Exclusive Interview Archives

NutriFresh Services: Transforming Ecommerce Food & Beverage Companies For Better

A senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in management, strategic planning, and operational implementation Guy Ironi and his partner Josh Abramson were called to turn around a beverage manufacturer producing cold press juices using high-pressure processing technology. He soon understood the process was very labor-intensive and challenging to perform at a profitable level. However, Guy quickly identified that the business was exceptional at picking, packing, and shipping the juices directly to its clients’ customers.

On behalf of the family office that invested in the founding leadership team, Guy took over NutriFresh Services as its CEO in 2016 and pivoted the organization from a contract beverage manufacturer to the industry’s best perishable fulfillment partner for B2C and B2B eCommerce companies. Since Guy’s takeover, the company has achieved more than 100% YoY revenue growth for past 4 consecutive years and achieved nearly 30X earnings growth. NutriFresh was recently included as one of Inc. Magazine’s “2021’s 5,000 Fastest Growing Companies” and named by Goldman Sachs as one of the “100 Most Intriguing Companies” for 2021.

The Leading Perishable Fulfillment Platform

Headquartered in Edison, NJ with 11 additional nationwide facilities, NutriFresh is the leading cold chain eCommerce logistics partner for established and emerging B2C and B2B food and beverage brands. The organization’s portfolio of services includes frozen and cold storage, white-glove pick and pack services, and industry-leading carrier optimization allowing 1-day ground transit to more than 85% of the country.

Guy and his team at NutriFresh believe that shipping perishable goods doesn’t need to be complicated or costly. The organization acts as an extension of their clients’ business operations department to ensure their cold and frozen products are delivered to their customers on-time and at-temp, improving their bottom lines.

The NutriFresh team also realizes the fact that batching and shipping alone doesn’t solve all of its clients’ primary pain points. So, the organization now offers a completely personalized and comprehensive approach to ensure the products reach their customers in a much faster, easier, and cost-efficient manner.

Staying Ahead of the Competition

Under Guy’s leadership, NutriFresh helps its customers with a tech-enabled, all-in-one eCommerce fulfillment platform that allows brands to quickly deploy a national fulfillment program at a scale. According to Guy, “In this new and rapidly changing on-demand world, we allow businesses to access highly-customizable operations and flexible, bespoke shipping solutions based on their specific needs across delivery performance, the efficiency of spend, and integrated technology requirements.”

As an organization, NutriFresh is well positioned in the market of perishable eCommerce fulfillment for food and beverage brands. While most of its consumers are focused on the B2C market, NutriFresh has started working with companies selling and shipping wholesale products directly to businesses.

Unlike traditional 3PL businesses, NutriFresh welcomes the complexities of perishable fulfillment by handling custom packaging, complex kitting and pick arrays, and inserting dry ice or gel packs to keep products at safe temperatures during transit. The NutriFresh value proposition includes a sophisticated technology platform that allows its partners to access entirely outsourced fulfillment and operations solutions. Beyond its strategically distributed national perishable fulfillment centers, another core advantage for NutriFresh’s customers is access to enterprise-level shipping services across various national and regional parcel carriers.

Tackling Challenges

The fundamental challenge of NutriFresh’s core activity lies with the perishability factor of food and food waste. Every year ⅓ of the food produced in the world perishes before consumption, which if calculated equates to 1.3 billion tons, resulting in more atmospheric carbon emissions than the entire airline industry. In proper conditions, this amount of food could feed as many as 2 billion people, twice the number of people suffering from hunger across the planet.

The organization is doing its part to solve this worldwide challenge. Its High-Pressure Processing (HPP) extends shelf-life through a non-thermal process that eliminates contamination. NutriFresh has an annual tolling capacity of 120 million pounds, thanks to its dedicated hyperbaric HPP machines.

Additionally, the organization enables a much greener and environmentally friendly emissions footprint by creating a more efficient supply chain, which is done by decreasing the distance a product needs to travel. In the NutriFresh supply chain, manufactured products are directly sent to one of its fulfillment centers directly from the manufacturer. Then the organization distributes those products across its network of fulfillment centers to be stored as close as possible to the final customer. When an eCommerce order is placed, NutriFresh packs each perishable parcel with care and delivers to the end consumer on behalf of their clients.

Guy also notes: “We use solar power in our freezer facilities, we ship with dry ice (which never produces or releases additional carbon dioxide into the environment) and gel packs to reduce spoilage during transit. The future of commerce is online, and NutriFresh is committed to providing our customers with the most sustainable, environmentally-conscious perishable fulfillment solution in the market.”

Preparing for the Future

When it comes to the future, NutriFresh aims to maintain its position as the leader in the cold and frozen eCommerce fulfillment industry, while continuing its transformation into the most advanced solution via disruptive logistics technology. To achieve that, Guy and his team will continue to expand NutriFresh’s warehouse network by acquiring new facilities, investing in tech R&D, and developing its personalized approach even further to give its clients the feeling of joining an elite supply chain crew and long-term partner.

Abbott Martin Group: The Native Source of Real Estate on the Emerald Coast

Launched as one of the first real estate companies in Destin during the early 70s, Abbott Realty Services became the largest employer in Northwest Florida between the period of the 80s to the late 90s. Today the natives of the Emerald Coast, Nathan, Erin, and Amanda Abbott, carry forward Abbott Realty Services’ tradition as the third generation of Abbott Realtors.

