a liquidity forecasting tool that because a lot of our customers are investors at the end of the day what they're predicting what their cash positions are going to be intraday at the end of the day tomorrow at the end of the week and that actually enables them to make smart investment decisions with the cash they have on hand and actually deploy it pretty quickly uh for a bit of yield uh because they know what their position is going to be in in in a few days or in a day or in a few hours right um and I referred earlier to uh the software we're building around data analytics and AI for investors of course machine learning is deeply embedded into that so let me give you a concrete example if you you are an asset owner or an asset manager or a venture capitalist using our software your your data especially if you're pan asset class investor your GPS are sending you PDFs they're sending you emails you've got a Bloomberg data feed you've got an msci data field your own team has built Excel models you're basically sitting on this mass of structured and unstructured data and you can't actually bring it together and use it to drive any sort of insights and so our tool helps you ingest all of this data um make it consist consistent across consumed data from all these different sources make it consistent give you a portfolio View and then run all sorts of analytics on it for your performance for your risk for your accounting um and so you can just imagine the level to which machine learning is playing a role here right especially in terms of actually absorbing all of this data from all of these different sources and making it consistent um so that's another very concrete example so for us it's just it's transforming our entire business and I want to stick with you a little bit I want to talk about something you know about this session but moving away from AI I want to talk about investment opportunities in the region and you know we we've mentioned that the region has gone through an economic shift we've mentioned you know all these positive things but I want you to talk to us a little bit about what are some of the challenges possibly in the region that may have an ultimate impact on the business and what are sort of the opportunities that are unspoken about that can be leveraged that no one really paying much attention to yet yeah look I think again coming from the technology and fintech and financial services uh background I would say look we've all we've all heard many times the stats about the uh the youth population in these markets the tech aess of the population uh the the the earnings potential especially in the Emirates and the kingdom so we know all those stats um but I think what's what's very interesting is one I think the the the governments and The Regulators in these markets have picked certain sectors that they are championing and now it's overtime over the last few years it's it's become fairly clear what those verticals are which creates a lot of uh Tailwinds in those in those sectors right so whether it's digital assets uh in the KSA for example gaming is one um AI in both markets um fintech uh in both markets so it's sort of become clear which verticals are going to get support both from a regulatory point of view an investment point of view and I think that's created Clarity for both both entrepreneurs Founders and investors in terms of these are certain verticals where if we look across the world uh the UAE and KSA are great places to build in these specific vertical so I think that really has helped I would add actually agritech and food Tech as well uh into that um so so I think that helps a lot um the other piece is that of course when it comes to what we focus on which is capital markets and financial markets there are a few really supportive Trends one is that Sovereign assets are continuing to grow even as oil prices fluctuate overall the trend is in in in a growth Direction and more of it is being deployed domestically which also supports this um second the efforts that are being made to attract foreign Capital so if you see the stats published by adgm or DFC um their adgm AUM I think are up 200% year on year DFC AUM are up I think like 60% the number of firms are tripling not just in terms of head count but also in terms of assets being managed out of this region so for a uh a platform that supports investors for us that creates uh significant opportunity and third I would say Capital markets advancement and Innovation right so I think the the UAE Capital markets have now crossed a trillion dollars in market cap KSA of course is one of the top uh in the top 10 in terms of size globally um and you're beginning to see Capital markets Innovation so uh digitization of exchanges Regional networks uh for exchanges and so again if you're interested in capital markets technology and infrastructure these are all very positive positive and exciting Trends right so I would say these are maybe some of the next level of Trends Beyond sort of the the consumer internet stats that we've been hearing for a long time uh these are sort of at the next level there are these sectors that are emerging that are uh that are quite exciting mate coming back to you and this is something that you know I also so um you know at The Newsroom we also extensively write about so I know this is a panel but I'm a journalist I'm going to try to get news out of this um I want to talk about Sovereign wealth funds and this region is home to you know the world's some of the world's biggest Sovereign wealth funds trillions of dollars in AUM uh you know we have Adia Madela PF and we talk a lot about the cooperation between the private sector and the public sector and perhaps a little bit of the competition as well how how have you seen that in your career in the region how have you seen that evolve over the past you know 15 years or so I mean it's interesting going back to the point about how the Sovereign wealth funds are leaning in on the diversification strategy and the redeployment of capital back into their own homeyard on