Is it right? Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and Co-founder Careem, Middle East and Pakistan's leading everyday Super App, has made a generous donation of USD 2 million to LUMS to establish the "Sekha Scholarship". She assembled a team, asked us to fund this thing. Sheikha is an alumnus of University of Southern California and Stanford University. Even when youre there, youre not present. Mudassir Sheikha: So should pricing be done at the city level with some advisory support from the country? [14] In August 2018, Careem said they would be launching bus services, starting with cities in Egypt in December of the same year. Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and Co-Founder of Careem. Where things were fine, we didnt bother. And this was an initiative that was started by her. Those are also very respectable growth rates. Its not even the country, right? How do you balance these two things? Even a manager who follows the basic good principles that you have, these behave differently because thats the way organizations are. So that expectation-setting held us for at least the first two years. The things that we commit to our wives that we will do on a weekly, monthly basis. Every 15 minutes we know where a city is vis a vis last week the same time. Both companies apps will also continue to operate under separate brands. Before McKinsey, Mudassir spent a decade in the Silicon. It initially started in 4 cities and grew to over 100 cities in 14 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa since its inception in 2012. We sent it to each other. Theres always something thats going right and wrong with different markets. So we would only patch things and buy us six months. : Yeah, for us it was we will figure it out. You look at it and you say, if we can do this, then we can change our view. Theres always something thats going right and wrong with different markets. How do you balance these two things? And you look at that and you say if Im in engineering or Im in accounting, you know, how do I translate that into do I really want a great experience in accounting? . [29], In 2018, Careem announced it was launching a food delivery service app called Careem Now, delivering food and pharmaceuticals, initially in Dubai and Jeddah. So thats really where we started our taxi, limousine booking service in the GCC, which is the six oil-rich countries. ", Leadership Coach & Educator, Fortune 500 Executive. You know, one of our first things was driven by our mission and values. Even when youre there, youre not present. So these values, theyre somewhat universal, right? : Theres no fixed time but generally nine, ten p.m. : The kids are asleep. Mudassir Sheikha: So one opportunity for example, one of our early, early colleagues, she realized that bus, Careem bus was an opportunity. And then people start adjusting to the new reality. : And then we would have some weekly check ins, sometimes even daily check ins. [15] The service was discontinued in early 2020. So it was difficult to get the caliber of people that we were hoping to get. We didnt take it to the extension where it should have gone. Shikhar Ghosh: So last question and then we can stop here. : Youve been talking about the vision of slowly desegregating the pressure so it all doesnt come to the talk. Mudassir Sheikha: When we raised our CVC, we actually promised ourselves that we will get away from that mindset, that were not going to keep patching things because that whole debt was starting to catch up to us. Very early, Careem recognized the need for providing two different types of customer service. When is this going to get better? This deck probably took a long time to build and Im sure it gets iterated every now and then. There are review meetings that I do and now I actually block the times on my calendar to do thinking. Startup founders whose companies were acquired by Careem will also gain considerable wealth with this acquisition. Then you have to sort of make sure that it gets embedded in every aspect of the organization. : So even if you create new businesses, if the operating system is robust enough, then it will morph into that. So I come in, Ive only been there three months. Empowering the front line to make the decisions to do as much as possible that they can do on their own. We work on a daily cycle, so we improve 30 times as much, you know, within that same period of time. : And the second thing which has happened, and you know, we had a conversation six months ago where I think you said something very interesting. : If you are constantly looking at these numbers and chasing people when numbers are low, then after a certain point, people start looking at these numbers proactively. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. 