Leena Khalil is a Partner at Key Capital and co-founder of Mumzworld, a leading parenting platform acquired by Tamer Group. Previously, she worked in investment banking and business process outsourcing in London.
Leena has been named one of the top female entrepreneurs by Forbes Middle East for four consecutive years, including the most recent Forbes 2023 list. Additionally, she was recognized as one of the most powerful retail leaders by Retail ME in 2023.
She serves on the board of APIC, a publicly listed company focused on driving investments to Palestine. Leena is also a member of the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa) Board of Advisors, a mentor at the Win Fellowship, and a judge supporting Eureka!, the Gulf region edition of Asia's Largest Business Model Competition.
Contact Links
Leena’s LinkedIn account: @Leena Khalil
Key Capital’s Website: https://www.key.capital/
Transcript:
Ali Zewail: Welcometo Startups Arabia podcast. My guest today is Leena Khalil. Leena is co founderof MumzWorld and partner at Key Capital. I'm very excited to talk to her because I would say that she is one of the experts on e commerce in the region.She's had the experience. Such a long run with the MumzWorld, taking it to great heights.And, I'm hoping to learn a lot, uh, about that and about the secondaries market with Key Capital, during the conversation. Thank you very much for joining us, Leena.
So. Let me get into it. Lena, you graduated from CambridgeUniversity and you had this long professional career, things like investmentbanking and, um, uh, business process outsourcing and things like that. Andthen kind of, it seems that. In the time between 2008 and 2011, there was atransition period and you kind of ended up founding mom's world with, uh, Mona.And, um, so tell me more about that. What, what happened thattime and what, what's thebackstory Leena Khalil: So Annain 2006 and 7 I, I became a mom and then I became a mom again and then I becamea mom again in 2009. So I was, uh, I basically took time out and started afamily. And I think when you become a parent and a lot of you'll see that a lotof people start businesses right after they become a parent And it'sinteresting how many parents I meet who don't start a baby business But start abusiness right after they become and you think this is the worst time in yourlife to do it But somehow you want to give back to the world or you want tocreate something about becoming a parent One stretches you and teaches you thatyou're capable of more And two you're you definitely want The universe you'rein to deliver more to you and to your kids So you find that you know, I met alady recently.She just had two very young children She launched a hydrationbusiness. I mean absolutely the worst time to do it, but it's very common It'sit's you know, I wasn't unique. There's a lot of people who do the sameAli Zewail: and, andwhat's the, I mean, what made you start that specific business, uh, mom'sworld? Uh, if you can tell us also about mom's world,for those who don't know it. Leena Khalil: So, soMomsold today is the largest platform in the region for everything, mother,baby, and child in terms of content creation, community and selling productstoday. It's the largest, and it's really the largest platform in Arabic andreally just goes Arabic first things of the consumer, the local consumer first.It's not, you know, Amazon has a baby section, but it's, One ofmany markets and they're not focused on it first. There are some internationalbaby sites that sell locally, but they're not Arabic first and they, they'renot building a local community. So the idea is that this has built ground upand it's built.And if you look at the teams that touch the consumer, a lot ofthem are moms from the region. So everything is being done for the regionalmom. You know, today we touched 3 million moms. We delivered to 22 countries.You know, we focus our marketing on six, but really we, we deliver. I think oneof the biggest countries with a large monthly audience is Iraq.But in terms of e commerce, Iraq is limited. So inshallah, thatcould be another country. I mean, another, another country that we have a hugeaudience, but we don't really do a lot of work as Egypt, just because there's alot of limitations to operating in Egypt, but the audience is there, they'reconsuming the content.They're following our community. So there's a lot of, um,potential there. And, and I guess we're talking to the moms the way they'd liketo listen.Ali Zewail: Okay. Sowhen you were starting your, your, you seemed, I mean, there, there werealready e commerce sites there, but your differentiation or how you saw yourdifferentiation was, as I understand it, uh, focus on the, on the mom and herneeds and regional kind of personalization. Isthat correct? Leena Khalil: So whenmoms world launched, it was the first that really there was nobody doing thisand there was Sue at the time. But if you say that there were many sites doingit, we did start a tad early. And, and for that, we paid the price because themarket wasn't very. Sophisticated, all our partners went ready for e commerce,our suppliers went ready, banks went ready.So we struggled a bit at the beginning because of the ecosystemwas very kind of immature. Um, so if you said, Oh, if we're in the U. S. here,I would say there were a number of players, but in the Middle East, no, we werethe first to market.Ali Zewail: Sothat's, uh, great to hear. You know, e commerce is notoriously hard. It's like,margins are bad, uh, logistics are difficult, um, customer acquisition isexpensive and, and, and, and not so easy. Differentiation is tough, you know,everything is, is, is hard. But, but you guys, made it work. So what were thefirst year or two like to get things off the ground?Leena Khalil: Thefirst year was quite exciting because everything was a breakthrough. It's theminute you try to do things like it's the minute you try to sell outside Dubaiand you try to sell to, you know, not Abu Dhabi or Dubai, or you try to ship toSaudi or you, you know, you try to provide a personalized service on site oryou try to hire more tech people because you are growing your team.Every time you try to make a move. You know, this is when itgot hard. If we were like a lifestyle business and we're just going to staycute and small, and we're just going to do Dubai, I think we would have beenabsolutely fine. But that wasn't the ambition and that was not the plan. So we,um, yeah, we gave ourselves a hard time.It took our partners a long time. To develop and some peoplemoved a lot faster than others, but I, I still have suppliers who come and say,we're really sorry. We didn't take you seriously in the early days, but it is.Ali Zewail: I canimagine their mindset like back in 2011. It's like there is no e commerce playin their industry. So they don't really see the potential as clearly asyou do. And I I, used to say that famous sentence who would buyonline. And I think that's quite funny. Like who would buy online?exactly. Everybody all the time, not to mention COVID. Uh, sohow did you acquire the first customers in those first years in the firstpartners? How did youconvince these people? Leena Khalil: So Ithink what was interesting in the, in the first few years, there was thismotto. Um, that was very true for us, which is wherever there's a mom, there'sa mom's world. And literally we had teams going to schools and nurseries andjust really being wherever there's a mom, there's a mom's world. Because wedidn't, you also have to remember that there wasn't these, there weren't a lotof VCs or I don't think they were VCs.There wasn't a lot of money. So you couldn't just go and spenda lot on marketing. You have to be super, super careful. So if you are careful,you need to do it the old fashioned way, which is give flyers in front ofschool and partner with the schools and give discounts to moms. And, and that'show we acquired our first until today.We really believe in that community. And you did hear me say atthe beginning that mom's world is really a community because at the end of theday, you don't want to just pick up a random website when you just had thebaby. You want to be sure that the website