Doing Business in Saudi Arabia: 17 Years of Lessons | Victor Barrero, Manara

Victor's Path from INSEAD to Saudi Welcome to the NCR Emerging Markets podcast. I am your host Nick Law and I'm here today with Victor Barrero. Victor is an NCR 09 D and he is pretty much the prototype for why we started this podcast. He's an NCR who has lived and worked across three different emerging markets actually as well as the US and Canada too. And we actually met two years ago in Saudi when I was visiting. This is a long time in the making been a different parts of the world. We happen to be in Toronto together today and so had to make it happen. I'm really excited to have Victor here. I think what could be interesting to the listeners is just starting out your NCE journey, where you were when you went to NCED and what decision you made after that that led to the career that you have. Because I think it's very relevant to the listeners and it's really interesting. So it's different from I think what anyone was doing at that time and even now it's a little bit different, but it's led to a really impressive and really interesting career. Speaker 2 Thank you, Nick. Super excited to be here in the podcast, especially around around the Inciad and, and, and a place and a community that means so much to to us. And that really changed my life and my career. But here's the story. So born and raised in Mexico in a family of business owners, small businesses, and had the chance to the opportunity to attend the Inciad in 2009. I had started my career in consulting in Mexico with Boston Consulting Group as an analyst. And in 2009, January, I go to Singapore and what I want to get out of INSEAD is I want to see the world. I want to have an international career. I grew up in Mexico in a, in a Mexican environment, Mexican mom, Mexican dad. No, not a mixed background, NO3 nationalities like everyone at INSEAD or four or five passports. And for me, that was very, very appealing. Man, as a, as a child, my dream was to see the world to, to travel. So I mean, INSEAD in 2009, right out of the financial crisis of 2008. And the world is my oyster come time to pick a summer internship. I start on the career portal career, the job post looking at at what's there. There was not a lot of banking or consulting because of the economy. So there were all sort of odd, odd opportunities that came came across. And I remember this one day seeing a job posting about a summer internship opportunity in an airline in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And I thought, that sounds amazing, sounds really exotic. So I applied to this job. I got the summer internship, went around in Seattle and told everyone, guys, I got an internship. But they said that's pretty awesome, man. You know, it's the financial crisis. Not a lot of us are getting summer jobs. What does that look like? I said, well, it's an airline. Wow. Airlines are great. And it's with an ex INSEAD, ex McKinsey guy. He's going to be my my boss. They said great. And in Seattle, that's pretty cool. And I'm going to be doing strategy and planning for this airline in the Middle East. Great. They said, well, the Middle East, where is that? I said, that's in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I said, oh, wow, why are you going there? And Nick, I knew nothing about Saudi Arabia. I knew very little about the Middle East. Never been to the Middle East. Growing up in Mexico, I just had a, a concept of the Middle East. And in Mexico, we would watch on TV the the fountains of Dubai and the malls and the luxury cars. And I thought I was headed there. I thought, I thought Riyadh was like Dubai. And oh boy, I was mistaken. So I accepted summer internship and now I'm on my way to Riyadh in summer of 2009. I start the internship very unique environment react back in the day very different, you know, I found myself in a completely different culture, language, way of working the the company itself. Linus was a very early days, so everything is unfamiliar at first. Two weeks later, serendipitously, I start making friends with Saudi guys who were my age. I was 25 at the time. Most of them were 252628. They themselves had just come back from their undergrad or master degrees overseas. And we became very good friends. I realized that we had a lot of in common from a cultural standpoint, being Mexican or Latino and being, you know, Arabs, Saudi Arabian. And that completely changed my experience in Saudi. It was really the people and they kept me coming back, you know, they kept on pulling me back to Saudi. I finished the NBAI had the opportunity to go to Dubai with a consulting firm and a very good opportunity. And I declined. I said no, I'm, I'm going back to Saudi. So fast forwarding what my career became since then, since 2009, I did two years after INSEAD in Saudi Arabia working with Flying AS. I led the revenue management team for Flying AS I left and I came back a few times. I came back in 2013 to visit. I came back in 2016 as part of the first state visit of a Mexican president to the Middle East ever. I was part of that state visit in January 2016. I came back to visit in 2024 in LEAP in February. And little did I know that just a month or two later, I will be back in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with a job opportunity to bring an American company in residential real estate into Saudi as one of the first executives first hires did that for two years. And three months ago, I decided to bet on Saudi Arabia again. My I, I wrapped up my time with this company that I came to Saudi with and I started my own company in Saudi Arabia. So now you could say I am a founder in, in Riyadh and very bullish on the country, very bullish on the Vision 2030 and on what we are doing on the ground in in Riyadh, which you've you've seen when we met a couple years ago on the ground there. Finding Home and Opportunity in Saudi Arabia Yeah, it seems like you really fell in love with the country and somehow it kept bringing you back over and over again from that first visit. I guess maybe just going back to that NBA decision. I mean, most NCS students, they get the big consulting offer in Dubai or Singapore or New York, and that's the path that they want to take. But there must have been something about Saudi that made you want to come back, or I don't know if it was the company, the role, the location, what it was. Why did you make that decision to choose the Saudi flying us over the consulting offer in Dubai? Speaker 2 So that's a great question, Nick. In the summer of 2009, what I saw in Saudi in in Riyadh, in flying as was a country that as I said, you know, after a few weeks start becoming familiar with friends who made me feel home. So it became my home very, very quickly. So I felt good. But from a career and professional standpoint, which is why we go to NCL, we go there to advance our careers, to find new opportunities. Saudi was incredible. It was a blank canvas in a way. Let me give you a couple examples. When I when I lived in Saudi 2009 and 10 and 11, everyone had Blackberries, mobile was everywhere. They had incredible infrastructure. When I had a chance to travel in the in the Gulf, not necessarily in Saudi, but the airlines from the Gulf, Emirates, Qatar Airlines, Etihad, they were new airlines. I was in the airline industry and I realized that these new airlines had brand new fleets, brand new airports and infrastructure, etcetera, etcetera. So in general, the thesis I saw as I looked around in the economy, work opportunities was a whole region, the Gulf and