200 of these employees will become Dirham millionaires, whereas almost 75 will become dollar millionaires for their shares reports The National. : And then shes the one who has to think through all of the day to day things and build a team and do all these things. It requires a lot of, in deciding of the market, analytics. There are review meetings that I do and now I actually block the times on my calendar to do thinking. Both companies apps will also continue to operate under separate brands. : Two years ago. : But there was a process, right, where we were even testing people on values. [3] Careem expanded into the food delivery business with Careem Now in November 2018[4] and launched a digital payment platform, Careem Pay in April 2022. So not much changed. So if your competition is a lot bigger than you, then youre not even providing a competitive service to the customer or the captain. Mudassir Sheikha: So, yes. What gets done in the city? So you want them to behave differently if its a critical problem versus its not a critical problem, and so on. : And the competitions telling themselves the same thing, so its this constant movement. And that seemed like a big business in the Middle East back then, right? There will be some cultural nuances. And this was an initiative that was started by her. So it can be done at the country level. Shikhar Ghosh: So what does your day look like? Careem will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber, preserving its brand. This thing will start creating incentives for people to take risks. : Every year that vision sort of expanded. So that expectation-setting held us for at least the first two years. I just got on the phone with her early today and shes saying theres another small team that is doing something similar that she would just like to get on board full time. And the more Ive done it, the more I realize that this is something thats missing. Mudassir Sheikha: But the contract was sort of written. Born in Doha, Qatar in 1948. Do you have a demand issue, do you have a supply issue? And Ill see the growth, but as soon as that promo code is over, the growth will vanish, right? And Ive actually made a note of it and I tell myself this every day to remind myself that look, I need to now focus on people that will drive the business. Mudassir shared his journey and ways to boost entrepreneurship in the region. Shikhar Ghosh: And the KPIs were mostly output-oriented? Under Sheikha's leadership, Careem became one of the fastest-growing start-ups in the region, raising over $771 million in funding and reaching a . So youre basically not there when theyre awake. Should it be done in the city, should it be done in the country? And what gets done in Dubai, which is our head office. And now we had five different ways of running Careem because these five different leaders were not working in a consistent, coherent way. So the way a manager behaves in Egypt or Pakistan might be completely different. So lets say some city needs to grow 30% a month, which means seven percent week on week and theyre only growing three percent week on week when I look at the screen, then theres clearly an issue, right? [30] In 2019, the service expanded into Riyadh and Amman, and announced it was also launching in Pakistan. I dont know remember what Magnus had. What will happen? Lets hire people that will run this country. The company waited until late April, 2018, to disclose this breach because they "wanted to make sure we had the most accurate information before notifying people". : I hope thats happening. Mudassir Sheikha: So by going through that exercise of putting these down, you started building conviction. : Then we realized that we should become the public transport system for our cities because the public transportation systems were not existent like they were in Europe and the U.S and elsewhere. So that, you just trained the organization to be on it. I think one is weve been able to build a leadership team thats a lot more capable than what we had ever before. Should it be done in the city, should it be done in the country? Or were we giving just people feedback on their delivery and their performance? : So quick question, why do you have to hit such high growth rates? : So thats been a core challenge for the last year almost, for us. And that has more engineers than us. This is the culture that we want to build. So Saturday I catch up on things that have to be done that I didnt get a chance to do during the week, so Fridays off. 1/2. Europe, Menlo Park, China), Where the person is located (e.g. : Building a structure. Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. Shikhar Ghosh: And this would have been your job. : Yeah, so we would have this joke in the office that, you know, lets only fix it for the next six months because anything beyond that would take a lot longer to fix, that we would not have the time for. So we made some progress on it and if you think of our position, our strategic position vis a vis others in the industry, you know, we ar a local player that has to compete with someone that has more money. They have positively taken upon critical challenges such as safety of women and women driving by introducing ride trackers, call masks, and in-ride support. Whats their culture, whats their DNA. And family does suffer. And so the pressure on the top comes down a little bit. Shikhar Ghosh: So why every 15 minutes? So, you know, as the CEO, what have you learned, what surprised you about being CEO of a really fast-growing company? So these are the four things that well do to win. These are the values that we stand for. Shikhar Ghosh: So in 2017, what was your revenue? And in the beginning, we