you're working with is somethingdependable because your child is precious.Ali Zewail:Absolutely. And, uh, and so you were like bootstrapped at the beginning. Isthat what you were saying?You were, Leena Khalil: It was,uh, angel investors and, uh, you know, our own money. So my personal money.Yeah. So it was, uh, you had to be careful.Ali Zewail: uh, tooka lot of risk there. So what's the, if you know, what's the secret sauce of agreat e commerce business, what are the things would be founders have to keepin mind based on your experience?Leena Khalil: I don'tknow if there's a secret sauce, but I would just go back to the secret sauce ofevery business, know your customer, you know, your customer and you evolve yourcustomer and really listen, you know, there's a lot of times that you are, youknow, you're collecting data, but you're not listening.Ali Zewail: Yeah, Iknow what you're saying. Okay. Um, but you know, at the beginning you, thereweren't any VCs, but, but I think over the, the years you guys raised 50million, like uh, uh, uh, uh, gradually speaking until the acquisition. So whatwas the biggest round and how complex was the fundraising process? And can youshare best, best practicesfor other founders Leena Khalil: no,it's so, um, and I just break it down a little, I think because the liquiditywasn't in the market and it was tough, and let's just say e commerce wasn't thedarling of the market. So there were a lot of people on our cap table, a lot ofsmall investors, a lot of sophisticated investors, a lot of investors that.Weren't kind of paying attention and some that were paying too much attention.So we had a really varied cap table and a very, very large one, which was aproblem. Because it meant that managing fundraising was very hard because notonly do you have to find the money, but when you found the money just doing thepaperwork and there is a, there is a time, believe it or not, that you neededink on paper.Now people are doing sign and stuff, but there was a time whenyou needed income paper. And if you couldn't find the, the finger that wrotethe, you know, that signed your stuff to your, you know, you can't find theperson who's going to sign the organization might be ready to sell, but the,the signature is on holiday. So it could be that simple. And so, I mean, thiskind of brings you directly to why I'm doing a secondary fund, because I thinkIn the early days, as a founder, you'll take money from anyone who will, like,give you, um, you know, some confidence in what you're doing and believe inyou, so you will take their money, and that's fine, and they'll probably makemoney also, and they'll get a good return.The question is, are they your partner for the long term? Andyou need to, and the quicker you can Reorganize and give people that one. Thequicker you give people their money back, the better off the ecosystem isbecause the money goes back and then people reinvest and the quicker you cleanup and you reorganize the cap table, the freer you are to make better strategicdecisions.Ali Zewail: Right.Yeah, I totally agree. And, uh, we'll, we'll definitely, uh, double click onthat secondaries aspect, uh, later on. Um, so, but you know, sticking withmom's world for a while, I mean, if you had to do it all again, uh, knowingwhat you know now, what would you change in the way you set things up otherthan not having a huge cap table?Leena Khalil: Yeah.You know, it's interesting. I think that'san interesting question, but we, I mean, regional founders have the limitationsoutside Egypt of a limited, um, market. So you have you have a limitedpopulation. So the question is Within the complexities of this limitedpopulation just making sure that What you're selling is going to beeconomically viable and just thinking that through and really just focusing onthe profitable items.The, the problem youhave is that we were there to make life better for mom. So we were looking atthe mom and saying, what does she need? Let's make it available. And there werea lot of organizations that were not focused on her. They were just sellingwhat's profitable. And hence it was very easy for us to.Get stickiness becauseyou know, they said if you can't find it anywhere, you found it on mom's dot.So we went to great length to make it available. The issue you have is if Itarget and I did that the minute I put it in 50 targets, I've, I've broken evenon that and the work I did, but here we're talking about, you know, one and ahalf cities in China, the equivalent of, so with, I don't know how many bordersand regulations and And lots and lots of issues.So yeah, I, I think if Iwent back, I just, it is a kind of very fine line between do I go for thesolving the customer problem wholeheartedly 100 percent or do I say, okay, Iwill partially try to solve this. And it's, you'll always have that dilemma ofwill Momsvote be the same organization if we made that decision.Ali Zewail: Yeah.Sometimes like being almost naive about, you know, the, the limitations of whatyou're doing is, is good because it makes you proceed in a path that will atthe end, you know, reach a good state, but might have not been the best movingforward at the beginning. So, okay. Um, I mean, you, you spoke aboutprofitability and, uh, obviously unit economics are, are key for, uh, ecommerce, um, and any business, but, but.Specifically on e commerce, if somebody, for example, was, wasdoing another e commerce website, uh, that's in a vertical, say for, you know,sports, uh, targeting people who, who play sports, what would you tell them tomake sure they keep bear in mind in their financial model that many peoplewould usually miss based on your experience?SoLeena Khalil: I thinkthis whole notion of profitable business, just be very conscious that you'reprofitable on a transaction level. Ali Zewail: are yousaying that, that, that they have to make sure that Each unit is profitable.Like don't try to, uh, um, don't, don't lose focus on that and don't offersomething that isn't profitable inand of itself Leena Khalil: I mean,you have, you have to in a way, but your, your averagetransaction should be profitable.Ali Zewail: Uh, howabout warehouses and like stocking strategy? Uh, how did you, did you like, didyou have everything at the partners and, and order it at the time once, once acustomer made that order? Or do you have warehouses and you stock some thingsand not others? How did you, what was your strategy there?Leena Khalil: So wehad multiple strategies. So I think the, the fulfillment strategy was, um,Quite a flexible agile fulfillment strategy and that was because the key or thegoal I go back to the goal Which is if you can't find it anywhere you can findour mom's world So you had to be quite flexible but things weren't availablethe way if you wanted everything you had to deal with all the supply chainmodels.And if you basically said, I will only deal with things thatare very clear supply chain model where I'm going to stock it, or I'm not goingto stock it, then you're limiting the value proposition. So for that, it becamea very sophisticated supply chain with multiple options. And so we do do every,like we do everything under the sun.It's actually quite scary how many different supply chainmodels we had going and it delivered the outcome we wanted. It delivered the,it's really interesting. We had dresses made in California available on thewebsite delivered to you within seven days. That's crazy. Ali Zewail: Yeah. Leena Khalil: There Ali Zewail: And,while you were doing that, yeah, it is kind of, uh, it's scary. I don't know ifit's crazy, but it's scary. But while you were doing that, what were youoptimizing for, Uh, for example, I mean, what would you depend on a supplierto, to do from A to Z like that dress California? What would you stock?I mean, what was the framework or decision framework that youmanaged the supply chain through? I'm sure it was like a gradual thing that gotbuilt up with time and, you know, experience and.Leena Khalil: youcould kind of pre forecast and you can probably know that you need, and you'llprobably have an idea of how many you need. But, you know, a single sleeve pinkdress that has. Wings is probably going to be in fashion that one