specifically Saudi countries that were modernizing and had the resources to do it, had the leadership and clarity on where they wanted to go, how they wanted to build their nations, how they wanted to help their people, Leadership in these countries. Again, with with clarity on how to to take the country forward. And as you would look at different parts of the economy, as I said, they were just blank canvas for you to, to leave your mark, leave your print, but also to, to bring best in class from anywhere in the world to the market there. Now let me take you to the specific experience with flying us, flying us early on like a start up a little bit on structure, a little bit still figuring things out, wearing multiple hats. And at that early age, I was 25, I realized there were concepts or tools or techniques or products, technologies that in US or Canada or Mexico I had already come across, but or, or they were very prominent or, or matter of fact, but not in Saudi yet. So that was a kind of arbitrage where I said, I know how these work sales were and I can maybe adapt it to Saudi and have a bit of an edge. And as an easy other, that's what we do. We move around, we talk to different cultures, have different experiences and as a result, you can innovate or find a better path. I like to say that one of my claims to fame was that I launched the first Google Ads campaigns for an airline could be all together in the Middle East, but I don't want to stretch the claim. But certainly Saudi Arabia because I have seen Google Ads in Mexico, in the US, there were still no Google Ads in Saudi or not prominently. And I said maybe we can try this. And that was innovation and very cool. I saw how we have, for example, a database that we use on a system to send notifications by SMS to people when we had to cancel the flights or reschedule flights. And I said, well, maybe we can use those same SMSS to text messages to do some marketing or promote flights or send out promos. So I did some queries with Sequel to find travellers that travel off in a certain route and send them so those SMSS and I could go on and on board. What I'm saying, Nick, is that it gave me that summer internship and the subsequent 2 years. There was just so much to do that you will never be bored. You could keep on innovating and and most importantly, you have a very high sense of fulfillment at seeing that your efforts were helping build infrastructure for a whole country and a nation. And just to come full circle, Nick, I go back to Saudi two years ago, 2 1/2 years ago and flying us the early days airline. I had a chance to be part of IPO two years ago, largest low cost airline in the in the Middle East to this day. So I kept on coming back to Saudi because I filled home with the friendships that I made. I found a country that is stable, safe, with great leadership on how they want to modernize their country. I found a country with a clear identity. Saudi doesn't want to become a Western country. They want to keep their identity, but modernized, which I think is how all emerging markets should think about their development. And finally, a place where there was still so much to do that that it was very fulfilling to keep on coming back and leave my mark and my prints into the different projects there. Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely. I think that is what is so exciting about emerging markets, especially the places like Saudi that have the ability to do this is that it is really that blank canvas where you can come in and be more hands on and have more of an impact than you might in a professional services job. That you might in a more developed market where you're just improving things at the margins rather than having such a huge impact that you can see in front of you. And so I think that's really exciting. I think the other aspect that you touched on that I really liked was that of course there's a market opportunity all these places, but you still are a human, you still are arriving in these places. And if you land in the country and you're there and business is going well and all that, But if you don't feel home, if you don't have the people there, eventually that's not going to be sustainable. You're not going to want to stay forever. I think people talk about, OK, I'm going to go to this place and make as much money as I can in the next few years and then go back to where I come from. And that could work. But I think if you really want to have the kind of impact that you've had, you need to be in a place where you feel home and you feel accepted and you really understand the culture if you have those friends there. Riyadh's Evolution: From 2009 to 2024 And I guess my follow up would be, I mean, you mentioned returning to Saudi and seeing the changes and seeing that company IPO. What were some of the biggest differences between Saudi and 2024 versus 2009? I mean, I know the country's changed rapidly. So when you landed in 2009, what do you see? What What was the difference today compared to back then? Speaker 2 Wow. First landing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Whether that happened in the 80s or in 2009, still was for me the first time or someone who's just headed over right now for the very first time to to Riyadh. It's something you never forget. All of us who have ever been to Saudi, you've been to Saudi. You remember what it is to look out the window, look down, be like here we are. What did I find in 2009? I land in 2009. Riyadh, for those of you who've never been to Riyadh, is today a 6 million people metropolitan area, very, very sprawled in the middle of a desert and a very harsh weather environment in the summer is very, very hot. The winters are cold and as I said, it was very unfamiliar. And if I was to double click Nick on what was so unfamiliar to me when I landed there first, is that life. Life happened behind closed doors. Back in the day. If you would drive from the airport to the city, you see some businesses and shops and restaurants, but the the day-to-day life with the people who live there, a lot of it happened privately in home villas, closed doors. So it was a little bit hard to decipher society if you were not part of those behind the closed doors kind of settings. It was a country 2009 where from an economic standpoint, the key industries were obviously oil and gas and every other side industry that supports oil and gas like logistics, shipping, you, you name it, petrochemicals. There were other core industries that any country needs to run, you know, financial services, education, healthcare. But but the way of life in Riyadh was very conservative, very traditional, and it was a way where, again, if someone from another part of the world would come there or vice versa, it felt like he was more secluded, more private, more closed off. Just travelling there, Nick, was nearly impossible. You needed a visa. It was very hard to get a local company to issue one for you. And there was absolutely no way to just go there as a tourist because you want to check it out. The only tourism back in the day was religious pilgrimage. Saudi Arabia is the home to the holy Mosques in Islam, in Mecca and Medina. So there's hundreds and millions of Muslims that go for pilgrimage. But anyways, I think I'm painting painting a clear picture of what I find. I find a country that is mostly closed off works very well and it's safe, but there's just a few industries that are core to the to the Kingdom and not a lot of foreigners or expats coming in and out. And travel is mostly religious pilgrimage