Nathan and Erin Abbott started their career in real estate in 2002 as a husband-wife team. Later in 2010, they started expanding their team as the Nathan Abbott Team, and a decade later, in 2020, they relaunched Abbott Realty Service. Even amidst the chaos created by the pandemic, it broke all records in production with its team and was featured in Inc 5000’s list as one of the fastest growing companies in all industries. Later in 2021, Abbott Realty Services Merged with eXp Realty, one of the fastest-growing global real-estate companies in history.

In 2017, Nathan shared a vision with TJ Martin to launch a joint venture specializing in developer consultation, new home, and resort sales. TJ is a native of the area with a proven track record of success in land acquisitions and new home sales throughout the Florida Panhandle. Armed with TJ’s generational background in development and experience as the top sales agent in two large development firms, TJ and Nathan decided to broaden their horizons further and launched The Abbott Martin Group | eXp Realty. With its offices in Pensacola and Miramar Beach, the firm has successfully launched and sold several new construction communities by helping developers with new land acquisition opportunities, top-performing sales teams, and consultations from the ground up.

Since its inception, the real estate firm has continued to perform within the top 1/2% in terms of real estate sales in the Florida Panhandle and within the top 1% nationally. The firm takes immense pride in raising a higher standard of expectation for its clients and the real estate industry as a whole.

Keeping the Team Motivated

With the ability to create greatness for others, Nathan and his team consider each day a new day. They also prefer to focus on impact over commissions. He states, “If you practice every day with incredible drive, you will eventually make it to the big game. This career path allows us to have access to people’s personal lives in ways most careers don’t allow. Focus on positively impacting others; your life will also be impacted through serving others in high regard.”

Tackling Challenges and the Pandemic

The emotions in real estate sales can feel like a roller coaster ride of several highs and lows. Nathan believes the market can go up or down by its nature, and one has to adapt and make the most of it in all situations. He says, “It is important to keep your emotions in the middle and to show up daily! Keeping your agent’s head in the game of all markets while helping them understand you can make an impact in any market is important.”

“If you practice every day with incredible drive, you will eventually make it to the big game. This career path allows us to have access to people’s personal lives in ways most careers don’t allow. Focus on positively impacting others; your life will also be impacted through serving others in high regard.”

Abbott Martin Group works diligently to keep their heads in the game and to show up with the right drive at any market condition rather than utilizing the market conditions as an excuse for not finding success.

The pandemic helped many realize that we humans can’t buy our time. With the pandemic, many organizations opted to work from home, keeping the safety of their employees in mind. Emerald Coast has always been a well-known vacation destination, but with Covid-induced lockdowns and work-from-home, the coast is witnessing substantial residential growth, which eventually helps Abbott Martin Group to grow at a rapid pace.

Picture of the Future

The Abbott Martin Group|eXp Realty’s primary goal is to become an outlet for agents worldwide to understand the benefits of eXp Realty while building partnerships with individuals working for a greater purpose. The firm plans to serve more than 1000 clients yearly to make the maximum impact possible.

Nathan explains, “Our focus is to continue to build an organization that improves lives while showing up together of us all rowing in the right direction for the ultimate purpose…. To build a legacy by making a positive impact on others. We will continue to focus on providing an outlet for people to become the best version of themselves.”

Ryan McCarty: Creating a Culture of Good

Just think how our workplaces would look like if all the employees were given the necessary permission to care about not only their jobs but also their colleagues, clients, and the things they are most passionate about. What if all the people got a chance to make positive changes worldwide while doing their job?

This is the story of a wonderful movement named ‘Culture of Good’, which Ryan McCarty and Scoot Moorhead started inside their company, The Cellular Connection (TCC). After growing the Culture of Good at TCC for quite a while, both Scott and Ryan McCarty established Culture of Good as a separate entity to start teaching organizations and their leaders about the Culture of Good.

As an organization, Culture of Good offers a Culture Champion Certification, where organizations can choose an internal leader to improve their workplace culture by sponsoring them to attend a three-day training. Being a part of this training schedule, the Culture Champion has access to all of the tools, tactics, and necessary team support to create a more robust and more engaging business culture for a year. Each of the Culture Champions learns to align their company’s strategic goals with the passion of their clients and employees.

“The certification provides a self-paced way to support all those within an organization working on employee and customer engagement, CSR, and culture change initiatives. If desired, we also offer keynote presentations on championing people and culture and partner licenses in addition to this certification.”– says Ryan McCarty.

Top Priorities

As the Co-founder of the organization, Ryan’s top priority is to ensure the organization is profitable and making a meaningful and important contribution to the world and the entire industry by doing what it preaches. He explains that solvency plays a critical role in the organization’s existence, but the work of Culture of Good is primarily driven by helping leaders implement a purpose-driven work process that involves people’s souls. “This is what I call “purpose ability.” Profitability is driven by purpose, and profits enhance purpose.“- says Ryan McCarty.

“I find my calling when my greatest passion collides with my greatest contribution to make the world better”

On the other hand, the second priority is to continue reviewing the organization’s tools and processes to meet clients’ evolving needs. Ryan McCarty strives to ensure that the Culture of Good not only engages leaders to become Cultural Champions but also empowers them to become an agent of change.

Unique Marketing Strategies

Ryan McCarty hosts a 30-minute podcast on LinkedIn Live every week. This podcast discusses the creation of Cultural Champions and great work culture in workplaces. Culture of Good’s team then repurposes the podcast content for various blogs, emails, posts, and articles. Additionally, the organization depends significantly on word-of-mouth referrals from past and present clients who have worked with it or have heard Ryan presenting his keynote, “Bring Your Soul to Work.” This eventually creates new opportunities for the organization to speak to and for organizations that want to share their mission and purpose with their audience. “Many of my efforts are directed toward trade organizations who want to provide their members with a purpose-driven process that engages their stakeholders.“- Ryan adds.