month. Youdon't know. So, you know, the fact that I was like very specific by the way,and girls get really excited about these things.So, you know, there was a time when we were, I mean, thefunniest one is shoulder buddies. So there was a time when all the kids wanteda shoulder buddy, which is this little ugly guy who was made of plastic. Ithink he was for 30 dirham, which is about 9. Who sat on your shoulder and hewent everywhere with you so you were never alone Ali Zewail: hmm. Leena Khalil: Andnobody is gonna get there one one day this guy's people are gonna wake up andsay we don't want to shoulder buddy we sold hundreds absolutely hundreds of theshoulder buddy guy and now if you ask anyone if you tell my kids who they allwore him like they're like shoulder buddy shoulder what is that oh shoulderbuddy yeah so um There's a lot of different things.Whereas diapers, you need to have diapers on your website. Soyou also, you, you know, your cause, you know, need to know your customer. Andbased on that, you need to design your processes and how you use your cash. So,yeah. So if you don't have diapers that you delivered today to the customer,you're going to lose a customer.But if the shoulder, but they come,I'm not sure that the world's going to end as we know it. Yeah.Ali Zewail: Hopefullynot. Leena Khalil: Yeah. Ali Zewail: So, so itseems to be like a mix of, uh, customer experience and knowledge andtechnology. So, you know, some forecasting and some just knowing the customer,knowing how the market flows in this industry, right?Leena Khalil: Yeah, I think the beauty of is that we can focus on that trust elementYou trust us to have it for you. You trust that we will give you the bestelection You trust that once we deliver it we have a product you can You know,you can use with your child and you know something that's really an importantpillar and that's very hard to build So the fact that we were able to deliverthat is kind of, it's a little bit of magic.I always say like there are magic sparkles that fly around theway things are done in Mumsworld. The issue you have is that the everything foreveryone is hard to deliver.Ali Zewail: Yeah, itis. Um, it's a big, uh, consumer promise to make and, uh, and deliver on.Definitely. So a bit of a risk there. So how did, uh, how did you manage thedifferent geographies? I know you expanded into several countries. Uh, as wellas the international like market. Do you like have different operations set upfor each country?Or do you have one central location that serves the Gulf, forexample? Uh, and and how did you what was your thinking approach on that?Leena Khalil: Sotoday Mom's World is a Saudi company, to be honest. It's quite an interestingthing. So we have very big warehouses in Saudi. Um, our parent company isactually one of the largest logistic providers in the region. So that's kind ofa nice tick box to have. Our warehouse operation in the UAE are pretty cool.They're in an area called Dubai South, which is kind of a freezone, but a really sophisticated free zone. Um, very good partners on thelogistic side. Really having warehouses is not key to us, but it helps usdeliver some of our promises to our customers. So we do have warehouses in theUAE and Saudi, just the sheer distances and the time to market. Are we going tohave a warehouse in every country? We explore it all the time. I believe theteam is exploring it still. But it, it only makes sense, depending on are weable to deliver from Dubai or from Saudi for the ROGCC. If we decided to go toEgypt or Iraq or any other country, does the distance warrant us having alocation?Ali Zewail: Yeah,makes sense. So, uh, you also had, I mean, recent, um, three years ago, I guessnow, uh, a majority stake in mom's world was acquired by Tama group, as youmentioned, the huge Saudi conglomerate and mostly focused on the healthcaresector. And I think there's a lot, I mean, there haven't been that many exits,uh, in general, uh, in the region.And so there's a lot. Our listeners can learn from your, fromyour experience and I want to drill down on it a little bit. So firstly, Imean, did they, the Tamil group approach you or were you the ones who werelike, were you actively seeking an acquisition or an exit at that time?Leena Khalil: SoTemer Group, prior to the acquisition, were on our board for two years.Ali Zewail: So theywere an investor?Leena Khalil: Theywere shareholders, yes. So we, they've known, they've been known to us for awhile. Um, they had looked at acquiring and they acquired a couple of companiesor they, they invested in a number of companies. We were one of them. I mean,the other one, some of the other investments didn't fare so well, but for them,months old was interesting because the customer base is a very, um, is acustomer base known to them because they're in pharma and normally a familyconsumes a lot of medical care after, you know, after you become a parent,you're just a hospital and your use of medical care goes substantially up.Ali Zewail: Mm hmm.Okay. And, um, an acquisition is, is it's a strategic move. It's not just afinancial transaction. Uh, I know that like time group, we're thinking ofsetting up.Like they want to kind of take the group to the next, uh,stage, but at the same time, I mean, and there are synergies, as you weresaying, but, but it's not like, um, as simple as that. What did you see as thestrategic logic for the, for the acquisition?Leena Khalil: I saidbefore was about like the customer based maintenance for them. And then theother thing is post acquiring us, um, We partnered with them to launch apharmacy, an online pharmacy. So that Ali Zewail:Interesting. Leena Khalil: Yeah,called Pharmaciety.Ali Zewail: Yeah. Soit's the customer and helping them, so to speak, to spearhead the e commercestuff. So you were like, you guys were like a startup with all the agility of astartup and you were acquired by a 100 year old company. What was that like? Imean, what was the integration like?Leena Khalil: mean,there was no, I mean, integration means, uh, Um, that we become we operate asone. We did. We didn't do that. I mean, we're completely different companies.They're, they're in a completely different space to us. But the, the, the issueis, how do you optimize on synergies? How do you use their know how? How dothey optimize on your synergies?I mean, let's be clear. If you're a farmer, you probably haveone of the best. Kind of risk and legal teams in the universe. I mean, ifyou're an oil and gas or pharma, you have the best risk legal teams ever. And Ithink as an e commerce, that's very expensive for us to build. And it was verynice to have access to that because a lot of things that just took down yourtime and. We didn't have, you know, you always had to hire externally. Wesuddenly found ourselves, we woke up with our own internal team, which was sonice, very, very skilled, um, team, very knowledgeable, worked on some of themost difficult things because pharma is complex. And so you immediately woke upthe next day, you had access, you had access to a very big, um, financeresource. If you wanted that kind of expertise, you would have to hire thecentral finance resources. Unbelievable. Even if they do no work for you, justthe ability to pick up the phone and say, you know what, what do we do? How dowe deal with this? There's a new regulation. What is the, what is the TAMACapproach to this?I think there are, there are big problems that happen andthey're nothing to do with e commerce. It's just to do with. Regulation,government, laws, that it's nice to have the big boys on your side.Ali Zewail: it makesit easier to sleep at night. Um, I found it really cool that you're stillposting mom's world, reposting mom's world posts. Uh, you know, uh, eatgreetings from mom's world after, even after leaving the company. So there isthis connection there still. How does it feel like? To leave the company thatyou built and that you stayed in for 13 years.How, how is that? Leena Khalil: Timing,I think, just to clarify, I left after Eid, I left this September, so I did allof Eid and I did all of, uh, so, yeah. I think I got through back to school andI left them right after that, you know, the 22nd, 3rd and 4th of