to another part of Saudi which is not Riyadh. The city itself compact. There were two main buildings. There was the Kingdom Tower with The Four Seasons there. There was the Faisalia Tower with the Rosewood Hotel back in the day. Today there's a Mandarin Oriental, and if you had, if you have a meeting back in the day in Riyadh, you could guarantee it was going to be at the lobby of The Four Seasons or at the lobby of the Rosewood. So life was very, in a way, very, very simple. I visit over the years, things don't really change materially and I don't visit between 2016 and 2024. And something material happened in that time period. When I visited in 2016, King Salman was already in power. His son, His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince was was, you know, relatively newly in in his role. And then a couple years later, Nick the vision twenty 30s crafted and get started. And I miss all of that picture until 2024. What I find in 2024 when I come back to Riyadh to attend leap in February is a completely different city. I actually could not recognize Riyadh going from the airport to the city back in the day. That drive was just desert and a lot of construction sites. And today was an incredible world class metropoli with university shopping centres, residential developments, office towers, businesses open at all times of day. And then back to the main thing that made it the bit less familiar for me the first time, which was I couldn't see a lot of social life outside of closed doors. Now I see a society and a country that is out there experiencing going out, eating in a restaurant, shopping, and life is not happening in public. And that was just really, really beautiful to find. So in summary, I find a society that is now living their identity and culture publicly and proudfully. I find a country with arms wide open to welcome folks from all over the planet and I find people living there now in very, very exciting projects and and initiatives and businesses, especially LEAP, which attracted investors and people in technology from all walks of life all over the world. I could not believe to see a rehab where I would see people from all over the world to attend an event in a country that otherwise it was almost impossible to obtain a visa to visit 17 years ago. Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. I mean, coming from the US division, we always had of a Saudi is, you know, women are not driving and it's so conservative and maybe there are oil people who are in compounds there, but you don't really there's not that much going on there. And then when I came to visit you and saw what was going on at Flow, it was just, it blew my mind. I mean, it was more progressive than a lot of, in a lot of ways than places in the US. And I guess maybe to give people a picture of the sort of society that exists there, maybe you could talk a little bit more about Flow, the type of people who are living there, whether they were locals or expats, just to maybe give a picture of where Saudi is today. Creating Welcoming Residential Communities in Riyadh Sure. So I go back to and a half years ago to launch Flow in Saudi Arabia. Flow this, this company from Miami that creates a living experience in residential real estate for people to live in community, live in Wellness and well-being with themselves. And we are now opening these different Flow communities in Riyadh, close to 1000 apartments in in three or four different communities across the city. And what attracted me to the opportunity of going back to Saudi with Flow was that I'd have the opportunity at creating environments. Where people could have a soft landing experience if they decided to move to Saudi. A country I love and a country that the experience I had coming 17 years ago was different. You know, it was harder to navigate and settle. But I thought, you know, if we create these environments with flow, we'll make it easier for people to land and settle in Riyadh. That was point number one point #2 the beauty of what I experienced in Saudi the first time was meeting Saudis, befriending Saudis, finding what, what brought us closer and what commonalities we had rather than what would, what would make us difference. And going back to and a half years ago, I thought that if we had those communities where Saudis are also welcome and they can live there, of course is their country and, and, and, and a foreigner would have the opportunity to have us a neighbor or a Saudi friend or invite a Saudi friend over to their apartment and experience life together. I thought that would, that would make the experience for everyone involved richer and help us build those bridges and connections. So when so that's what we did with the communities at, at Flow. Who lives in a community at Flow in Riyadh? You have people from all countries in the world as far as Korea and Japan and Singapore in the east to Americans and Canadians and Colombians and Brazilians and people from the region from Lebanon and Jordan and India and Pakistan. And the list is long. And you have Saudi citizens as well who who live in these communities. Many of these folks are new to Saudi Arabia. They just relocated for a, a professional opportunity. In the case of the Saudis, one thing we would see is Saudis who maybe lived overseas in London, in the US, Dubai and they were relocating to Saudi. And when they would see a community like Flow, they said that's, that's great because it reminds me of, of where I lived in Miami, where I lived in London, where I lived in, in Chicago. And, and we had Saudis who moved into Flow coming back from the, from their posting overseas. We saw also mixed families and couples. You could see a Saudi citizen married with someone from, from the UK, someone from Turkey, someone from US. And then Flow became a great place where both of these cultures could, could be well, when coming back to Saudi. And the list is really, really long of, of the type of people living there. But in general, it's communities where people are very open minded. People are looking at what brings them together and what specifically brings them together in these communities are things like Wellness, well-being, community building activities, work opportunities. And you have all sort of households as well. You have people who are there on their own, people who are there with their couple, their partner or people were there with their children and their their families. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's really interesting that there are Saudis actually want to live there too, and who have lived overseas. But something I realized recently just reading about the country and what's been going on, is that the government actually had sponsored quite a few young Saudis to go study overseas. And so obviously, if they're living there, they'll be, you know, picking up different interests and lifestyles that may not have existed in Saudi in the past. And so when they come back now, they need a place for that. And I guess Flow could serve that purpose. I guess my next question would be, I know that you're doing your own thing now. I was wondering why you learned at Flow that kind of gave you the idea that there is an opportunity in Saudi for what you are working on now? Supporting Professionals and Businesses in Riyadh So today, Nick, I started my company in Saudi Arabia. It's technology company services. I'll, I'll talk about it in a second. The experience of starting my own company in Saudi was also incredible. It's a country right now that is attracting foreign investment and it's inviting people to be entrepreneurs. The Ministry of investment in Saudi Arabia was tremendously helpful in getting my company off the ground and many other government bodies to, to help us there. So I start my company 3 months ago on the basis of something I learned a flow. I saw a flow on an experience. And what I do today, Nick, is I support top performers, professionals who relocate to re add into re establishing all the supports and components they need to be successful and be well starts with a house and a home. But it it's a long list of of elements that a human needs to be very well home school for the children if they have children, access to healthcare, well-being, community introductions, 1 referrals. My goal is that if you had systems in London or Dubai or Singapore that you had around you to be successful, we will support you in recreating them as fast as possible in Riyadh so you can be successful. At the same time, we also support foreign entities that are looking at doing business in Saudi Arabia, entering the market in a very similar capacity. What does success look like for your company exploring or already in flight coming into Saudi and how can we reverse engineer and support you through the journey? That's what we do at Manara and how we ended up there. It's really a personal life experience of relocating globally, you know, a bunch of times all over the world, over and over again. Having to do those two things myself, having to be in a new place, new country, new environment, as an executive, as a global executive, and had to restart my whole life. And then on the other hand, what took me to all these places very often was taking a company that was based elsewhere, say in the United States, and expand this company internationally. So I've expanded an American company to Canada. I've expanded an American company to Mexico. I set up, I set up companies in the UK, in Singapore and now and now with Flow, that's what I did. I supported an American company entering Saudi be successful. So I said, what would it look like if these two things could be offered as a service? And then specifically now over the last two years where we, the team at Flow, we filled up close to 1000 apartments with people coming from every single walk of life and background and part of the world. What you will do every single day is have conversations like this one with someone who's fresh in Riyadh, is coming with a mission, maybe first time they're on the ground and you're helping them. Sure, with the housing portion and all the wonderful things Flo had to offer. But as I would talk to these folks, I would understand that there were many other kind of supports and help they would need to succeed on the mission that brought them to Saudi first, as well as things their families would need, their partners, their children. So I said let me go and build this whole holistic service, you know, with AI and technology, but ultimately helping a human or a business succeeding Saudi. So that's what gave me in a way, the the idea that I saw on the ground every day over over 2 years in Riyadh. Speaker 1 Given your experience of flow, which I guess put most simply is kind of a hospitality real estate company and I know if we will see in the US, you also scaled a property platform to over 10,000 single family units if I'm remembering correctly. Institutionalizing Saudi Arabia's Property Market What would you say is missing in the Saudi property market? What do you think they need, given that there is going to be this influx of expats as well as Saudis themselves who are not going to continue living the way that they may have in the past and behind closed doors? Speaker 2 The the previous experience to going to Flow was an incredible experience in in the United States with a great team Austin based company company called Darwin Homes and Darwin the the founders of Darwin. The team at Darwin created a platform, a property management platform focus on managing single family rentals for institutional investors across the United States. We manage when I by the time I left 6000 homes today, I believe Darwin manages close to 2025 thousand 30,000 homes across the United States. And what I saw or I had the opportunity to work with a very unique team that was assembled at Darwin that came from capital markets, asset management, field renovations, property management, real estate brokerage. Just really a lot of technology folks with technology background to build all the building blocks to create a platform to enable the institutionalization of a specific asset class of real estate in the United States, which is the single family home, a standalone house, standalone dealer. And again, those insights were very telling and educational to know how many of these components have to come together for real estate to work as an asset class of institutional scale rather than mom and pop. Then when I go to Saudi, what I see is that the market is just at that point in time where what I saw in the US happened a few years prior is about to start in Saudi Arabia. Historical in Saudi, in residential real estate, the you didn't really have a sophisticated institutionalized market. You could say it was more mom and pop, a person who owns a couple apartments or villas renting it to someone else. And the only wedge of more institutionalized real estate, residential real estate inventory you would find would be in the foreigner communities called compounds, those residential compounds that were intentionally built for foreigners with amenities and services and a team running them. So like a small MVP of what like an institutionalized version of real estate looks like. So I'm there in rehab and I say, well, with the changes of the Vision 2030, people coming from all over the world to make rehab their home, Saudis now having lived all over the world and coming back to their own country, it was clear that there will be a significant transformation on how folks would understand renting a place, whether you're a foreigner or a Saudi citizen. That would not really be relevant. What was relevant is that people today want to live in an environment where they have, as you call it, a hospitality real estate, hospitality, residential real estate. You want to fill home, you want to have services, you want to have amenities, you want to be able to invite a friend over. You want to you want to have that kind of living environment. So that's where I see the elements of that institutionalization. And what's happening today, Nick, is now you have all those market participants coming together in Saudi Arabia and a very exciting time for residential real estate. You have local capital allocators, you have global capital allocators coming to the market. You have family offices that have significant land banks. You have a country and leadership in the country saying land is not good, we need land develops. We can provide homes for our people and and and enable the economy. So you have policy that is aligning the incentives for development and now you have more and more operators that can take on this real estate and run it world class like what I had seen in the States. You have a massive exploding technology ecosystem of startups in prop tech that are trying to solve every possible use case point solution that you need to run real estate. And and then you have the demand, which is the most important, right? If the consumer doesn't want it, then it doesn't work. But you have a demand from foreigners and Saudis who say, I want a product that speaks to my needs today and and they're willing to pay for it. So right now the market is very active in residential real estate in, in Saudi across any part of the value chain, the in in the space. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's, it's really interesting because if you look at emerging markets and there's the opportunity to develop them, But I think what's different in Saudi is that you already have these compounds there. You already have the the the real estate that's been developed. It just needs to be institutionalized and then not only are you relying on expats that you know there, there may be absent flows in terms of when they come, but there is that large number of Saudis who are returning home. So I think it really gives them more sustainable opportunity than a lot of emerging markets. But then you also get the, you know, the reward of an emerging market that's doing this for the first time. So very exciting place to be. Why Saudi is a Hub for Entrepreneurs I guess you've also talked a little bit about, you know, starting businesses there and that foreigners can now own 100% of business in Saudi, which is pretty exciting. As well as when you just talk a little bit more about what you're seeing with entrepreneurs, why it might be a good place for NBA graduate who's looking to do something new. What options are there for them in Saudi and what should they think about before they come to Saudi? Because obviously every emerging market has its own unique peculiarities and entrepreneurship is never easy. So it could be helpful to have a few tips on what it might take to be successful as an entrepreneur in Saudi. Speaker 2 Absolutely, Nick. So first, I would invite everyone with the with the entrepreneurial bug to consider Saudi as a place to crystallize and channel that that bug. What you're going to find in Saudi Arabia today are some conditions that make entrepreneurship really very, very appealing. You will find a nation leadership, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a clear guideline to say we want to attract innovation. We want to attract the best in the world to come and help us deliver on the vision for our country and our people. That cascades down to every government entity that will support you as an entrepreneur to succeed. I personally had to deal with two main entities that were phenomenal. One of them is Munshad, which is the small and medium, small, medium business authority in Saudi Arabia. The other one, they're very, very helpful. They have a million different programs, resources, webinars at your disposal to to, to get started. I had to deal also with the Ministry of Investment, the investor relations team, which have been spectacular at helping me navigate open doors problems all together. They really want you to come and succeed in Saudi. There is now, Nick, a program on their entrepreneurship where if you have an idea, a business plan, and it's a business plan that is aligned with the goals of the Kingdom, you can submit it for review and approval. And that's going to open the path for you as a foreigner to incorporating Saudi, an entity that you own 100%. No. No local partners, no, no other strings attached. Is your entity the way we'll be in, in, in Dubai, in London, in, in in the States? And then the list is long of the other benefits that you find in Saudi Arabia and AQ you've been there. It's a very peaceful country, very stable. Many people don't know it. The land mass of Saudi is the size of Mexico. It's a large country population wise you are over 30 million people. Canada, we're we're here in Canada has 3030 million unchanged 30 something so significant population then an economic pyramid, a demographic pyramid, sorry of I believe around 60% of population under 30 years old around that figure. So you have a young country of, of people who want to consume, experience, grow and very changing a local population that is globally exposed and that wants to see now in their country all their services innovations that they see elsewhere adapted and and and ideally incubated within their country. You then, Nick, have the crossroads right now is is really the the silk growth. You know, you've been to reality. This is right now probably the place in the planet with the highest density of talent from every possible industry. So you have a very significant talent density. And then in the young Saudi population, you have very bright young Saudi men and women who want to grow, want to learn, want to build their country. And if you come to Saudi with an idea, with experience from overseas, they will be very eager to learn, but also to contribute. So as you think about building a team in Saudi, you will find just top caliber young, young Saudi men and, and women. So then finally, you know, when we talk about entrepreneurship or, or technology folks, you'll be shocked to find a country where a lot of the governmental platforms and procedures are fully digitalized. You can most, most ways of interacting with the government are digital and they're crazy efficient. So it's really surprising to find Saudi today that makes it so easy to do business for folks like you and me. That's, that's a lot in, in, in answer #1 And then I would say the second reason like why someone starting at Asia today, like I was in 2009 should consider coming to Saudi is Saudi Arabia. Not only is a very significant player in the Middle East and globally part of the G20 and really taking a leadership role in the world, you know, the Today very well deserved, but it's a country that's going to continue modernizing over the next 2034 years. So if you are at the INSEA today and you're 232932 or in an advanced education, Saudi is the perfect hatch in terms of your career because it's a place where you will be able to keep on coming back over the years to keep on working, whether you're based in Saudi or you are based back in your home country. But Saudi is really playing today a global role. So significant real underground experience in Saudi will will be a very good thing to have as part of your your professional experiences. Speaker 1 Yes, it's definitely one of the brightest spots in the world today. And I think to that last point on how it is positioning itself in the world, something that interested me when I was in Saudi is that the students, they're like the kids are learning Mandarin Chinese in school as well as English. And really just shows that they are kind of at that crossroads with that Silk Road and they're playing to that West and the East. And I think it's clear that they will keep going over the long term to the point on, you know, whether NC editor should come there. I think it is actually become a more popular spot for NC Ed grads. It's not like 2009 when you came in, you were the only guy that even thought about going there. And so maybe from your experience, could you give any advice on how an NC editor could hit the ground running and. I know for you it was a little bit of a struggle first before you met people. And so let's say, OK, I got an offer at BCG in Riyadh or I got an offer at flying US in Riyadh. What do I, what should I do in the 1st 90 days? What should I do to make sure that I get settled and I just keep living that life that I had in London or Vancouver or wherever else and adapt well to Saudi within the time frame that would allow me to get up to speed quickly enough? Navigating Saudi: Relationships and Timelines The pace of work in Saudi Arabia is very intense, and it's very intense because there's a mission, the clock is sticking, we have