one hand what they've done is they become enablers so they're seeing a lot of growth in investment and dication and sort of real impetus behind that whole ecosystem growing and developing but the flip side of of it is also then you they're crowding out to some extent Sometimes some of the industries that they're actually leaning in on uh we're seeing that a lot more in Saudi than we've seen it here in the UAE but in Saudi when the decision was made to say look we're going to open up our economy we're going to invest a lot here we need to have certain sectors that are actually growing we need to develop more into our infrastructure we need Waste Management we need uh deployments we need you know all of consumer all of these things that that are set up to some extent uh PF for example went in and invested behind a lot of companies they took stakes in companies but they've also then reinforced those companies which then became competitive against other companies that are held up by by some of the other family groups so it's a bit of of a tricky balance what when do you draw the line behind when you're really becoming an En enabler in in that whole program and and strategy versus when are you becoming anti-competitive to the private sector in that same strategy and I think the pendulum swings you know on one hand they sort of May one might overdo it on the other hand then then if it's not done then you know maybe the private sector won't fill in the Gap it's it's a pendulum but there's also going to be some point in time where things kind of balance out and the Rocks fall and they settle at some place in time but the S wall funds I think their whole programs are incredibly important in this diversification uh setup and I would say in adding to the point that was sort of mentioned earlier there's a lot of new um new Industries if you o that are attracting a lot of capital but there's also traditional industries that are also attracting Capital the traditional ones are more when you think about the whole ecosystem around consumer uh Health Care education uh retail you know just simple kind of old-fashioned consumer that's attracting a lot of international capital in as well so the international Capital coming I mean I'll talk about some examples of situations that we've been involved in so gems education taking A2 billion doll PR share from uh from Brookfield Asset Management that money has come in somewh from outside somewh from the some of the regions but also attracting Capital to come in and take on some meaningful Investments we've also seen the line likes of TJ Max's parent taking a stake in a regionally develop and growth you know retailer um you're seeing the region become attractive and taking International capital in to kind of be part of that whole development strategy as well so it's working there's something that is in there working do we have everything perfectly aligned no are we getting all everything sort of done with without any issues no but we are a young economy at the end of the day it is growing now it is diversifying now and it's opening to the world now the whole changes in the regulatory environment the whole changes in the governance structures the whole encouragement of the whole Capital markets ecosystem and developing and deploying that we're getting a lot right but I think it's going to take a little bit more time before we get everything perfectly done sure Courtney this region like many other regions around the world is impacted by different factors whether it's economic political you know may was just mentioning you know the Fed rate cuts that have been happening and are expected to happen we pegged economies so you know the Dollar's strength has an impact on the region and then you know particular to this region is the heightened economic geopolitical and economic risk in your experience in your line of work your day-to-day what do you think has the biggest impact from those factors on investment opportunities in the region so I think we're maybe a bit of an anomaly in this sense because um we invest in so many countries and many of the markets that we're investing in we've already priced the risk in we've priced the geopolitical risk into the Investments and the allocation strategy that we have in a particular Market um but you know I think um if we're talking about the GCC specifically uh I think despite some of the tensions of course that have been going in the region it has not seemed to have slowed down uh the capital deployment that you know that's happening locally or the foreign investors who are leaning into this Market more than ever I mean if we just look at our own portfolio for example um we're now starting to see um later stage investors um from Silicon Valley coming in backing the companies that have been homegrown here you know in the UAE in Saudi and Egypt and elsewhere so I think despite the geopolitical tensions we're going to continue to see um you know kind of future uh future focus and not as much aversion as maybe we would have seen 10 years ago or 15 years ago if we had a similar geopolitical situation going on um I actually want to jump back for a second though to your last question which is around the sovereigns kind of um you know is there a view on crowding out uh Innovation and I think a point that I really like to bring up on this topic considering how closely we work with sovereigns and in Emerging Markets is people often forget um how much capital and how much time the US government was investing into Silicon Valley for 40 years through DARPA and through very large- scale government programs before Silicon Valley ever existed and on average for an ecosystem to go from nent to emerging to advance you're looking at 15 years plus of government intervention needed in those Capital markets to see things move forward so if you think about this age that we're in in the Middle East today you know roughly you could say it started 2017 2018 um we're still very very early in the need for government intervention in order to see you know these markets really