August was theback to school madness when all the parents were, you know,likeAli Zewail: Buyingall the Leena Khalil: tomanaging multiple calendars and figuring out how many emails I got from theheadmaster all in one day.It's just that information overload is crazy. Um, so my lastday was the first and I handed over to CEO who's a man, but he's also a parentof two young children. My kids are going to uni. So it's a nice, I thought thatwas a pretty cool handover because of, you know, he has a very young child andhe has a five year old.So I thought that was like, so cool. Um, So how is it like tohandle it? It's, I was talking to someone today and saying, it sucks. It'shorrible, but letting go is hard. I don't think it's about, I let, I took mydaughter to university this year. Ali Zewail: Nice. Leena Khalil: And,that's tough too, because I'm setting go of her and letting go is hard andletting go of things you love and things that make such a big part of yourlife.And, you know, you wake up every morning and. You know, youhave this wonderful human being living with you who you love every day and thensuddenly they're not there and then there is this big baby that you wake up,you look at the dashboard, you look at the numbers, you call the, it's like aship and then you wake up and that ship is not there anymore.I think that's tough. And, uh, do I like the letting go on apersonal level? Absolutely not. Is it the right thing for me to do? You know, Ikeep, you need to kind of be, um, quite objective. So if you put it on paper,it's, it's the right thing. And there's so many reasons this is the right timeto do that, but the, but it's not going to be easy and it's not going to feelgood because it doesn't feel good.I'm so used to it. I'm so used to, and there's so much more Ican do and I want to do, but just kind of being objective. This is, this was avery good decision.Ali Zewail: Yeah.Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, that's I like that. Thank you for being so honest withabout it because I can imagine. And it's interesting that it's, uh, you put itin juxtaposition with with your, uh, your daughter going to college because,uh, yeah, it's kind of similar, isn't it? Um, so I mean,Leena Khalil: Whydoes she have to go? she Ali Zewail: Yeah. Leena Khalil: fromremote.Ali Zewail: Yeah. Oryou could go like study, start college again, maybe study withher,Leena Khalil: Bringthat up. Like, Ali Zewail: kids. Leena Khalil: yeah, Iwas, I, I was threatened my children. I will take your fees and go. I want tolearn more. Yeah.Ali Zewail: So Imean, uh, okay. I mean, these are new times, uh, you're making a transition,uh, you stepped down as the mom's world CEO a couple of months ago. Uh, nowyou're starting at key capital as a, as a partner. And. Uh, key capital isfocused on startup secondaries. So can you tell me more aboutthat? Leena Khalil: So Ithink it's just to clarify it's focused on secondary. So we're not, we're notdoing companies in stage C or at Angel or series A. So it's not really thetotal startup. It's. Right that at that inflection point in the J curve rightbefore the company is moving into the kind of profitability stability phasewhen, you know, market fit is there.The team is quite confident, but they have a lot of legacy.Shareholders and and a lot of the angels and the early investors actuallyeither are not focused. Some people say, Oh, I invested in 20. I don't knowwhere they're at. Really? Um, some people are saying, you know what? I don'twant that risk exposure anymore.It's not my main business. I just give me my money back. And sothey're not following the trajectory of this company. It doesn't matter to themor they need their money back. A lot of actual sophisticated funds need theirmoney back, because if you started a fund in the region in 2015 16, it's abouttime that some of that money comes back to you.Ali Zewail: Yep. Weneed that DPI. Leena Khalil: yeah.So basically, it's time to clean up, and we're here to basically say these aregreat companies, great founders, product market fit, Let's do it. There's no reason for them not to continue. And not, not everyshareholder is aligned with the risk profile of investing longer.So their investment period has ended. It's nothing to do withthe company. So we're coming in and saying we're gonna. Take on thatinvestment. So and we have multiple products. So the product is not all just astraight out buyout. Some of the products what we offer is quite founderfriendly. So we offer products that help founders buy more shares in their ownentity.And I would have, I mean, that's a product I would have loved.I would have loved someone to come and say, hey, let's help you buy more ofMonswold. And I don't think I would have said no at that point. I would jump atthe chance.Ali Zewail: That'sinteresting. I actually thought you were like giving founders also not justangel investors and early investors an opportunity to take a little bit ofmoney off the table. So maybe they can buy a house or something, you know, getmore stabilityin their life. Uh, Leena Khalil: Wecould do that too. No, no, we could also do that. That's also, and like exitingfounders, ESOP. Like you have some, you could have given a lot of ESOPs. Ali Zewail: So Leena Khalil: So no,there's a lot, but the one I like is the one, the one I think for me is closestto my heart, is the one that I would have wanted, is allowing me to buy moreshares in my own company.Ali Zewail: tell memore about that. I mean, this is, I'm assuming this is the founder doesn't haveto put up cash. You're, you're giving them some sort of a vehicle to, to, toset this up. You're helping them do this. Can you tell me more about it?Leena Khalil: Yeah,it's I mean, I won't go into the detail because we just turned this podcastinto that. But in essence, it's basically saying to them, we'll, we'll give youthe ability to buy more of the shares, but we'll share some of the upside.We'll take some of the upside. So you don't pay anything now, but when it comesto selling, then you, we share some of the upside.Ali Zewail: Got it.And as I understand it, you're, you're like, um, an investment firm. So you,you buy the second reason you keep them and then you exit later. Right? So who,Is the market, who's in the market for, for these shares down the line or, ordo you intend to wait till the exits, the acquisitions, uh, the IPOs, etcetera? Leena Khalil: Largerfunds, existing shareholders on the cap table. Maybe they're not, they don'thave the appetite right now. But if the company is a great company, there is no reason. Ali Zewail: buyers.Leena Khalil: Andyou're not even finding if it's a great company that existing shareholders ifthey don't have the appetite to buy it right now, it will eventually, thecompany might be acquired or it might go for IPO.And the other thing which we've seen in the region, it's justfounders buying back their company and saying, you know what? I don't needthem, but I'm done. I'm doing great on my own. This creates a lot of cashflowfor me. I don't need investors.Ali Zewail:Interesting. So recently, uh, I saw key capital did something, organizedsomething called the London track. Uh, taking founders and investors to London.I mean, can you tell me more about that? What that involves and whatthe objective is Leena Khalil: This isnot the first time the team does it. So the team a year ago took Egyptiancompanies to London and basically arranged meetings with the funds in the UK.And it's the idea, and we even had some funds in the U S come in. And the ideais the region has so much to offer and other regions actually do road tripswhere they go and say, here, this is the value of the region.Hasn't bringing them to London, bringing them to the U S makesit easier for funds that which were. otherwise not visit the region to beexposed to the great amazing founders we have. So it was a three day event. Wehad a lot of larger events where there was more of an information exchange, butalso we arranged 200 meetings between founders and VCs in London.So many VCs who would otherwise not come to the region wereable to meet founders, and it could be, it's not going to lead to anything thenand there, but it opens doors, it creates