a vision, we have results, we have to deliver for 20302034 and many other things on the way. So it's very, very intense, something you have not experienced before, even at INSI. At INSI is a very intense program, but Saudis are a different level right now. I think something very important for someone who's coming fresh, landing in Riyadh has an exciting opportunity. In those first 90 days, you want to make sure you have the setup that is going to support you to perform at your best in the long term. And what's very challenging, Nick, to land it is that in those 90 days, you're being pulled in many directions at the same time. First, your job. Your job is waiting for you and they expect you to perform from the first day, especially if you're a season executive. At the same time, you might have left your family back home because you might be working on their visas and that's challenging, and you might have a family member from back back home calling you. Did you find where we're going to live? Are the visas ready? Did you find the school for the kids? What do you mean there's no, no, no, no waiting list? It introduces a lot of pressure and friction and then finally you as a back to, to being, you know, an executive or an investor who's coming to launch their business in Saudi. You don't have context and Saudi Arabia is a very high context society like you'll be with Japan and and other, you know, more Asian societies. What is a lot of context? So if you don't have that context, it's very hard to read the tea leaves and feel at home and and lighten and succeed. So that's the advice for folks when they come fresh, that they are really mindful that they're entering a different environment, goes very fast-paced, but they're still being likely pulled in many different directions, which is what one experiences where you relocate internationally. So ask for help. We're there to help reach out, connect so you can so we can help you make the load a little bit easier because we have walked the path over and over that. That is one, Nick. The second is a reminder that in an economy like Saudi Arabia, in a country like Saudi Arabia, relationships are very important and they take long time to to develop. They're developed over years, over decades and, and really business runs on the basis of trust and relationships, not on the basis of your slide deck, not on the basis of your MBA degree or, or your, or your, the company you work for, but relationships. So in those early days, the advice I give over and over again is don't run our tendency as alpha types and MBA grads. It's, it's to get stuff done. And that was one of my big errors as well and and mistakes. When I went back to Saudi the second time I landed and I started like firing across all cylinders and trying to get stuff done. And that was the incorrect approach. The correct approach is slower, build relationships, gain the context, see to it yourself. And that's going to make it smoother and then smooth will make it very fast. The quick formula is if it would take you elsewhere in the world a couple weeks, a month to figure things out, maybe multiply times 3, right? Just just take it a bit slower at the beginning. Understanding Cultural Nuances in Saudi Business Yeah, I think that is something that is necessary to keep in mind is when you're going to a new country, there are different cultural differences. And a lot of times it is, I mean, everyone in the world, trust matters. But I think if, especially if you're coming as an outsider, you need to take that time. I do appreciate your comment on understanding the context there. I mean, obviously, I think that's something that also just takes time to understand. But if you have maybe a top two or three ideas of ways that foreigners typically misunderstand context or make mistakes by missing, it would be interesting just to hear what people could do better in in terms of that. Speaker 2 Sure. So one of the things I see, Nick, is when I have a conversation with a foreigner in Riyadh that maybe he's struggling, right? Maybe he's been there for six months or a year and and something still doesn't doesn't feel fully right. One of my first questions is, have you developed a relationship with a Saudi? With a Saudi? And they look at me a bit confusing. Yeah, of course I work with Saudis. I see them at the office. And this is like, that's that's not the question. The question is, have you developed a meaningful relationship? And then I will dump it down to say, have you shared the meal with a Saudi, not at the office grabbing lunch, but like, have you sat down for that? So I think a misconception is it's a it's a bit bad, right? Is that maybe in other settings or parts of the world or economies, who you see at the work might not be too different who you see after work for a drink or for dinner or for lunch. But in Saudi, you know, when we sit down to get to know each other, build a relationship, you'll find an opening that is very different to the same person that you meet at the office maybe or outside of the intimacy of a home or that kind of gathering. The simple hack is no matter where you Live Today, you don't have to be in Saudi. You will find a Saudi citizen. We talked about the government of Saudi Arabia being so intentional about sending their students, their youth all over the world to learn to to study. So that's the starting point. Nick, go grab a meal with someone from the country. Starlighting the culture from day one. I think a common misconception is that people confuse the kindness and generosity and openness of Saudis to host you when you come to listen to you, what you have to offer your idea, your business. They might confuse that with actual traction from a business development and opportunity standpoint, right? Folks might say, hey, I, I had just 20 meetings in this week. It seems like things are going great. People are loving the idea, the product, the investment, the pitch and then six months later you're confused on on why, why we have not signed the deal. And I think that's a misconception, right. So to confuse openness and generosity and hospitality, to welcome you, to listen to you with commercial traction, usually, you know, it takes quite a bit of time in Saudi Arabia to show up, to build trust, to be consistent before someone will say, give you a shot at doing business with you, investing in you or even working for your company, right. That's, that's will be one of the most pressing that I see over and over folks confusing that that access they have with actual traction. I'd say point #2 if you don't know much about Saudi on the context, you'll think that capabilities you're looking for in Saudi, you might not find them because you might come with a bias from home. For you, you could say, well, back home, I have this specific part of the economy or this specific skill profile of people in my country that have the skill, but I'm sure they don't exist in Saudi. And let me give you one example that is personal. When I came Open Flow, when I came part of the team that launched Flow in Saudi Arabia 2 1/2 years ago in our Miami operation, we had a lot of Wellness as part of the offering, which meant that in the Flow communities, you'd have yoga teachers, personal trainers, people who could lead a breathwork session. And I thought, I'm not going to find those kind of folks in Saudi Arabia because the culture I remembered was more conservative, more traditional and, and I, and I thought I would have to deal only with expats and foreigners for those modalities. And I was very surprised to find