Suggestions for Young Entrepreneurs

Ryan says young entrepreneurs must “Keep work as simple and beneficial to your whole well-being as you can (don’t make rules or follow rules that don’t exist), look for strategies that scale your ideas (ideas without strategy are lifeless), always have a mentor (someone you aspire to emulate through your work/and pay them for their time), and tie your story into your work (this is what gives you a sense of meaning and purpose). Oh, and take care of yourself before anyone or anything else in your life. Yes, I’m telling you to put yourself first.”

Future Roadmap

The organization’s strategy is to certify as many as 10 Culture Champions monthly after a three-day training. The organization also plans to offer a virtual certification that can be taken from anywhere worldwide. Eventually, Ryan would love to host all the Certified Culture Champions and their teams at an annual conference to share their stories, learn best practices, and build a purpose-driven community of leaders.

Barry Pulver: Empowering Real Estate Agents to Help their Client

Meet Barry Pulver, a Real Estate Consultant and Team Leader at eXp Realty, one of the world’s fastest-growing real estate agency businesses. Barry is a former international journalist and radio show host with massive experience in every aspect of journalism from the largest media corporations in the world.

In less than a decade, Barry moved to America without any property background or experience and started a real estate career in 2015, joining eXp in 2018 and soon became the first real estate agent to create an international revenue share team taking eXp Realty outside of North America. As a team leader of eXp Realty, Barry is humbled and honored to help thousands of people and families who move home every year. Through the company’s revenue share platform, Barry and his team have sold over $1 billion worth of homes in 2021 and presently has partner agents in 5 continents and 13 countries.

Currently, the current number one global virtual real estate team, with the strongest emphasis on empowering property experts to do more business and provide ownership in the overall company and an exit strategy ultimately for their business.

Driving Factors

The experience of being a part of the team that changes real estate professionals’ lives through their blueprints of success, experience, and network is the primary driving factor for Barry’s passion and continued success.

On the other hand, he understands this will look different for every individual, mainly because everyone has different goals, passions, and aspirations. Historically, the real estate industry has never offered many agents of the opportunities it provides now, and Barry feels sharing that message directly or visually and offering others to be a part of this revolutionary journey is very rewarding as a leader.

He says, “If someone told me when I was a new real estate agent that I could be in my office for fewer than 25 hours a week, work with clients and partners to the highest level, and have a billion-dollar business, I would not have believed it.”

Tackling Challenges

However, now Barry has the honor and opportunity to partner directly with aspirational property experts and provide each one with a blueprint, which has amplified his focus on continuing what he and his team have started. He feels the primary challenge lies in offering a genuine change in an industry that has never seen such opportunities, and responses like ‘It must be too good to be true” are very common. The mindset in real estate has also created a few significant challenges, with a vast majority of agents leaving the industry within their first two years.

“A business without challenges is simply not a successful business.”

Barry explains, “Changing the paradigm that the success of anyone in property is due to them and not their company is a huge challenge. The importance of personal branding really emphasizes the results for this; otherwise, every real estate agent would be successful at the successful real estate companies; this is just not realistic or true.”

As a team leader within eXp Realty, Barry tries to tackle the organization’s main challenges with direct transparency and honesty. He prefers to speak with logic to remove the emotion and understand what true and honest challenges are, and embrace the word why.

When the Pandemic Arrived

The Covid19 pandemic has amplified Barry and his team’s results and growth to an unprecedented level. This has also presented the opportunity to understand how the real estate sector needed a drastic change in its approach and offering to help people during their pivotal moments.

The pandemic has also shifted Barry and his team from confined office space to a virtually driven collaboration and support platform, which helps agents to develop and focus on the importance of their personal brands. While a typical real estate company considers home sellers and buyers as their clients, with the real estate agent acting as the final piece of the puzzle, eXp has opted for an inverted approach, recognizing its clients as true real estate partners and empowering them to best help their own clients.

Achievements

Barry’s journey as a realtor is fascinating; from being a relatively new real estate agent joining eXp to becoming the number one global real estate agent at eXp through production and transactions is not an easy feat.

Personally, he considers empowering his business partners to become the best agents as his greatest achievement.

Picture of the Future

As a leader within the real estate industry and soon to be the largest real estate company on the planet, Barry feels his role is to continually empower every property expert in the world to understand that there’s always something more available for them both professionally and personally. He says, “We will continue to grow as an organization, emphasizing our strong message of how we can and will personally and directly assist the progression of the top real estate agents in the world into a business that goes well beyond the next level, through leveraged tools, technology, and support.”

Hudi Shehu: Transforming Organizations with a One-Stop Solution

Armed with the desire to transform online businesses and help other enterprises to overcome the same issues he had faced during his early days, Hudi Shehu founded Postjer Ltd. which provides a variety of services to help businesses establish and improve their online presence.

Postjer is a website builder and CMS that helps to develop websites, online businesses, and blogs using the most contemporary technologies like drag and drop, WYSIWYG, poster editor, and many other features that come with the package.

Born and brought up in Memaliaj, a small town in Southern Albania, Hudi’s passion for technology started growing at the age of 6 when his family created the first radio in his hometown.

He says, “My passion for technology and my adventure with it began at an early age, and I also learned how a business operates from my family.” At the age of 14, he started creating online media and managing numerous local company websites. He also began selling Gerid clothing in Albania and multiple other European countries with the help of his family.