bridges, and it sparks interest, andit might drive some of these funds to come visit the region, possibly invest inthe long term, and or maybe allocate to the region,Ali Zewail: You know,okay. I mean, That's, that's great that you're doing that. I can see how itbenefits the region and how it benefits the startups, but, but what does key, Imean, are these companies that, uh, key capital owns secondaries in, uh, ownshares in or,Leena Khalil: I mean,because, uh, you know, after the trek, we made an investment in one of them,but that wasn't a consequence of the trek. It was just happening. We're aboutto invest another one. But what's interesting for us is because we're runningthe track, we have a lot of information about. Who is attracting funds and who is getting the. Who's getting the most things and. Andwe're not competing with those funds. We're completely different products. Sowe're saying, now you've done series B, you're, you have the money, you'regoing to do the next fundraiser, but your cap table is a bit messy. You want toclean it up. So we'll help you do that.Get you ready for the next fundraiser. And maybe in the nextround, you're going to, we're going to sell. Who knows? We don't hold verylong. It's not, we're not builders. We're just markets making. So as a marketmaker, you just want as many players in the market as possible.Ali Zewail: Hmm. Yeah. That's very interesting approach. And I think it's a greatstrategy. So what, what did attract, I mean, I can imagine that there wereother like, uh, other, other more typical, uh, VC funds, but what attracted youto this aspect specifically the secondaries marketpersonally speaking, Leena Khalil: I had,we had a lot of secondaries on our, we did secondaries at Manswad. We sold alot of secondaries. It was very complicated. It would be nice, for example, if thefounders had bought them, if we could, we could have sold them differently.Yeah? If we had run a secondary process and then, and got all the funding asfresh money for the company, it would be nice to have separated the secondaryfrom the primary, and then had the, kind of, the new group, shiny investors,just put, you know, Fresh money and then the secondaries were sold separate.There's a lot of advantages. A mixed fundra uh, round is nicebut it's, it kind of takes away from the money going to the company. So it'snice that you could do two and one is not considered a round. A secondary isnot a round. You're not fundraising per se. And it's a company selling. So, andif you could do it discreetly and nicely, it's actually just optimizing yourcap table.Ali Zewail: It's avery interesting point of view. Yeah. I hadn't thought of that. And is the fundlike structured like a normal LPGP situation with carry and stuff like that? Oris it Does it require adifferent structure? Leena Khalil: No, no.It's the same. It's the same. It's the same old boring stuff. Yeah. Ali Zewail: Okay. Um,so I mean, moving on to you're a board member at epic, the, um, um,Palestinian, the Arab Palestinian investment company. Uh, since 2021, Ibelieve, uh, it seems to be, it's a publicly traded company, as I understandit, invests in, in many sectors.So can you tell me more about it and how it fits in the overallpicture of Lena's kind of, uh, uh, work,Leena Khalil: Yeah,so Epic is quite an interesting one. Apart from the fact that I've, I'm very,I'm very lucky to be, you know, sat amongst that group of people. They're verydedicated, very principled. I do not believe in doing everything. You know, youhave to do things that are for the greater good, but I do believe in for profitcommunity work.So I do believe that things that generate cash can also helpthe community somehow. And I think that if you are able to create an entitythat is for the greater good that generates, it's more likely or not to help inthe long run. So a lot of my, you know, kind of my coolest projects are thingslike the great market in, um, the big soup in Istanbul where all the rent goesto To uh for the upkeep of the mosque so you could have put money aside for theupkeep of the mosque It's nothing like You know a going concern of rent that'skeeping the mosque Beautiful.I mean every anyone who's visited that can see how beautifulthe mosque is And it was just very good commercial acumen. Someone said okayI'm gonna build the mosque build these shops and the rent of these shops willgo to the mosque and this is why the mosque has golden taps and it looksperfect not because You A stroke of luck was by design.This is a commercial endeavor, and it works. And I I thinkthat's amazing. You know, one of the biggest walks in, um, in the hijabs isthis, uh, water well and land that sells dates. And it's it is a charitableendeavor, but it's one of the biggest charitable endeavors in the world becausethey sell their dates.And so they accumulate more and more wealth. So actually doingit. Doing things that help have a greater good impact, but there are alsocommercial, I think is the way to go. And, uh, And I think epic being a companythat's creating jobs in palestine for the palestinians listed on thepalestinian stock exchange owned by palestinians who then Get the dividendevery year and I've been to their annual general meeting and you know inRamallah and it was all The palestinian community coming and getting the dividendsand apparently it makes a big difference for their life I think that's lovelythat was and a lot of the brands that under attack are global.So One of the biggest cold meat cut companies in the world,Halal cold meat, is owned by Epic, and it's a very famous brand. Senora is avery famous brand. It's sold in Dubai, in Saudi. I'm not sure it's in Egypt. Iknow. So Senora is a very big brand, but it's a brand from Palestine. And, andthis is the idea that Epic is a holding group for Palestinian businesses thatoperate in Palestine and can grow internationally.I think I was asked to sit on the board just by stroke of luck.And it's exactly what I want to do. A lot about supply chain, a lot aboutdistribution, availability, a lot of things that I've done before. And, uh,yeah, my mom is Palestinian, so that makes me super biased.Ali Zewail: No. Yeah.I mean, it's mom's world after, after all. So Lima, I mean, uh, this kind of makes me reflect, I mean, we'reall, I think affected like by the genocide and what's happening now, uh, inPalestine and, uh, are there ways andin Lebanon? Um, and, you know, actually in Yemen, many places, but, um, uh, Idon't know.Did you have reflectionson how startup startups in the startup ecosystem can can affect thispositively, how we can kind of help somehow?Leena Khalil: You know, I think one thing this time isthat. The only people that are going to save you are you. So you better be thesmartest, the hardest working, the most educated. You have to have the mostdoctors. And, you know, when it, when push comes to shove, the only paramedicsthat are going to go are your paramedics. And the only doctor that's going tostick around is your doctor. So I think, Although I didn't grow up in theMiddle East, I think now if something happens in any part of, I hope that wehave enough doctors, enough paramedics, enough engineers, enough computerexperts that we can actually continue to survive.And the only reason, Imean, I can't believe how long they've survived for, but the only reason theysurvived for this long is because they, they've worked really hard onthemselves. Thank you very much. To have know how and it's, it's a miracle thatthey're still standing. And I think that's a great lesson to learn thateveryone, we just need to double down, work harder in our fields and do better,and this is genocide.They're not genocide.You need to do that, but it brought that home so hard. It just, you can onlyrely on yourself. So you better be the best at it globally.Ali Zewail: Yeah.Couldn't agree more. Um, all right. I mean, moving to another aspect, I mean,you, you've had an incredible professional career so far, uh, looking forwardto a lot more, uh, and, uh, but, but I heard you on a podcast saying that thehardest thing you ever did was being a mother was becoming a mother. Uh, yeah. Leena Khalil: Geteasier.Ali Zewail: How doyou reflect on how has becoming a mother