now Saudi citizens, men and women who have taken their yoga certifications in Bali and they're teaching yoga in Saudi. And they're like, wow, this is pretty cool. And that's just one example of every possible thing you, you can imagine, right? For example, this evening we're going to have here in Toronto a meet up with a technology meet up. And in this technology, you have a lot of Saudis who are starting advanced degrees in AI here in, in Toronto, Canada, right? So, so you have a nation and a population full of like talented, eager people to, to participate. That's, that's the second one. And then I think 1/3 Nick, is that the way of business and the cadence and the times and the seasons in Saudi are very unique. And if you don't know what you're looking at, you can be very confused. Now let me give you 3 or 4 or 5 rapid fire. The working week runs Sunday to Thursday. Very commonly someone there might be like, oh, tomorrow is Sunday, so I cannot see you and like, no, Sunday is when we start the week something as silly as that, you know. Then just within the day you have as a pillars of Islam, the five prayers in Islam where where you have to pause to to do your five prayers. So a day-to-day routine, you will hear calls to prayers and some of the activities reorganized around prayer times. You'll have religious festivities like Ramadan, Aid, Al Fitr, Aidal Hatch that are very significant and the whole economy is organized around that. And finally, weather. So the summertime is very tough all across Saudis except for in the South. That is very nice and cool in the mountains in APA. But in Riyadh and Jeddah and other places, economy really slows down and a lot of the Saudis are away and a lot of the foreigners are also away. So as a first timer in Saudi Arabia, trying to decipher all these cadences, time, seasonalities is difficult. So you need to change how you operate your business plan back home. Could be I have six months to deliver this, so I slice my Gantt chart in weekly deliverables and whatnot. In Saudi, you need to work around all these situations for you to be successful. Adapting to Saudi's Unique Business Rhythms Sure. Yeah. I think all of it just requires more cultural and and market knowledge and you're clearly going to a new culture. You're not just entering a market that's the same as anywhere else. You got to figure out the people are there, the geography, the climate, all of that impacts things. But on the point of finding people who have different talents or different interests, I mean, that was what really blew me away when I came to visit U of Flow. And there are people who are well experienced, breath work, plant medicine, things like that. I mean, I had no idea how can you feel like that in Saudi? But it just shows how how globalized the world is today. And when you have educated people in an emerging market that go study overseas, live overseas, they, they pick these things up. And so you can't make assumptions about anywhere you, you do go. But when it comes to the first point you made, I have also heard that from maybe people who are a bit more cynical, they'll say things like every meeting in the Middle East is a good meeting. And then meaning that, you know, you never know whether you're making traction or not. And I was curious if you have any thoughts on how you really know whether you are making the traction or not or how to gauge whether it's just politeness or the people actually are interested in your business idea or working for you or anything else that goes beyond that kind of service relationship? Persistence is Key for Saudi Business Success I think it's not Nick. It's really starts with just what it is to be an entrepreneur, which is you. You have an idea on how the work the, the world can be different and how you can channel your idea, your vision into the world to make the world a better place. It's simplistically speaking. And in that process, not everyone will see the world the way you see it. Not everyone will see with the clarity. And, and that's the journey you embark on. You embark on a journey that that you, you, you have a conviction and sometimes you meet people in the journey that support you and work that journey with you. And sometimes you meet obstacles for people who cannot see that vision all together. I'd say that when you come to Saudi or anywhere and you are, you know, you, you have your plan, you have your vision and you start having these meetings, the very meeting is a good meeting. I think what you have to just keep doing as a, as a if, if we're talking specifically a bit about being an entrepreneur or a business development, you have to keep going. You have to keep making progress. And I think the misunderstanding is 1, where you say I'm going to go to Saudi, I'm going to ask for money and someone will give me the money to deliver on my vision. Like that doesn't really make much sense, right? And then of course, every meeting is a good meeting. Well, it's actually your vision, not their vision, you know, And I think the the recipe, Nick is continue making progress, continue showing up, continue being consistent, knocking down the obstacles and barriers. And eventually that's what you show to folks. You show that you are someone worth partnering with, investing in, working with, because you keep showing up the way you would do it just starting a company regardless. That's where I've seen better traction. And because you're not necessarily waiting for a counterparty to to act, you just keep on making progress. So I'd say if you're looking at expanding into Saudi Arabia, doing business in Saudi, launching your concept there, work on a plan that is a plan that is very bootstrapped that you can just keep on doing progress. And what that's going to create is that's going to give them the space to everyone else you want on the journey to figure it out, to resolve their other conflicting set of constraints. They also have to join your journey at the right time. Many of the Saudis I interact with who are in real estate, in government, in private equity, in family offices, in in, in fund management, they're extremely busy people, like very busy right there. Days are very draining. They start early. Very often they go till very late till a match lease at 1-2 in the morning. And then the next day starts again over and over, multiple board seats, multiple commitments. You are not the only thing they have on their agenda and schedule. That's what I've learned, right? So just keep on making progress. Keep all your stakeholders involved and in the journey, but don't depend on someone making a decision on your timeline because likely that's not going to be the case. But it will happen. It will happen in a timeline that works for all parties involved. Very different to how we might do business in the States or Canada where we have a clear timeline, a term sheet dates and it happens or it doesn't happen, right. That's it's very different how how it happens in Saudi. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think a lot of people have the idea that Saudi or the Gulf states in general, it's a place that's just this land of riches where you can go and make fast, quick money. And you know, that may have had some truth at some point, but I think as you mentioned, the global talent that's there and the education of the people have there, the investors there are as sophisticated as anywhere. And so you actually have to have something that's worthwhile for them. It's just as hard as entrepreneurship anywhere. I would assume that you need a good traction, you need actually have something that people want to buy and then eventually maybe you can get the investment going to your own firm now, I mean, it seems that you are kind of taking that bootstrapping approach where you're starting out as a service business. