Sherif El Ghamrawi, chief executive officer of the Egyptian IVF Center: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Sherif El Ghamrawy ( LinkedIn), CEO of the Egyptian IVF Center.

My name is Sherif El Ghamrawi and I’m the CEO of the Egyptian IVF Center, which provides medical solutions to couples facing issues with fertility. I graduated in 1997 from Cairo University, where I studied business administration with a concentration in finance, and afterwards earned my MBA from the US. I started my career in investment banking, first on the EFG Hermes research team. It was an area I had long been interested in — I started investing in the stock market when I was a sophomore in university and I used to trade my friends’ and relatives’ money. After my MBA, I traveled to Canada, where I worked for Kraft Foods, taking on different roles over the course of five years. When I came back to Egypt, I joined Beltone Private Equity, now known now as BPE Partners, where I remained for five years. Following that, I worked for a venture capital firm in Saudi Arabia before becoming the IR director of IDH, the first Egyptian company to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. I was also for a period the head of investor relations at Inktank Communications, which is now known as Enterprise Advisory .

My responsibility as CEO is to grow the company and transform the center from a family-owned business into an institution. Achieving these goals requires developing marketing communication plans, assembling a sales team and setting sales strategies, fully digitizing operations, restructuring and creating new departments within the center, enhancing the parents’ overall experience, and identifying new strategic initiatives to expand the company.

The Egyptian IVF Center was established in 1986 by internationally renowned fertility specialists Prof. Mohamed Aboulghar, Dr Ragaa Mansour, and Prof. Gamal Serour. It was the first IVF center in Egypt, the Middle East and Africa.

The most interesting trend in my industry currently is the direction it’s taking in solving genetic problems by avoiding selecting defective genes before transferring the embryos back to the mother. We also provide fertility preservation options to women who are about to start cancer treatment, women with diminished ovarian reserves, or those who simply choose to postpone pregnancy through egg freezing.

I usually start my day by waking up at 5:30am, getting dressed, having breakfast, and hitting the road at 6:30am. Once I arrive at the office by 7am, I update my to-do list, start checking my emails, and read EnterpriseAM.

A typical workday for me starts with checking the previous day’s operation reports, which detail the business’ performance before I meet with three members of the management team by 9am to analyze and discuss the reports’ findings. Afterwards, they update me on any work-related issues before we agree on action plans to address the topics we discussed. Then, I get to work on the tasks on my to-do list, which are typically strategic initiatives and plans that I have to work on myself. Handling ad-hoc meetings and requests that arise throughout the day takes up the last few hours of my time on the clock. As the day winds down, I typically return any missed calls, unanswered emails, and unanswered messages, which can spill over past my working hours, particularly if I have to leave the office to attend my children’s sports practice.

The one constant in my day is looking at numbers, which makes sense since I’m a finance person. Even if I’m off work, I’m always keen to check in on figures for visits, revenues, and operations.

I try to stay focused and organized by following the plan I set after updating my to-do list in the morning, but usually it’s hard to stick to the plan because the operational side of the business can bring up unplanned surprises and change course.

One habit I want to reintegrate into my life is exercise — it dropped from my routine for the past three to four years. On a professional level, I’m always working towards the goals I have for the business, and I like to set new goals and challenges for myself on a broader level.

Work-life balance is crucial in how I approach my life, and my family is very important to me. I always work to strike a balance between work and family to give my best to both. When I had kids, I decided to start work early and leave early to be able to spend more time with them and be as involved in each other’s lives as possible.

I always disconnect when I attend my kids’ soccer practice. I enjoy watching them playing and I’ve enjoyed talking with — and befriending — their coaches and other parents. I also typically unwind and switch off at the end of the day by reading, which I’ve incorporated into my daily routine, if just for a short period of time before I sleep. I enjoy reading Arabic novels by old Egyptian authors such as Naguib Mahfouz, Ihsan Abdel Koddous and more contemporary authors, like Ashraf El Ashmawy, Osama Abd El Raouf and Reem Bassioni.

The best piece of advice I’ve received was from my father. I was at a professional crossroad and I had to make a choice between moving to Canada or staying in Egypt. My father told me to choose a path, stay focused, and don’t get distracted — keep going, no matter what.

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