As he learned a lot of things about online businesses and how to manage a family business, Hudi realized that technology is the future of business. He has always tried to start businesses by providing hosting for local businesses, but he was only able to do this only for a couple of businesses as the digital transformation had some limitations in Albania.

However, the complexity of using multiple platforms during the pandemic situation has now provided Postjer the much-needed opportunity to deliver a better user experience.

Uniqueness

Hudi believes, Postjer is unique because of its young team, which is very passionate about technology. This team is working hard to develop a platform that can be easily described as unique for all the capabilities it will offer, and many of these aspects will enable significant flexibility. Brilliant for various businesses, this platform will make it simple to build websites and online stores, handle content and technological upkeep. So, what distinguishes the company is that it is always thinking and upgrading for the benefit of the community, expanding the Postjer ecosystem with the most recent technological breakthroughs that are often relevant to various enterprises.

Mission and Vision

Hudi says, “My mission, objective, and dream have always been to build a team that thinks and works for the community, to become one in order to provide as much simplicity as possible to the building of websites, online stores, their maintenance, and the cost reduction of many enterprises. He adds, “My mission and dream are to create more digital platforms that provide individuals and small and medium enterprises with strong and simple interactions.”

Every day Hudi and his team strive for achievement, but the final target remains the same, which is to offer every customer a chance to expand their businesses online, allowing any company, irrespective of capital or budget, to experience the benefits of digital transformation. Initially, Postjer was only a website builder platform, but this year the team realized that a component of this SaaS platform would become an essential marketing tool, automation system, and data management system for online retailers.

Picture of the Future

As the CEO of Postjer, Hudi will not stop with just one platform. The organization will continue developing various other platforms available to a wide range of organizations, communities, and enterprises. It believes that during a second phase, elements of developing web applications will be there, but it will also be a part of the Mobility industry, as the company is in the process of including an application dedicated to reserving only electric vehicles to make people aware of the renewable energy sources.

Empowering Individuals and Organizations

Hudi says, “We aimed to have individuals that are enthusiastic about technology, making user-friendly products, and having a group that would produce stories in many areas of technology in our team or other people who join us. What I constantly tell new employees that join us or the team is that our sole purpose is to empower any individual or organization to participate in the digital transformation.”

“This is a philosophy shared by all members of the Poster team, and we are all striving to improve every day in our quest to build sustainable and adaptable goods.”- he concluded.

Iris Santiago: Helping Clients by Providing Customized Healthcare

Meet Iris Santiago, the Chief Operations Officer of In Home Personal Services, which was born to provide customized health care tailored to meet every client’s individual needs.

In Home Personal Services is a non-medical senior care provider. It ensures comfort, compassion, and quality care in the home to those who need that assistance for an independent lifestyle.

Iris is a licensed Occupational Therapist and Certified Professional in Human Resources. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy from one of the Universities in the Philippines.

Iris often says, “It always brings a smile to my heart whenever I hear that a client we cared for is grateful for the impact we made in his or her life.” She believes it is not about the compliment itself but the thought that she and her team at In Home Personal Services have made a significant difference in someone’s life is very rewarding.

For Iris, her role is a lot more than just a job; it is her calling. She aspires to further extend this program to other care providers enabling them to provide better quality care to a client or a loved one.

The Steadfast Leader

Iris’s clinical expertise has been well paired with her business acumen and sense of care for others. Before coming to the U.S., Iris worked in a community rehab and a hospital-based rehab for more than seven years as an Occupational Therapist.

Once she arrived in the U.S., she was quickly recruited as the Human Resources Director at IHPS. Over the next decade, she worked very hard and was ultimately promoted to the Agency Manager, eventually the Administrator, and now the Chief Operations Officer.

She says, “It may sound cheesy, but we provide our services with heart. All programs and services are really central to our clients, and all of our sister companies have the same goal of becoming to be a one-stop shop for our clients. Our services are affordable but with quality at its best.”

The best part about Iris is her humble nature. She immigrated to the country and took an executive position without formal training and experience. As the HR Director, she further developed her knowledge and experience by getting her professional HR certification through the HR Certification Institute in 2010.

The Founder’s Word

When we asked Michael A. Collura, the founder and President of IHPS, why did he choose Iris all these years ago? He says, “When you meet Iris right away, you can tell she is intelligent, driven, and genuinely cares about people. These are not common qualities to find in people today. So, we had to act fast when she first applied. It was clear that her career path forward was going to be so much more in the years to come. He also added, “When the time came and my own Mother, In Home Personal Services’ other Founder, was to move on from the company, there were some pretty big shoes to fill. Iris quite simply was the only one in our brand’s history that could fulfill the role, and as such, with the support of the entire company, Iris was promoted to the Administrator. Over these past years, it is clear she is capable and ready, and one day she will take over for me as I look to retire, and Iris Santiago will be our CEO.”

Preparing for Challenges

For In Home Personal Services, caregivers are the most critical asset. However, employing a caregiver is not an easy task to do with a lesser number of caregivers and very high demand. So, over the past few years, the organization has come up with an innovative solution and has built and improved its own school for caregivers.

Currently, In Home Personal Services is the only organization that offers caregiver certification for all fifty states in America. This solution eventually became one of the major differentiators for the brand.