come to fruition and if you combine that with you know as you're rightly calling out the continuu geopolitical lens um that this region uh faces I think you need even more intervention and even more investment and focus on in in my case venture capital and Entrepreneurship but Capital markets more broadly in order to continue continue to make foreign investors feel comfortable you know to come here and feel like their capital is going to be you know stand a chance of delivering the returns that we all need yeah yeah I agree Med I want to move on to you again and you know bny growth Ventures started a uh wealth Tech firm last year Alia in Abu Dhabi um and you know you alluded to this earlier but I want to get your take a little bit on investor attitudes towards startups in the region particularly in Tech how do you think the attitude is what could be you know what could what could investors do more of less of what is sort of your advice and you know based on your experience in uh launching Alia last year and Courtney is probably much more of an expert on this than I am but you know one of my senses this is also informed by my time at Kareem for several years prior to B and um there is still a stronger case to be made for the ability of let me take the U way to start with for the ability of companies launched here to actually scale across the region right while the uee has some great factors going for it as an economy it has a certain size right and for a growth stage investor that is uh used to deploying hundreds of millions or tens of millions of dollars in companies globally the investment case really does hinge on a broader market right and the thesis let's say 10 years ago 15 years ago had been we should build startups from the UAE that will scale across the region that didn't end up happening in many cases there actually very few examples to date of that actually having happened because a operationally it's it's not easy to just turn on 10 markets right uh B depending on which sector you're in the regulation is not the same in every Market especially for fintech um and so at kareim we were blessed to be able to scale across Middle East North Africa and Pakistan but it was very very challenging and there are very few startups that actually managed to have done that right so I think that's probably one thing that as investors um uh a founder or or a company really has to make the case for sort of what is their growth strategy and perhaps the growth strategy is not Mina maybe it's parts of Europe maybe it's turkey maybe it's southeast Asia but then of course your product has to make sense for those markets as well right um I think KSA is a bit of a different story where it is a a large Market in and of itself right and so that could absorb some amount of scaling on its own own right but I think that's that's a case that we still have to make to a global uh investor base Courtney sticking with the startups theme and scalability is a word that comes here right it's an important word for investors but also for startups I mean businesses investors are you know wanting to leverage the highest returns so how do you think uh you know how how how do you think investors can help startups within Mina based um you know within the the Middle East and North Africa what do you think should be done more of you know to to go back to Med's point and how do you think these Global Investors can help companies within the region expand internationally so maybe to put a little bit of color on this um the first fund we uh started for the region was a 2017 2018 small fund we took uh 180 positions so invested in 180 different companies over the kind of a three or four year period per um today I think we have 16 companies from those initial positions that are between that are valued between 100 million and a billion do so certainly there is you know examples of companies who have scaled uh within the region and outside of the region now what we've seen in our portfolio that is kind of in the ready for not just Regional scale but International scale um is needing to number one ensure from a regulatory standpoint that the way that the company has kind of come up within the Reg is still going to allow it to um do the same sort of business or attune their model to let's say the US market or central eastern Europe Africa wherever it is that they're looking at going um so that often takes a a you know handholding from either the investors or from other enablers to be able to ensure that they have the proper relationships and corridors if they're not familiar with the market that they're moving into so from 500's perspective we're always trying to leverage our Partnerships around the world our Partnerships with governments around the world to kind of make the inroads for our portfolio a little bit softer um additionally I think um one of the things that we've really picked up over time is um our ability as venture capitalist with a US presence to be able to encourage investors to come you know visit the portfolio see kind of firsthand the scale of the businesses that have been created and just in the past you know kind of two months we've seen wonderful examples of foreign investors who are coming here investing in these companies because those companies are now ready to expand into the us into Europe and elsewhere um I think you know it's really important that we don't just think about Regional companies expanding to the US because there's a absolutely a very quickly growing market across Africa across Europe um that we're starting to see some of our earliest uh Investments go spread into I'll give you just one example there's a company that started out of Kuwait That Grew largely within Saudi that was called flowered and it was doing kind of flowers and Gifts um has become a big platform they're now doing very well um in the UK and expanding Beyond right so there certainly are various ways and models that are going to make sense outside of this region but you just need to pave the way and ensure that they have their relationships they