Arab internet users in general, and those who are interested in entrepreneurship or the idea of establishing a startup, face difficulty in accessing quality Arabic content through which they can learn. Although there are around 630 million Arabic internet users, however, Arabic content represents only 3% of the total content available online. This reflects a large gap between the number of users and the content available. This gap has prompted some entrepreneurs and experts to provide valuable content in various formats (video, article, and podcast). In this article, we highlight five business influencers who provide Arabic content worth following.
Related article: Why do you need to start creating Arabic content?
5 business influencers you need to follow
1. Mohamed Hossam Khedr
"Fatakat" may be the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear Mohamed Hossam Khedr’s name. He is one of the prominent business influencers and an entrepreneur, management and investment consultant, and the owner of Internet Plus that designs applications and websites.
In 2007, Khedr founded "Fatakat" and continued to manage the platform until Q8Car Kuwaiti acquired it in 2015.
Who is Mohamed Hossam Khedr
Mohamed is an engineering graduate with a master's degree in Business Administration from Cairo University. He seeks to provide Arabic content in management and entrepreneurship by writing articles on his personal blog and posting tips and information through his experiences on his personal account on Facebook.
In 2019, he published the book "Entrepreneur Inside Out' which is an important step in providing useful Arabic content for those interested in the field. His book discusses various topics that concern entrepreneurs, for example, the difference between an ordinary business and a startup, the interaction between the manager and employees, the lessons learned from corporate failures, and how to find investors.
The "Khedr and Business" YouTube channel is one of his most important contributions; where he discusses issues that concern most entrepreneurs. Like: Is your company affected by the corona crisis? What are the options available to companies and employees to manage this crisis? You can watch the “Corona episode: Crisis Management” here.
2. Mohamed Nagaty
One of the reknown business influencers in the region, one of Halan's founders, which is a platform and application to connect individuals using tuk-tuk or motorcycle in addition to other services such as food and product delivery and bill payments and installments. Nagaty has worked for many startups, including Careem, Kitab Sawti, and Fawry. He also gained extensive experience in business development in various sectors (food, beverage, energy, transportation, and financial sector).
He studied engineering electronics at the American University in Cairo and was passionate about the idea of gaining practical experience while studying.
Nagaty participated in presenting the video series "Basics of Entrepreneurship” with Riseup, which is a 14-episode series and he took part in two of them. The first episode focuses on portraying his experience and talking about the mistakes he made at the beginning of his career, while the second episode discusses the activation of leadership and sustainable culture.
Nagaty is distinguished by his ability to communicate information smoothly and his constant desire to transfer what he learns to others. By following his account on Facebook, you will notice that he participates in many events and workshops, and from time to time he offers live broadcast videos to answer questions from followers and those interested in entrepreneurship.
One more thing to note is "The Capsule''; which is a YouTube show that consists of 5 short video episodes. Each episode does not exceed 12 minutes and discusses a different topic. The first season covered topics such as the participatory economy, the reason for its spread in recent years, financial technology, electronic payments, content on-demand, and renewable energy sector.
3. Alaa Sagaa
Enriching Arabic content and simplifying business management concepts are goals that Alaa seeks to achieve through the Business Made Easy podcast. His journey started with the podcast at the end of 2018, and in the first episodes, he covered topics such as the importance of personal branding and the 6 signs of a successful person.
The experience he gained over nearly 11 years in various fields such as business development, customer service, and operations management in addition to obtaining an MBA and PMP certification adds to his skills in reviewing various topics and increases the content’s richness and value.
Alaa's content is not limited to podcast episodes. His Facebook account reflects his interest and diligence in spreading his experience and knowledge. Alaa answers some of the questions he receives from followers through live videos, where he hosts experts from different fields to shed light on topics and concepts related to entrepreneurship.
Family businesses is one of the topics discussed by Alaa on Business Made Easy Podcast. He dug deep into this topic and portrayed real life examples. From the formation of this type of company, the challenges faced, to the steps necessary to manage change and digital transformation.
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4. Mazen AlDarrab
Mazen is a Saudi entrepreneur, one of the business influencers and the founder of Zid Company. Zid is a startup in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia working in the field of electronic commerce and provides its customers with the needed products and tools to launch in electronic markets. He gained extensive experience in e-commerce by holding several positions including founder and CEO of "Bahr E-Commerce" and Director of E-Business Development at National Net Ventures.
He won the Kingdom's most creative entrepreneur award from Forbes Middle East magazine in 2013. If you are interested and passionate about e-commerce, technology, and marketing, you will definitely benefit from following his account on Twitter, which is followed by nearly 160 thousand people.
Mazen provides training courses in the field of marketing and e-commerce through his company's website or by cooperating with other external parties. For example, he presented a course "Introduction to Social Media Marketing" in cooperation with Duroub and recently announced a new course titled "The Basics of Electronic Retail and Supply Chain", which is a free, distance course for beginners interested in learning the basics of e-commerce.
"6 reasons to rethink selling on Instagram" is one of the distinctive articles published by Al-Darrab on his account on LinkedIn, where he addressed the defects of buying on Instagram such as the difficulty of updating and managing inventory, quotes and other reasons that drives merchants towards e-commerce.
5. Hatem Kameli
Hatem is one of the leading business influencers and a Saudi entrepreneur who specializes in digital marketing and developing digital projects. He holds an MBA and a bachelor’s in technology and information systems.
Over the past 13 years, he founded more than 5 startups and is currently a founding partner in Lucidya; that monitors and analyzes the content of social media and Resal; the digital platform that specializes in sending gifts. He was also awarded by Forbes Magazine as the most creative entrepreneur of the year 2015.
In 2019, he published the book "360º Marketing on Social Media Platforms", which discusses digital marketing and its most important channels and social networks. The book contains more than 30 tools for digital marketing as well as models for setting up campaigns, creating marketing content and building a marketing plan.
The Lucidya blog is one of the richest sources for articles in digital marketing. If you are a beginner in Instagram marketing or want to know everything related to influencer marketing or how to prepare employees in your company for remote work, the blog covers these topics and much more.
Those interested in digital marketing can follow his YouTube channel to watch videos discussing topics such as the future of marketing and artificial intelligence, the future of digital marketing in Saudi Arabia, indicators for measuring emerging digital projects, and many similar topics.
Enriching management and entrepreneurship content in Arabic requires time and effort from all those businessmen and experts. The presence of influencers who have a real desire to share and transfer their experiences and knowledge to others would encourage others to take similar roles and thus increase the Arabic content and bridge the existing gap. For more featured articles, you can browse GoDaddy's blog.