As an organization, IHPS believes the pandemic has opened the eyes of those who used to take healthcare professionals for granted. In IHPS, no one ever wavered in the face of uncertainty, fear, and confusion during the initial stages of the pandemic. The whole IHPS team now hopes to bring a fundamental change in inequality and access to care and gratitude towards the people who work on the frontline.

Dr. Abdulrahman Al Shikhy: Revolutionizing The Ride-Sharing Experience/ Creating Memorable Travel Experiences

Born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Dr. Abdulrahman Al Shikhy started working in Dammam; shortly after completing his graduation. During his brief time in the city, Dr. Al Shikhy noticed that he and his colleagues were facing issues finding a flight or ride to go back to their respective hometowns to visit their families during Hajj, Ramadan vacations. As Saudi Arabia is a big country, the distance between cities like Dammam and Jeddah is 846 miles.

Keeping these issues in his mind year after year, he thought to find the best possible ways to return home on his holidays. Every time he sought a ride or a flight; it was a struggle. Besides this, most of the trip’s drivers were solo. He recognized the issues like exorbitant fuel prices, constant car maintenance, and staying up all night to cover distances between cities, making it strenuous for passengers who opt to travel often.

During this period of his life, he got a chance to complete his study to get a Ph.D. that is when he met many tourists and discovered their excitement about traveling everywhere by sharing the ride and cost.

“This is when I had an epiphany about how our country lacks a plethora of resources when you are trying to find ways to move from city to city in Saudi Arabia.”– says Dr. Al Shikhy.

These experiences acted as a catalyst for Dr. Al Shikhy and during his journey, he seized the opportunity to explore and discover a myriad of activities, distinct concepts, different cultures, and more. Soon he decided to travel to Europe.

Keeping all these shortcomings in mind, Dr. Al Shikhy was intrigued by the concept of ridesharing in Europe’s “BlaBlaCar app.” This is where he found the solution to the problems faced by the common people in his country. Soon, this notion inspired him to finally introduce his idea in Saudi Arabia, which eventually marked the launch of Rehla in the country.

Rehla is a ridesharing mobile app that links drivers and passengers heading to the same destination between cities, which results in a great travel experience at the best price possible.

Diversifying Offerings

The initial purpose of introducing Rehla was to allow its potential travelers to travel intercity by opting for ridesharing services at a very reasonable rate. Dr. Al Shikhy’s main aim was to reach those customers who cannot afford expensive rides, don’t own a car, are students or pilgrims. Initially, it was a challenge to break past the cultural barrier of sharing a ride with a stranger, mostly because ridesharing was a completely new concept in Saudi Arabia. However, the Rehla team continued to introduce a flurry of additional services that supports the main ridesharing concept, making it easier and more comfortable for everyone.

The Rehla team then decided to further develop its business model by successfully implementing the advanced booking feature, where the rider gets the opportunity to book their ride before the journey anytime and anywhere, also allowing the passenger to choose the best offer as this feature supports the lack of finding rides to specific places. This indeed creates make more options for passengers.

Dr. Al Shikhy and his team also introduced sending parcel on the same day with those captains who want to increase their income and travel with empty seats daily between cities.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia is a country full of history, heritage, and beautiful cultures that are yet to be explored.”

“Each year, millions of tourists visit Saudi Arabia to discover, revel, and experience what Saudi has to offer them. There is a lack in the tourism sector which gave me the impetus for introducing a service where we provide an expert licensed tour guide who is also a captain to guide them to learn more about our country.” – says Dr. Al Shikhy.

The Greatest Accomplishment

Dr. Al Shikhy believes introducing Rehla to the Saudi market was his most significant accomplishment. Like many other start-ups, Rehla struggled initially. However, with time everything slowly fell into the right places. Additionally, Rehla has succeeded in closing the first round of funding. Moreover, with this unique concept, Rehla got to take part in various accelerators like Taqaddam, Misk powered by Plug & Play, Monshaat, Zain Great Idea, Tourism Accelerator, and Plexus.

Dr. Al Shikhy has established a team that has remained diligent over the years and has helped the company achieve its goal. As a result of the team effort, the start-up now has its set up at Saudi Arabia’s two busiest airports, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and Tibeh Airport in Madinah, which serve as the primary entry points for pilgrims visiting Makkah and Medina.

Dr. Al Shikhy also says, “Our main strategy is to expand our business by entering the cities through International Airports & train stations. And soon, we will start operating in Riyadh and Dammam Airport besides Jeddah and Medina Airport.”

The proudest moment for the organization was when it was allowed to compete with industry behemoths like Uber and Careem at the Madina airport. Out of all 36 firms operating in transportation services in Saudi Arabia, Rehla was the only application provided with the opportunity of opening a booth at the Medina and Jeddah airports, in order to acquire more travelers without internet, Saudi number, or a smartphone.

Defining Success

As the founder and CEO of Rehla, Dr. Al Shikhy, says, “We all define success differently. To me, success is when you believe in an idea and make consistent efforts towards it, which means we never give up trying..” This should serve as a reminder for the team to constantly strive to achieve the goals that are set to feel rewarded and accomplish their efforts.

Apart from that, he has always encouraged his team members to communicate freely and give them space, which helps everyone to appreciate different viewpoints, backgrounds, and ideas, which eventually contributes to the growth and success of the firm; Dr. Al Shikhy feels that as a leader, it is his responsibility to continue to mentor and help his team with his vast knowledge.

Tackling Challenges

The application was launched in 2019 when most of the Saudi Arabian population wasn’t familiar to the concept of ridesharing. It takes time to inculcate any new concept in the minds of the citizens. It also requires a lot of marketing and brand recognition.