meet the regulatory standard um and most of all that they are focused on scale from the beginning why we we have a few minutes left but I want to go back to one last thing with you um and it's you know you've had an extensive experience sort of advising uh companies within the region in various Industries and it's something that I asked M earlier but what you do what do you think are industries that are overlooked for the time being that are going to come up to be really key and important you know over the next five 10 years is it AI please don't say AI there's no avoiding AI but that that to me is um is something that we will always keep an eye out because the probably the companies are not yet invented that will be the ones that actually become revolutionary but I still uh believe in in the basics I I go back and focus on things to do with Health Care longevity you know just the sort of the whole sort of uh system around that and and and just sort of long you know what would take for one to kind of improve one's lifespan lifestyle what have you so that's to me is an important area we'll see a lot of education and what new education needs to look like we don't know what education is going to look like in the future but there certainly is a need to invest a lot more in that and where do our children go from here in terms of just the tools under their toolkits that exist what is the new form of education so I think there's going if you want going forward but backwards you know go going back to traditional um uh systems and traditional uh Industries but also in a in a in the new way in the new AI way that would take through that so I think those are important and then going back to the consumer as well and what consumer spending needs to be and how how do you want to look at attracting the consumer and and them also developing with that and I think that technology is going to be a piece of that but also traditional uh retail and consumer Le businesses are going to be very very important and then finally when we look at what also in this region we're looking at um when you look at manufacturing and industries there's going to be those that are Aid driven or AI empowered Manufacturing in Industries and you just like we were saying a bit earlier energy companies are relevant because energy companies are going to power a lot of what this future is going to look like so what are those energy companies how do you invest in them what are the different pieces of of that whole sort of uh puzzle of the whole uh value chain because you want to invest in various different parts of that value chain I think there's a lot more that's going to happen and and and and evolve in that in that basis but but honestly I'm excited for the region despite everything that we're seeing geopolitically in the neighborhood I'm still excited about the region where the region is heading and the fact that it is looking at encouraging and and inviting a lot of people from other parts of the world that are unstable to come here and actually grow their businesses and grow their whole whole setup and and and put headquarters over here and take that forward there's a lot of work that's being done by the government here in order to kind of meet all of that and I'm very excited to see how this will be a really big important Hub in where the world is heading going forward and then finally briefly by you know each one of you we're joined here by a lot of you know women entrepreneurs and women who are interested in your story stories and I'm really happy that I get to have you as my panelist so an advice from each of you to you know the people sitting in the room about your career what has helped you what has not uh madha perhaps starting with you sure uh I've had a a winding career in many different sectors I was also a journalist for five years covering geopolitics in Pakistan so I've had a few different um avatars but I think what's Driven me throughout is just intellectual curiosity that has led me uh that has driven each next step for me um so I would just really advise that uh I don't want to say do what you're passionate about because sometimes that's a naive piece of advice because there are realities around Financial survival and health and wellness and all sorts of other things that you need to take care of but at the end of the day if you aren't excited by what you're doing you're actually not going to end up giving it your all and you're probably not going to end up succeeding in it either so um uh for me I would say uh make sure you actually have some level of genuine interest and curiosity and excitement about what it is that you do on a day-to-day basis uh I'm not saying you have to go uh set all practicalities to the side but I do think that uh if there isn't at at the core of it if you're not really intellectually interested in what you're doing day-to-day I don't think you're going to succeed in that Courtney I would largely agree on the Curiosity I I mean I think that's just a staying curious and being um driven by learning is something that allows you to go into so many different paths and still feel good about it um I'm definitely not objective as a venture capitalist but um I feel like having a high-risk tolerance is really important when you're thinking about your career um I actually think the you know the kind of more senior you become in your career the less open you are to uh perhaps taking risk even though the market and technology is changing really rapidly around you so I think whether you're earlier in your career or your later in your career being able to um be open to perhaps A New Path forward even learning a new skill set or an entire entirely new network is really important um so my and very briefly maybe just very quickly then um Follow Your Passion embrace your diversity be tenacious about achieving it and don't take no for an answer that's a lot of advice I'll I'll just choose take no for an answer but thank you so much my Courtney thank you for this thank you everyone for joining us thank you thank you [Music]