made you a better professional?Leena Khalil: Oh,it's like hr, but it's, it's like bringing HR at home except you don't, you,you know, you never take a break. It's all about, I feel like a mom shouldwrite an HR book. Yeah. And you know, the, the thing about parenthood that'sreally hard is not wording. They don't do what you say. They do what you do. So you have. It's so hard. That's so hard because you do havehabits. You do have things and you're, you have to be a lot more disciplinedbecause they really do what you do to the, to the tea, you know, that horriblehabit that you have, where you kind of tick on the, the table, you'll havethree kids that tick on the, like, whatever it is, the, uh, the thing you don'tlike about yourself the most, your kids will have it.So, yeah, it's, um, It's tough, it's tough and it's verypersonal, it's very emotional. I always think you have to look at the lowprobability. Okay, how much error, what's your error tolerance rate? On an oilrig it's probably less than one percent. In a, in a warehouse you're okay withlike five percent, you know, and then in a playground your error rate can go abit higher because kids do all sorts of things and But with your kids, there'sno error rate.There is no error rate. Not because, not because that's what,you know, you expect. It's just what you're emotionally geared up for. Your kidcan't get sick. Your kid can't do badly in school. Nobody can be horrible toyour kid. There's so many things that just have to be perfect. And however hardyou negotiate with yourself, That is the expectation.So I always manage my, like my, the risk profile of what I'mdoing. I said, okay, what's my tolerance rate for error in this situation? AndI can live with that. But with my kids, it's zero, so it's hard.Ali Zewail: must be atoughmom.Leena Khalil: I'm nota tough mom. It's uh, yeah, it's not, it just, even if you tell yourself, okay,you know, I'm going to be Zen and I'm going to accept, but you still, it'sstill, I mean, if your kid is sick in hospital. Yeah, you, you, tell them, oh, it's okay, she'll get sick 50times before she becomes 18. No mom is going to accept that.The reality of it, they get sick a lot, but every Ali Zewail: Yeah. Leena Khalil: getsick, something inside you hurts.Ali Zewail: Stillemotionally draining. Leena Khalil: Yeah. Ali Zewail: Okay.Like moving back to e commerce, um, are there like any e commerce verticals inthe region that you think hold a lot of promise since you've seen somuch in this area? Leena Khalil: a lot, Ali Zewail: So giveus Leena Khalil: but I'mnot, no, I'm not telling, I think there's a lot of things that will come up. I,there are two or three that are about to explode and I've been talking to somepeople and I think. And you could tell because the way The new generation livesis very different to how at least my generation lives.So all the The college kids are graduating coming back to work.They have a different lifestyle So their needs their requirements are differentand there are some e commerce players coming to address that so it's very thereis um I think today one was announced a very small one somewhere. So You Ithink, yeah, there's a lot of room for the new lifestyle.Ali Zewail: So newways of selling to the, to the newgeneration, so to speak. Leena Khalil: Thanks.And people could new things people consume, but yeah, let's see. But go back tothe,yeah. Just see how people live that they didn't do 10, 15 yearsago. And it's very obvious.Ali Zewail: okay. Um,and, and you've also like through London Trek and other ways, you've, you'vebeen in contact with a lot of global investors. So how do you, how do you, howdo they look at the region?Leena Khalil: Yeah. Icome back to that whole idea that we're small, the profit, the profit marginshere are great. It is an easier market. It's not so competitive. And we justneed more companies to go public. We need more M& A. Even with the size ofthe market, we're still indexing low on activity. So we need more activity. Ihope Talabat, and there's two or three IPOs in Saudi, I think with those ones,and if they can perform better. Well, in the markets post IPO, I think we'regoing to have a good direction. The problem is we had three horrible IPOs inthe U. S. from the region. Yeah. So if there was any chance anyone wasgonna wake up, they basically looked twice and said, We're not going there.So you know, we had swivel. We had, um, and that was very successful. To me, I was an absolute Massacre, sowhatever hope we had went and that was bad advice. That was really bad advicefor them great great great companiesAli Zewail: Yeah.Great founders. Great company. I think it's really, they, they kind of took thehit of teaching us all a lesson in the region, so to speak. Uh, and, and alsoanother thing learned is if you're, if you're a consumer company, people, youdon't go IPO in a market where nobody, no consumers use your product andnobody, you don't have any brand recognition because that's never going towork.Because at the end of the day, the retail buyers and, you know,even the Um, I think the professional, uh, by side is, is don't, uh, they'rehuman beings and they, if you know, they, they will connect to brands theyconnect toLeena Khalil: FairenoughAli Zewail: Um, yeah.So. Uh, going like just for general advice. I mean, how would you advisepeople? The co founder relationship is an incredibly important relationship.How do you advise people on the co founder relationship? How to have aproductive one that the lasts and builds a lot of value.Leena Khalil: I thinkit's like in any partnership There's no perfection and, you know, people changeover time. People go through different pressures. And, you know, you don't knowyourself until you're under pressure. You don't actually, it's like a selfrealization. Different pressures bring out different, you know, like when Ibecame a mom, a different side of me came out. And, um, and you don't, I didn'tknow that until I became a mom. And this whole super protective kind of, uh,protect them at all costs. I never knew I could be like that, but I became likethat. So I don't think, I think people evolve in the, what you need to put issome rules and a rule book around how you behave, what happens in, in a risksituation, how do you make decisions?Because you don't know, you actually have no clue what theworld has in store for you. But if you put some very high level rules, andhopefully stick to them, then at least you can plan for the unexpected. Butthere's no perfect. There is absolutely no perfect. And this is why you have asecondaries fund that buys exiting founders shares.Founders leave before. Ali Zewail: There yougo. Leena Khalil: go.Full circle. Ali Zewail: Yeah. So,so I guess what you're saying is if you the more guidelines and And you set upat the beginning on how you make decisions and how you interact and things likethat. Uh, when, when the real stuff hits the fan, um, you'll be moreready for that. Leena Khalil: Yeah.Half the difficulty is this conversations early. You know, um, the one that,the one that in Arabic, they say, what is it? Yeah, yeah. No, no. It's tough.It's tough.Ali Zewail: Yeah.When, when, when you have a condition in the beginning, the, it ends well. Uh,okay. Rough, rough translation. Very rough. Anyway. Uh, speaking of this, I mean, you were two female co-foundersgoing to the market to getfunding. How hard was that? Was it too hard? did you face any difficulties frombeing femaleco-founders Leena Khalil: You know, I'll tell you, it's interesting,and I read this somewhere and I actually wholeheartedly believe in this. It'snot hard for a female to fundraise. It's hard for a female to. connect in thefundraising world. It's not like people see you and go, oh my God, it's awoman. We don't wanna give her money.No. It's actually the,preselection is way before that. And so I don't think we sat in a room andpeople said, oh, you know, these are stupid because they're women. I, don'tactually think that, I think that a lot of opportunities didn't come our waybecause we were women and not because people chose not to give it to us.But now that I'm on theother side, I can tell you that it's about it's networking. It's all aboutnetworking. It's