Moreover, the application was launched just 2 months before the deadly pandemic, which resulted in a prompt lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. This situation also brought skepticism amongst the users even when the lockdown was over. Road travel and social distancing protocols soon became a major threat for start-ups like Rehla.

Dr. Al Shikhy realized from this situation focusing or investing time and money on one service won’t take the company anywhere. Instead, he believed that his team can do more as Rehla has a flexible business model which could be utilized by using the same elements that are the captain, and his car but by providing different services. So, the firm at once launched other supporting services in one application.

Future Roadmap
Transportation is an important part of our daily life. Many passengers prefer to travel by road to immerse themselves in nature. While others often face a tough time finding a cheap fare. This is where Dr. Al Shikhy would like Rehla to bridge the gap.

Dr. Al Shikhy started Rehla to become a the best choice for ridesharing apps to provide a good experience for travelers. The team members intend to make Rehla a ‘super application’ in the region that can provide the most important services of transportation & tourism, all in one applicationat very reasonable rates. Additionally, the founder looks forward to expanding the application to various neighbouring countries. Recently, Rehla has completed trips to and from Bahrain, UAE, and Kuwait.

Gabriel Meza Madrid: Revolutionizing the Aviation Sector

A passionate aviation professional, luxury travel entrepreneur, and global citizen with more than 15 years of international experience, in strategic groundbreaking innovation, Gabriel Meza Madrid serves as the CEO of Dubai-based aircraft management and charter company Jet Luxe.

Hailing from a family of pilots, Gabriel and his brother Sam Madrid spent most of their careers in the aviation industry. Over the years, both became obsessed with efficiency and improving the customer experience. They soon realized that although aviation is incredibly innovative, many elements of the industry need improvements. For example, a charter’s booking and payment process is much more cumbersome and problematic than it should be. Issues like banking procedures, time differences, public holidays, and currency issues slow down the process of booking a flight, which is very frustrating when an individual wants to fly immediately. So, Gabriel and Sam decided to develop a fintech product to streamline the payment processes of private jets.

Making Processes Better

Soon, Gabriel and Sam left their full-time roles and went all out for their start-up journey, growing the team to twelve. Gabriel states, “Our obsession with efficiency had us working day and night on a solution. In parallel, we were offering aircraft management and charter services, which is our area of expertise.” Through this process, aircraft owners approached Jet Luxe, and frustrated with jet management’s status quo, they requested the firm to take over their aircraft. Eventually, their approach was very well received, and they started multiplying. Jet Luxe’s customers would say, “We are tired of the lack of transparency in business aviation,” and “you’re doing a great job, let’s do more together.”

Since its inception, Jet Luxe’s primary differentiator is its transparency, efficiency, honesty, and the ability to offer exceptional experiences. The market wanted Jet Luxe to continue developing its charter and management business, to which the company obliged. So, the organization was developed to streamline processes, making aircraft ownership and charter flights much more effective without compromising on experience and quality.

Fixing Broken Processes

With its core business in private jets, Jet Luxe manages and operates private jets. However, the organization’s primary business is its customer service; it helps solve various travel issues, create investment opportunities, and fix broken pieces of private jet travel.

Gabriel states, “We differentiate because we know our clients’ concerns, frustrations, and aspirations. From here, we can diversify our service profile and offer more agile solutions than bigger operators in this space. As a start-up, if we see an issue in the market, we can respond to it extremely quickly. We have the investment and manpower to make change happen quickly.”

Jet Luxe provides focused attention and 24/7 global personalized services for its clients. The organization also offers an investment option named INVICTUS Patron for its mature business aviation users, where they can sponsor an aircraft and enjoy a proven return on investment and reduced fleet rate.

Handling Failures and Success

Over the years, Gabriel has seen and faced a lot of failures. However, these failures have taught him to give maximum effort and try everything in his capacity to make things happen.

He says, “When the outcome isn’t as we had hoped – that’s okay. When we fail, we learn. Yes, the stakes are extremely high, and we will always try our very best to deliver exceptional outcomes, but if failures occur, we learn and move forward. 90% of factors are within our control, and the remaining % we need to learn from. There is always an opportunity to grow.”

Gabriel believes that success can’t be defined through a single channel- one needs a well-rounded life. He states, “We need professional fulfillment and business success but also a peaceful, well-rounded life. Success is being clear about and achieving your objectives. For me, these are wealth, health, and peace.”

The Driving Force

Gabriel is a problem solver and finds change very exciting. His vision is to keep seeing problems, finding solutions, and driving disruption.

He always wants to keep bringing new perspectives and fresh outlooks to the table. He states, “What drives me for a successful journey is finding ways to disrupt and adapt processes. This might not sound exciting, but when you discover a process that creates massive savings and value – it motivates you to continue.”

Preparing for the Future

As the CEO of Jet Luxe, Gabriel plans to expand the fleet to meet the massive demand. The organization is also increasing its concierge services, account management, and travel management options. Its future perspective will always be agile, as it can’t predict market conditions or client preferences perfectly. Jet Luxe can lead with a commitment to taking a disruptive approach to the business model.

At the topmost level, Gabriel also wants to support and encourage the respective authorities to enable better access and movement for the sector. He says, “Business aviation provides jobs and massive economic contributions, and it enables the world to keep moving. So, we’re here to help governments appreciate and understand the value of business aviation. From becoming more sustainable and greener to creating more financial contributions – business aviation should be better understood and supported.”

Jet Luxe is also committed to thoughtful and powerful strategic alliances with new organizations. It partners with new disruptive companies starting from fintech to fuel and interior designers to catering service providers.