were not able to hire a lot of senior people that would proactively see that things would not work and reinvent proactively. Two years ago now? Give feedback to our colleagues to keep growing them, and to drive progress in our communities. So its this thing of saying what are the central functions that you want everyone to do more or less the same way or following the same principles? When [inaudible] was picking up a call and speaking to a customer, I could overhear [inaudible] because he was sitting next to me. One for its users, and the other for its captains. And now, of course, were many times that size now. 1. On day one, literally on day one, one of the first things that we did was we created the first version of our values. When [inaudible] was picking up a call and speaking to a customer, I could overhear [inaudible] because he was sitting next to me. And on the customer side, for example, experience is a function of, you know, when you open the app, is a car available? Like many things that we should have done differently, whether it is in financial processes, or the technology side, they were starting to leave a lot of skeletons that we were then having to go back and fix. How do you transfer that, then? An ever-expanding vision. : So whats an example of an input KPI that would affect growth? Certain aspects of the brand are part of it, but for the most part, we want to empower the front line and have them drive the decisions and only support them as an advisor versus become service providers or controllers. And you have the features that they want, the payment methods that they want, the interfaces that they want. And the something new, initially, was markets. You understood the business completely. Required fields are marked *. And then our families could raise the flag as well and say you guys are not abiding to the contract that you signed with us. So theres a high correlation between people, motivation. So at what point did you and Magnus sort of say, weve got to have some discussion with our families, think we should balance this out in some ways? And basically what that meant was every leader that came in started running their units in ways that made sense to them, based on what they had done prior. How much time is the captain spending, getting paid for a trip or is he waiting? The growth of the company has been by a factor of 10 or 1000. : Yeah, they dont change immediately but weve actually been pleasantly surprised that our colleague NPS, strongly correlates with our growth numbers. So would probably have an edge in how much they can invest in our markets and they might have better core technology than us. : You know, this mountain, then the next mountain, the next mountain at the same pace, almost because your growth rate has continued at very high rates. And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. In 2019, Uber announced that it had acquired Careem for $3.1 billion, making it the largest technology deal in the Middle East. Im going to give a promo code that gives people 50% off for the next 10 trips. : And a lot of the values around taking ownership start to kick in and people are like, look, this is an opportunity. But then it becomes products and product market and so on. If you dont deliver them the right experience, and they get a certain quality of experience from within Careem, how can we expect them to deliver an outstanding experience outside of Careem, right? I profile people and startups contributing to the Pakistani technology entrepreneurial ecosystem. So if you believe that your competitor is targeting these type of growth rates, then you cannot be targeting less than your main competitor. Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 100 cities, covering 12 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. : Like the customer relationship. Mudassir Sheikha: And a lot of the values around taking ownership start to kick in and people are like, look, this is an opportunity. This page is not available in other languages. But some of these values are universal too, right? At which point, there was some resignation that it is what it is. Client satisfaction, repeat work from those clients, and there was a belief that if you focused on these things, then they dont have anyone to follow, right? I know the Middle East very well having worked for Dubai headquartered The Entertainer (who are 50% owned by The Abraaj Group) I spent a year based at Abraaj's London HQ in Mayfair when I founded the UK business and I travelled reguarly to Dubai and the Middle East during the two and a bit years I was with the company. Now, I dont know how long we followed that contract, which was sort of the sad part. Mudassir Sheikha: I think 15 minutes or 30 minutes is within the same range. The idea was not just to build a big business, but start one that would have a big impact, be meaningful, and with a mission to simplify and improve lives and create an awesome organisation that inspires. : So this was the other mistake, per se, right? It has been a little over five years since the global entrepreneurial ecosystem started its obsession with unicorns. And initially, it was difficult to even get the right people, right? Then we empower them to the