about people who know you before people are not going to givemoney to someone they don't know or haven't heard of. So if you went to highschool with a guy, he probably has guy friends who are going to invest in you.The problem is thenumber of angel investors or women who are investing is actually also small. SoI might have the best network in the world of people who. Know about retail,but how many of those women are active investors? how many are on my rolodex andpeople I know and women know women and men know men because That's the way theworld works.And so actually the preselection Or your pool is smaller because people don't know you so then you'rerelying on kind of introductions and so you're starting at a smaller base andyou're trying to grow it. Whereas if a guy sat down really with his guy friendsand asked every guy friend for 10 contacts, you probably get a D simple. So, soI don't think, I think there were some instances of just very, very difficultmeetings, but I don't think it's because of the women part. And I do thinkalready where the odds were against us already. And this is what a actuallyAmerican founder said on a podcast. And I, I, now looking back, I think that'sso true. Ali Zewail: Yeah. Leena Khalil: the net, the network effect of just being inthe market and having friends is really important. Ali Zewail: Yeah. So the problem is kind of getting inthe room, not, not really what happens inside themeeting room.Leena Khalil: mean, you do have issues in the room, buteveryone does, but I think specifically you could reach more people. Ali Zewail: Exactly.So you recently co moderated the grow conference, which had a bit of anemphasis on mental health and the great Gabor Matei was there. Um, howimportant do you think like mental health is in thestartup world? Leena Khalil: I'mgoing to take five minutes to tell you about the glow conference. That's cool. Ali Zewail: There's ahuge smileon your face.Leena Khalil: Yeah,look at who I worked with before, who was an amazing founder, Launch Storiesand Stories is really about your personal stories and how they impact your lifeand how you can use your personal story to build strength, to succeed in life,to do better, how organizations can draw on people's personal stories to bringout the best in them.And she has access to hundreds and hundreds of. Professionals,many of who, because she is qualified with Gabor, many of who are qualifiedwith Gabor Mate, and um, Some are more like hr focused some are kind of coachCoaching some are more on the actual pure mental health issues, you know, somecan help you with bipolar Dysfunctional family so really very specific and theidea of the pool is you don't need one type of coach What you need is adifferent coach for different parts of your life So maybe when you have a babyyou need a certain type of coach later on Maybe you need a marriage counseloror a coach that would help you with your marriage You Later on, as I did,because I find being a mom very difficult, I, I had someone helping me when mykids hit puberty.I found that extremely difficult. And talking that through gaveme a lot of strategies around just balancing work and having fun. Teenage kidsat home. So you need a different coach for different parts of your life andyou're not going to go out there recruiting different coaches You don't knowand you don't have access.So it's nice to have someone who can support you So that'sstories which is a company that I support and i've actually invested in and Ithink they're wonderful The team at stories are wonderful They decided tobasically, because of the number of HR professionals that are using them, thatthey needed to do, and they do these HR roundtables, that they wanted to dosomething that's a bit more Kind of has more depth and doing a three dayconference with, you know, there was the chief love officer from Gary V'soutfit.I don't know if you got to day three, but day three is amazingbecause that woman is just incredible. She's doing something very mundane witha lot of magic and bringing a whole new way of operating to it. So a lot ofinnovation there. Gabor was kind enough to open it up. Um, so yeah, thatconference had.Very, very different points of view. And it was superenriching. It was very, very enriching. And I think like, although day one hadthe big names, day three was full of contrast.Ali Zewail: Now I cansee how, how much you enjoyed it just from the passion. Uh, all right. Um, soyou're, I wanted to ask you about like boards since you're on, before we startlike winding it down soon. Um, you're on more than one board and, uh, I want toask you, what do you think are the characteristics of the best boards?Leena Khalil: Ithink, let's just say, why do you have a board? Not the character. Why are, whyis there a board? And the board is more about, you know, it's not like it's,there is this, the issue with. Startups is, you're going to bring a board totell you what to do and that's not what they're there for. You're supposed touse them and they're supposed to reinforce your position as opposed to take ityour time and your attention.The board is about bringing their expertise and helping you seewhat you, what you're too busy not to look at and having difficultconversations. And some of the most difficult conversations are things like,you know, Does this work for you? You know, a really difficult conversation or,you know, okay, this is your strategy.Maybe you completely break it apart. And maybe you take a weekand you look at it from a completely different angle because you have a boardmember who's done something in another country and go break it apart somewhereelse. But having the difficult questions, uh, conversations, asking thedifficult questions, That's what a board is there for, and it should be veryclean to the point and fast.The minute that it's not clean to the point and fast, then it'spainful. There's an issue, we address it and we move on, and if it takes agesand there's a lot of back and forth, then the board is not constructive. Ali Zewail: Right. Leena Khalil: But it,but I think there's, I think the whole idea of how to use aboard needs a lot of It's been there for years.Um, it needs developing. It needs, um, people need moretraining on it, but I'm, I'm also quite a novice. So I need to see more. So youneed to probably be in one full positive negative cycle of a company and sit onthe board to basically say, yeah, I feel confident that I'm the right person togive the advice.Ali Zewail: Okay.Now, zooming out a bit to the, to the region, if you, if you had a magic wandand you could change something about the regional ecosystem, what, what wouldit be?Leena Khalil: I wouldreally like if I something that is tangible that we could do now, it's the ideaof when you graduate from university, not internationally, locally, if you're alocal graduate and you graduate from Cairo University, you graduate fromuniversity in Dubai or in Saudi, I would do something, create something thatwould help these young people be more ready for work. Ali Zewail: Hmm. Leena Khalil: So thiswhole disconnect between education and the workplace is a very big problem.It's a lot bigger than you think it is. And this, how do we, how do we get ouryouth ready for the workplace is huge. And it doesn't matter if he, I don'twant him in my office. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, I don't. Yeah. Ali Zewail: you, younecessarily know how to work in aprofessional environment. Does it Leena Khalil: So I'vemet some amazing kids. Um, and my, my biggest feedback to them is, so what ifyou got an A, you have no idea what follow up is. And it's such, Ali Zewail: mean,Leena Khalil: and bythe way, the more good they are academically, the less they think they need tofollow up because everything came to them because who will, who was shot killedhim.Then he goes out to life and he, he can't do failure. Hedoesn't know he's never failed, you know? Well, he kept on being, nobody wantshim. And then it's actually, then you need stories to help him through that.You know? But we need, if you talk to graduates coming out, you need today,that's a very big, they, they tell you I can't find a job, or I've intervieweda lot and no one's taking me.And yeah, no one's gonna take you. You don't know how to followup. You don't know how to. collaborate. There's a lot of, Ali Zewail:collaborate.Leena Khalil: Yeah. Imean, like, it is, it's something that kind of, um, you know, it means a lot tome that if we can actually fix it, it would be, if it's fixable, then it's,even if we do it one university at a time, that would be Ali Zewail: Right.Interestingly, this is like a global thing. I'm hearing a lot, like a lot ofpeople are complaining about Gen Z employees and them not doing, having followthrough and commitment and things like that. Uh, but, but I think here it's,it's, it's, it's even more difficult because they just don't have the skills.Uh, they don't acquire the skills in university to become good.employees or team members. Um, and yeah, I mean, because when it comes tonumbers, I agree with you. I mean, I mean, we have the numbers of universitygraduates, but actually when we start hiring, we can't find people. And sobridging that gap would be a great thing. You're also like on the board ofShira, which is like in Sharjah, uh, supporting entrepreneurship in the Sharjahemirate. Uh, I think that they seem to be doing a lot of great work.Is there something, can you tell me more about, you know, what,what they're doing and, uh, and what their focus is?Leena Khalil: So I'mnew to Shiraz. So, um, to be honest, I wouldn't, Ali Zewail: quiterecent Leena Khalil: Yeah, Irepresent them very well, but I'll tell you what I, what I love about the wholesetup. The, the chairman of Shiraz, also the chairman of the university of theAmerican university of Sharjah. I think that's just, that's just magic. That'smagic because you have somebody Entrepreneurs and looking at education and you know,how many and how many places other places in the region where you have someonewho's so aligned and you know, it's it's hard.It's gonna be hard. It's not. It's not easy. It's not a clickof a button, but that's the right to like and just seeing that is delightful.It's absolutely delightful. You know, she'll have a door. Poor thing, she isstretched, it's hard, but she has the right team. The, the CEO of Shira'a isvery capable.Hopefully we'll be able to support. But I think just havingthat alignment between the education institution and the, like the e commercekind of entrepreneur, innovation is, is very important. Ali Zewail: Uh,totally agree. Um, all right. So let's go into the wrap up questions. Uh, thefirst question is what's a book you like to recommend to others or booksLeena Khalil: wastalking about educated the other day. There's a book called educated. I alwaysthink it's so interesting how everyone's feedback on educated in terms of whatthey took out of the story. Every time I sit in a group, people tell me like,yeah, educated was delivering this message and no, no two groups say the samething.So I think it's an interesting book. It's about a Mormon familyand basically. somebody's view of what happened in her family. This is my twobits on it. I'm sure if you read it, you'll be like, that's not what this bookis about, but it's literally how people, everyone has a different view. And Ilike books like that, that, uh, keeps the juice going.The other one that I read a long time ago, and I don't eventhink, I'm not sure it's in print anymore. It's a book called The IntimateHistory of Humanity. And basically it goes, it takes humans to the, you know,most basic thing and says, when was the first time the word love was writtenand when was the first time, you know, emotions were expressed?And, and it goes like, it's kind of an anthropological book.Like it goes really back and says, okay, why did, why did humans need toexpress these feelings? And so that it's really Ali Zewail: Veryinteresting Leena Khalil: tounderstand.We're quite predictable. We've been doing the same thing forcenturies.Ali Zewail: Yep. Yep.We are, aren't we? Um, okay. Uh, the second question is how do you, uh, stayenergized? How do you unwind and relax?Leena Khalil: I don'twatch, uh, I don't like, I don't, I haven't been to the movie theater. I thinkthe last time I went somewhere in the summer, it was too hot. There's nothingto do. We ended up in the movie theater, but before that, I haven't gone to themovie theater for two years. I really don't go very often. Uh, or never.Um, I, I don't know how to turn the TV on my house. I'll walkon the beach. I'll walk. I probably unwind by doing an activity. Yeah, but, um,yeah, sitting down for extended periods of time is quite hard, as I told youthat I probably won't do a very long podcast.Ali Zewail: Yeah. Youwarned me.Uh, Leena Khalil: I thinkI give myself a bath on the back with them, a longAli Zewail: great.You can have a long walk after it, so you can unwind, unwind, you know, and.And get over the sitting someone. And thank you for that. Um, so how, who doyou, uh, another question, what question should I have asked you that I didn'task you?Leena Khalil: Whatquestion should you ask me that you haven't asked me? I don't know. That's areally, that's a hard one. You're like giving me your job. I have to think foryou. I think that, I think the biggest question, and I call myself animmigrant, like I'm a lifelong immigrant. I've always been. Not in my homecountry and I've always had some other identity and I've always carried a Thirdparty passport and I think for us and apparently our numbers are increasing,you know The number of people that have weren't born where their parents arefrom and have a different identity card and lived in And apparently this numberis increasing But the question for us is at the end of the day when we're donedoing What we are doing where will we?Settle where will we retire? And that's a really interestingquestion because where will we go? And is it Dubai? Will I go back?Yeah. So I grew up in London. So London feels like home, but isit home after living outside the UK now for almost, um, what are we 15 years? Imean, if I stay here another five, that's 20.So, So where is home? And I'm not unique in this kind ofdilemma. There's a lot of people like me and there's a lot of people from allwalks of life who have never lived at home in what they're supposedly home. Imean, I should live in Iraq, but that's probably the last place I would look atbecause I don't belong there.I don't have memories there. I don't know anyone there. It'snot somewhere that I feel like, okay, I'm going to go back. Do I go back toLondon? It's really my primary home. But with time that connection is eroding.So it's, it's kind of an interesting dilemma. Yeah, but you're a bit nicely. Ali Zewail: to solveittoday.Leena Khalil: And Ithink I felt people, the lucky ones are the ones that are born in a place wherethey know where they, and they went to school in that place and their parentsare from that place.And then they know that the dry cleaners and they know theshopkeeper and then they go back. And everybody's still there and people lookat me like why do you think that's so cool? I'm like Not everyone has thatAli Zewail: Yeah. Noteveryone has that. Uh, all right. So I like to close on a note of gratitude.Um, so my last question is, uh, what is a gift somebody has given you that hashad a positive effect on your life?Leena Khalil: Oh mychildren god gave me my kids that's the best gift I could have ever asked forYeah, Ali Zewail: That'swonderful. Uh, children are about the future. Alhamdulillah. And, uh, uh, may they have a wonderful future and you withthem. Thank you very much, Lena, for your time. I really appreciate it. Andthank you for being our guest.Leena Khalil: me allthe best take careAli Zewail: Thanks.Thank you for listening to this episode of Startups Arabiapodcast. If there was something you really liked about what the guest saidtoday, reach out to them on social media and tell them what you liked. And ofcourse, if you haven't subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? You don't wantto miss any of our great upcoming episodes.Also, please rate us and give us comments on our social mediaaccounts so that we know how to improve and also tell us what you like. Wedon't mind hearing that either. Until next time, this was your host, Adi'sWhale.