Jet Luxe expects to balance growth and scale with continued consistent services with its continued growth. Gabriel states, “We will grow, expand, and diversify, but we will never weaken our services. For example, we won’t dilute the concierge or account managers ratio per aircraft or partner. This will remain extremely important for our long-term quality control and experience management.”

Rabih Fakhreddine: Fuelling the Global F&B Revolution

Led by the visionary CEO and founder, Rabih Fakhreddine, Dubai-based 7 Management’s regional recognition has been established due to its uniqueness and creativity in connecting with a diverse range of audiences through providing memorable entertainment and dining experiences.

Born in Lebanon, Rabih pursued his graduation from the American University of Beirut in 2006, where he learned the intricacies of Business Marketing. After completing his studies, he joined the FMCG sector, starting with a sales position at Transmed, where he handled the account of P&G. Later, Rabih joined British American Tobacco and served in various managerial positions for the Levant region.

With entrepreneurship in mind, Rabih soon stepped out of the corporate world to pursue his dream of the food and entertainment industry. A few years after graduation, he established his first bar named Faces in 2012 and a couple of others by 2015. Later, he founded Seven Sisters, a luxurious combination of music and cuisine in the heart of Beirut, and shortly afterward, he formed 7 Management to handle the operations.

Rabih says, “I have been cooking with passion since I was a young child. During my university days, I was active in several social clubs. I started saving money that I later used to invest in several bars and restaurants.”

Currently, 7 Management owns and operates various entertainment concepts like Feb30 and Antika Bar, Seven Sisters, culinary offerings, Kahwet Beirut, and Super Snack El Kbeer in Lebanon and Dubai.

Since the first day of his organization, Rabih has aspired to broaden the target audience of 7 Management, which has led to a diversified portfolio that includes bars, restaurants, beach clubs, nightclubs, and cafes. The organization also exposes its audience to brands with tremendous potential in Beirut by bringing them to Dubai, where it operates 7 different brands.

The Greatest Accomplishments

Rabih believes 7 Management achieved its most outstanding achievement in 2021 when the organization emerged from the pandemic in a solid position. With all the challenges the food and beverages industry faced, 7 Management successfully came out the other side carrying a big success story.

Soon, within eight months, Rabih and his colleagues launched six homegrown brands, putting 7 Management on both international and regional maps. Its star brands that stand out in the crowded F&B market are Lucia’s, The Theater, February 30, and Café Beirut, with each brand now leading its segment.

Also, thanks to Rabih’s lifelong quest to provide memorable entertainment and dining experiences, he has recently won the Caterer After Dark Awards for Nightlife Entrepreneur of the year.

Tackling Challenges

Being a regional leader also presents more challenges in creating moments and developing lifestyle brands that can put smiles on people’s faces and create memories for many people. Rabih believes this puts extra pressure on the leadership team to keep leading, creating, and upgrading experiences that can successfully cater to the needs and tastes of consumers in a competitive market like Dubai. This also makes him go the extra mile to consistently stay ahead of the competition and retain 7 Management’s lead over its rivals.

Rabih explains that as the CEO and founder of 7 Management, creating and innovating are two never-ending processes, and the entire team feels proud to be regional and international trendsetters.

He says, “People may tell me, this concept is a copy-paste venue,’ but I feel rewarded when I hear this as I don’t see it as a negative thing. 7M is a trendsetter and a lifestyle brand that many people and organizations aspire to, and as CEO, one of the most important things is to have a healthy culture within the organization for other people to keep on creating and innovating.”

Key Learnings

All the obstacles that Rabih and his team faced are vital learnings and pivotal to 7 Management’s journey. Now, after spending a decent amount of time in the industry and going through a lot of wild experiences, Rabih looks at things from various perspectives, which has helped him learn many key strategic lessons for 7 Management’s success. He also believes this accumulation of experiences has made the organization what it is today and made 2021 a great year with numerous launches across the region.

“We are certainly going to continue facing obstacles, and we will keep learning and evolving. This is all part of our journey, and hopefully, all of this is for the better and contribute to the continued growth of this organization.”– he asserts.

Putting Smiles on People’s Faces

For Rabih, success is going to 7 Management’s venues and seeing people happy, enjoying their time, and creating memories. He feels all the hard work is worth for these moments. After such a tough year, putting smiles back on people’s faces is something that he deeply cherishes.

Rabih feels proud of his team and their actions, especially when he comes across random people talking about 7 Management and its brands across the region. Such pride encourages him to keep moving, creating, building, and expanding.

Picture of the Future

Founded in 2015, 7 Management is present in markets like Beirut, Doha, Dubai, and Riyadh. To make the company a major international player, Rabih and his team have plans for several new markets where they would like to expand their portfolio, including Athens, London, and entire Europe.

As a company, 7 Management is always one step ahead of everyone else. Rabih and his team are pretty excited by the growing tech industry. They have firmly tapped into the explosive power of this sector, resulting in a new payment option, where clients can pay with cryptocurrencies at all of the 7 Management’s Food and Beverages outlets.

Suggestions for Young Leaders

Rabih believes each leader needs to be humble and keep their feet on the ground because no matter what position they reach, they are still human beings. Everything that happened over the last two years is a grim reminder that nothing is more valuable than loving and respecting each other.

Patricia Nagle: Helping to Create Functional Ecosystem of AI and AR Driven Tools

Launched in 2005, TeamViewer is a leading global company providing a reliable and secured connectivity platform to remotely access, control, manage, repair, or monitor a wide range of devices starting from personal computers, laptops, and mobile phones to various industrial machines and robots.