right resources to do this and we support them and do this, right? Lets try to create some management layers that will create some sanity to it. Shikhar Ghosh: What did you expect it was going to be when you first started? Shikhar Ghosh: So would it be possible to get us a weekly calendar? Both ride-hailing companies will operate their respective regional services and independent brands. : But there are common systems, right? Prior to Careem, Mudassir was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised clients on strategy and business building. Its an output of you doing all the right things, right? Whats your sense of the trade off? Mudassir Sheikha: So well hopefully create these type of initiatives-. Shikhar Ghosh: But you didnt even have a performance management process, right? Mudassir Sheikha LinkedIn. Mudassir Sheikha: The kids are asleep. I need to get responses in this time, Im going to pay this much money. Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 100 cities, covering 12 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. The numbers dont change immediately. We didnt take it to the extension where it should have gone. Shikhar Ghosh: So they are writing agreements with their families now? And the last is take ownership of Careem. Finances is one part of it. And sort of it was within range, right? So analytics just as an example. Two hundred employees will become dirham millionaires and about 75 will become dollar millionaires. Mudassir Sheikha: And our answer is that we will win by being more local than them. WATCH LIVE. : Somebody that we had in class one day was talking about profitability as being like jet fuel for an airline. Then, do I get rid of this person? Four of us sat down, Magnus, Sara, me, Saba, and we basically wrote down what we called the boundary conditions. But there was no sight of things getting better. And who knows what happens in six months? Think big. Mudassir Sheikha interviewed by Shikhar Ghosh, August 30, 2018, at Harvard Business School. For the next 10 years, he set a goal for building an institution from the region that delivers great products and creates a positive impact on the regional population. : So they were suffering from not even getting proper sleep in the early days. But for the most part, the thing that changed is instead of managing and doing things directly, we started becoming a lot more KPI- focused and when there were big deviations on the KPIs, then we got super, super involved. Mudassir Sheikha: So if I could start all over again, I would take that exercise and complete this a bit more. [7] It started operating in July 2012 as a website-based service for corporate car bookings, and evolved to become a ridesharing company with car hire for everyday use. Saturday is my catch up day. Because as we have said multiple times, smart and very capable people, they dont want to work at startups. And over time, I think just by bandwidth limitations, I had to sort of step back and let people drive a lot of the local business. But youre building a structure to do that. How to work with our systems. And we started that exercise. Mudassir Sheikha: So this is not something that can be done right away or that can be outsourced. I dont know if you remember, where you said instead of focusing on problems, focus on people. : So this product market fit is a continuous thing. : So the companies that come closest are the companies in China like Tencent or Alibaba in the way they sort of became the platform that others are built on top of, and they provide a lot of the enabling infrastructure for internet commerce. : Well, so you have to institutionalize it, right? LinkedIn Mudassir Sheikha . And then what you realize is one, this business is 24/7. So we tried that. Its not that Pakistan should do something. She assembled a team, asked us to fund this thing. [37] : And are you able to keep the weekend blocked off? [5], Careem began as a ride-hailing service in Dubai and soon expanded to other cities across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. They want to work at multi-nationals and get a stable career. When Sheikha and Olsson decided to build a solution for this often ignored segment of the population, their business found a purpose. Every year, literally, there was an expansion of the vision based on what we were seeing in the market and some of the success and the growth that we were having. Lets hire people that will run this country. What ETA do you get? Personally as well, but also reinvent the way that youre doing things. : Yeah, because one thing you have to realize is there are some net worth effects in this business. Nothing is impossible. And so youre going to go through similar cycles of growth. But youre building a structure to do that. It was when it breaks, were going to fix the problem that broke. but also educated them on professionalism, compliance of rules and procedures, and most significantly, customer service. And these values we protect, even if the culture says otherwise, well protect these values and well push these values down on culture. So you always have to, so this is what we keep telling ourselves, we have to always be better than competition. Then we empower them to the right