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that and why you decided to take that approach versus launching an app or a platform or something like that? Human Connection in Manara's Service Model Great, great question, Nick. So at at Menorah, as I said, we help individuals and companies come and be successful in in Saudi Arabia and it's yeah, it's just it's not just an app. We have a lot of apps right on our phones and where there's a lot of websites and tech. But ultimately, ultimately in Saudi Arabia, what I see is a market and economy. And let me just specifically talk about lifestyle living service industry, elevated service industries. Today in Saudi Arabia you have very sophisticated service offerings across the full spectrum of lifestyle related services, schools, healthcare providers, Wellness providers, housing providers, social clubs, so on and so forth. For the individual, for the for the businesses looking at entering Saudi. I briefly touched on multiple government or semi government bodies and entities that are there to support you through your journey. However, the navigating both the lifestyle offerings, navigating the, the, the resources for you to set up your business, it's still complex. And I think, I think what I see with people relocating or with business owners, executives bringing a business into Saudi, I see a gap that is more cultural, how to do business awareness context. And I thought, Nick, that the best way to bridge this gap is again, through people, through individuals in my firm that have the training context, hospitality training, cultural training that can meet with you and support you through those journeys, whether you're a business or an individual. And then technology stays in the back to support me and my team to be more effective, more personalized, bespoke, automated workflows, AI, what not. But ultimately what a person or what a business wants to hear is how will you support them? How will life be better for them? How will you support their business? They don't want to hear, here's my app, you know, they want to hear, speak to me, my language. So again, bridging this gap, Nick, I think nothing does it does as a human. And in my team, I'm I'm proud today to say that my first hires in Saudi Arabia have actually been Saudi citizens. In my previous experience in the last two years, I had to hire a lot of foreigners at first. But today I have Saudis who have lived overseas, storied hospitality in the UK, one of them my first team member. And now today these young Saudi man in my firm and a few others that are that have joined and are joining now have the opportunity to to welcome you into their country, to support you through that journey as a person or as a business. And I think nothing better, Nick, than as a newcomer into a country that your first touch point is not an app, but is a citizen of the country that understands who you are and how to support you in that journey as I felt it 17 years ago. So basically I'm recreating what I felt from a human standpoint 17 years ago, both powered by technology and and AI. With that said, there is a a road map where this technology keeps on growing and enabling many more people to to settle on a more tech first approach. And then in terms of the funding, I thought that it would be better to bootstrap these business at first and I'm funding it myself with another few strategic angels that participate in these different sectors of the economy in Saudi and the and the Middle East as well. That's that's what we're doing at the moment. A Personal Journey and Vision for Saudi What kind of long term impact would you like to have on Saudi? Speaker 2 Long term impact, the long term impact I'd like to have in Saudi is supporting Saudi or building capabilities in the country in a way that when people from anywhere in the world come to Saudi Arabia, they can feel home and they can write the best chapters of their lives in Saudi Arabia working alongside Saudi citizens and vice versa. I like to leave a mark in a way that whatever infrastructure, business, technology ideas I leave. It gives Saudi citizens a great sense of pride. They already have it. But I want to, you know, add to to that great sense of pride of the country what they have to offer to support them in the modernization of their their country. And in a way that it's also easy for people from all other countries and cultures to join these efforts to build the country that Saudis aspire to have in that vision. And I do that again by this, this bridging, this connecting people, this helping people see the world through each other lenses, which gets them to better collaborate and, and and work together. Speaker 1 Definitely, yeah. It seems like it's coming from your heart, something that you're really passionate about it, because as we're coming up on time now, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get a chance to yet? Speaker 2 I, I think I would wrap it up by saying, Nick, that what started as a wild idea in what seems like a wild idea in 2009 of applying to this job, internship in Saudi was really a very deep personal, spiritual, transformative journey for myself. I went to INSEAD. I was not sponsored. I did not have a plan after INSEAD and I had to start my career or restart my career from scratch. And Saudi gave me that opportunity. Saudi Arabia gave me in the summer of 2009, the opportunity to show up as I was. I was not judged. I was not, you know, I was just welcome as long as I was willing to be respectful and open about the new culture I found myself. I was given a country to develop a career and identity, friendships to keep on visiting again over the years and up until now. Fast forward, right, I, I brought my family there, my, my children experienced Saudi, which was a dream of mine. And today I can stay in the country, start my company and pay back in a very small way all the goods I received from the country by by bringing business and, and and creating jobs and opportunities. And that for me really is a full circle, Nick, of why I went to INSEAD to, to go to a school that would give me a platform to do business globally, but also allow me to, to do, to do good in business, you know, and this, this has been a journey of, of a lot of growth. And I'm very, very grateful to, to Saudi, I'm grateful to INSEAD and I'm grateful with everyone along the way who lend the hand to, to get here. And I wrap it up the way Nick, now it's my time to pay it back, pay forward, forward. And would love to hear from anyone who who's thinking of coming to Saudi. I would love to lend that hands so they can also write that chapter themselves of of their lives. Speaker 1 Yeah, anyone should definitely reach out to him. I mean, even my short two week visit there, Victor made me feel really at home and I'm sure he would for any other Enciada that came out. So really excited for this next step of your journey and I'm glad that we finally got the chance to do this. Speaker 2 Thank you very much, Nick. Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us for this episode of the NC AD Emerging Markets Podcast. To stay up to date on events we may be hosting Emerging Market news, and to build your personal network, please feel free to join the NC AD Alumni Emerging Markets Interest Group on LinkedIn.