The company started its journey in the remote management and support market, and since then, it has rapidly grown to address a multi-billion-dollar market need. Through scrappy creative innovation, TeamViewer has grown to enterprise-scale and supports 60 countries, 627k SaaS subscribers, and 2.5B connected devices while helping enterprises avoid 37M tonnes of CO2 each year through the use of TeamViewer Solutions.

An experienced senior executive with an extensive background in building and leading high–performance teams, Patricia Nagle serves as the President of TeamViewer Americas. She is responsible for the organization’s sales, channel partnerships, development of new routes to market, and customer success. Patricia’s career has spanned a wide range of functions including sales, business development, and go-to-market demand generation in the enterprise software subscription and professional services sectors. Before joining TeamViewer, Patricia spent more than 13 years at the Canadian-listed software giant OpenText, where she led corporate marketing and global business development. She also managed global strategic alliances with key partners like Google, SAP, AWS, Salesforce, and Microsoft that delivered substantial revenue. Before OpenText, Patricia worked in different sales, marketing, and operations role at leading global software and consulting companies.

Introducing a Fresh Perspective

Patricia brings a global point of view and a keen focus on developing a robust partner ecosystem embracing strategic alliances. Her previous professional experience has been beneficial for working through the widespread global disruption of labor and supply chains over the last few years.

She says, “I am intimately familiar with what it takes to build a sustainable business in the face of regionalized challenges and the criticality of getting market validation from other leading technology companies through meaningful partnerships. This has served TeamViewer not only in its sales efforts, but also in building a robust business across the board with a global reach.”

What Success Looks Like

Patricia believes that professional success often depends on three primary factors; happy customers, a successful product, and a vibrant and diverse company culture. These three factors help build the foundation to create a healthy, growth-oriented company that can quickly adapt to meet the market’s evolving needs.

TeamViewer’s solid foundation in this regard led Patricia to join the company, as it enables her to help the company focus on the next stage of its growth phase by building effective channel programs and technological innovation progress.

At her core, Patricia gets motivated by winning. However, she realizes that this can only be accomplished by fostering the growth of others on her team. She feels proud to help her team grow through the successes and failures they experience and watch as they use those lessons to excel in new projects and advance their careers.

Patricia believes various leadership challenges are much more pronounced today than ever before. Addressing the diverse needs of employees and the organization’s culture requires a leader who can engage and motivate each person in the best way for their individual growth while also aligning them with the company strategy and objectives. On the other hand, current leaders must balance these bottom-up needs with an effective and efficient approach to the business from the top.

Leadership Principals

Patricia recognizes her commitment to leading from the front and several other aspects that feed her leadership principles.

Open Communication: As the organization’s leader, Patricia feels team communication should always flow both ways. It is essential that team members feel comfortable speaking up when they feel things have gone off track. It is also essential for the leader to be close to the problem so everyone can solve it collaboratively.
Personnel Empowerment: Teams often feel empowered to do the best possible job and make decisions that will feed the team’s ultimate success. Leaders can further aid this process by setting clear objectives and providing the team the flexibility needed to achieve those goals.
Accountability: Patricia feels taking responsibility for decisions is the most critical aspect of leadership. Leaders should do what they say and say what they do. This consistency breeds confidence within the organization that everyone is playing their specific roles so each feels comfortable focusing on what they need to do to contribute.

Her leadership style is entirely defined by her insistence on leading from the front. She says, “There is no ivory tower at TeamViewer, and I will never ask my employees to do something I am unwilling to do myself. This requires sharing successes with the teams that enabled them and maintaining personal accountability when things don’t go according to plan.”

Patricia always seeks to gather input from her team on various important decisions, but she also recognizes that the ultimate decision rests with her. It is her responsibility to be on the frontline to compile all the relevant data for a decision and take the action that leads to the best chance of success for TeamViewer.

Accomplishments and Challenges

As a woman in a male-dominated world, Patricia feels extremely proud of her ascension to the C-suite. Getting to this point required grit, expertise, and leadership that she has been developing throughout her career. Leveraging and sharing that expertise with other females as a mentor has been one of her greatest successes. It means a lot for her to be a role model for other women, and she strives to help them achieve what she has by setting an example in her work.

On her challenges, Patricia says, “I have always been one to push myself to my limit. Because this is so ingrained in my work ethic, I have sometimes pushed others too hard towards a goal. I have since worked on being more empathetic to my team’s motivations and limitations in order to set more realistic expectations.” She added, “The ceiling on what a team can achieve is determined as much by the team’s health as it is by the leader pushing them forward, so understanding what someone is willing and able to contribute is vital to building that healthy team.”

Future Roadmap

TeamViewer’s primary focus is empowering frontline workers, which requires connecting people through devices, people to people, and people to data through a unified platform of technologies and initiatives. TeamViewer’s use cases focus on employee onboarding and training, visual troubleshooting in the field, and remote knowledge sharing. Every use case provides efficiency bonuses for enterprises as they can direct knowledge and expertise where it is needed the most. At present, TeamViewer is focusing on creating a functional ecosystem of AR and AI-driven tools that can securely connect frontline workers to the knowledge they need at any point of time. The key word here is ‘functional,’ as AR tools have existed for years. However, with the greater emergence of more practical and intelligent devices and software that provides connectivity, AR can support a variety of business use cases to deliver the best value-add to the worker and material return on investment for the enterprise.