resources to do this and we support them and do this, right? That puts a huge tax on you, individually, right? The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship is the champion for entrepreneurship education and training for Harvard Business School. : Or weeks. Shikhar Ghosh: So, you know, you started up the company. Careem has been competent from the day it rolled out its MVP. And what have you learned about that? And go to the office, you know, there are bunch of meetings depending on the day and depending on the time of the month. : where I think the burden becomes higher is sort of to reinvent yourself. So I can tell you that Karachi has grown five point three percent from last week. You look at it and you say, if we can do this, then we can change our view. So I think the answer is in the competitive nature of this industry. And the idea was that Magnus and I would hold each other accountable to what we were supposed to do. It will slow you down in the very, very beginning because it requires some thinking. Mudassir Sheikha: But there was a process, right, where we were even testing people on values. : So we just need to now build that operating system, we call it the Careem operating system, thats going to enable us to build this thing and realize the vision. Now, that vision has been defined. Shikhar Ghosh: And then shes the one who has to think through all of the day to day things and build a team and do all these things. What are the things that surprised you about that transition from when you go to knowing everything thats happening and acting on each of the things that are blowing up, to knowing that Im not going to know a lot thats happening? [24] Saudi Telecom in this funding round invested in a 10% stake in Careem. We signed it. And youre always doing things in a hacked up way to buy yourself another few months, right? Mudassir Sheikha: Yeah, so a lot of the interviews are done, if theres a very local candidate, the results are done by the local person, right, thats going to be the manager for that person. I need to get responses in this time, Im going to pay this much money. The task and the challenge of getting that right was not as I was nave on that front. Ive got a company that Im working with that does annual. 11) Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani - Net worth: $1.2 billion. Its Karachi should do something, Lahore should do something and the people that are running those cities need to be empowered to do those things. So this is something that we didnt pay enough attention to at the beginning, that in hindsight we would pay more attention to. Everyone says value is important. All the employees of Careem had stock options and their company shares will be bought as part of the Uber acquisition deal worth $3.1 billion. Like many things that we should have done differently, whether it is in financial processes, or the technology side, they were starting to leave a lot of skeletons that we were then having to go back and fix. We want to be the platform that enables internet commerce in this region. [39] How do you think about that? : The biggest learning and the biggest surprise has been around people leadership, right? And then you have to come up the next play, right? We want to be the platform that enables internet commerce in this region. And you have the features that they want, the payment methods that they want, the interfaces that they want. : So you want to do the values in a particular way. We sent it to each other. But for the most part, the thing that changed is instead of managing and doing things directly, we started becoming a lot more KPI- focused and when there were big deviations on the KPIs, then we got super, super involved. Mudassir Sheikha is CEO/Co-Founder at Careem Networks FZ LLC. : But you didnt even have a performance management process, right? Okay, this is what I want, now do it. "From seeing a startup go belly up, Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha has come a long way", "CNBC Transcript: Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha Speaks with Hadley Gamble from the CNBC Evolve Global Summit", "Careem CEO says the Middle East is 'not very far' from seeing more billion-dollar start-ups", "Uber buys rival Careem in $3.1 billion deal to dominate ride-hailing in Middle East", "Dubai's Careem rides high after $3bn Uber buyout", "Meet The Unicorn That's Beating Uber In The Middle East", "Careem's Mudassir Sheikha on Co-Founders, Establishing Culture & Balancing Family at a Rapidly Scaling Startup", "Co-Founder Careem, Mudassir Sheikha Donates USD 2 Million to LUMS Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering | Welcome to LUMS", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mudassir_Sheikha&oldid=1150982003, This page was last edited on 21 April 2023, at 05:42. : Yeah. In your case, its been constant. We created some values and we just left it there. We are a business thats growing rapidly. So that person can translate and say look, hes ambitious. And the last is take ownership of Careem. And now we think we should become the internet platform of the Middle East. gainesville obituaries 2021, good friday alcohol laws qld,
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