Magda Greiche, executive shareholder of Dr Greiche Glass: 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 Magda Greiche (LinkedIn), executive shareholder of Dr Greiche Glass.

My name is Magda Greiche and I am an executive shareholder of Dr Greiche Glass, a family-owned glass processing company, where I’ve been working for the past 15 years. Dr Greiche Glass provides products for the construction, automotive, home appliances, and furniture industries as well as private clients. The company was established by my father in 1983. It was later managed by my mother for over 20 years before she handed CEO responsibility to my brother in 2020.

Our edge is our variety: I think what keeps us number one is our variety of processing, which allows us to address different industries. The second thing is our consistency and constantly striving to produce quality glass that is safe, while maintaining design. Despite the challenges we’ve faced, we’ve managed to keep growing and maintain our position as a market and regional leader in the industry.

My days are very normal: Within the business, I am the head of the architectural glass division, leading operations, sales, and management. I work from our 10th of Ramadan headquarters or from our Cairo office and split my time between meetings, emails, or site and client visits. I make sure that I take at least half an hour for lunch, often with my brother or my mother. It’s a time when we catch up on important issues, but some days I don’t have time.

Family-run businesses have an added layer of complexity: Working within a family business can be challenging if the proper governance, structure, and clarity regarding roles and responsibilities are not in place, because what you do at work you take home. Yet, it’s something I believe can help companies to grow in a healthier and faster way.

There’s always something happening: When it gets too overwhelming, I take a couple of minutes to be mindful and remind myself of my priorities. Pens, paper and calendars are always the best ways to remain organized. I write to diffuse all my thoughts, so that when I look at them, I let go of what’s not important and refocus on the key issues for the rest of the day.

I start my days at 6:30am and the first thing I do is drink my coffee and take time to organize and reflect on my day. Then, I move on to shaking off these thoughts with a workout and afterwards, comes what I call the learning part of my morning, reading the news or checking Enterprise. I think morning routines are great, but they’re also very limiting, because you can get obsessed. Occasionally, it’s good to break the routine or adapt it so it doesn’t become controlling.

A work-life balance is really impossible: You have your personal life, work, health, friends, and family and you want to invest in them all the time, but we can’t have a balance of everything. Instead, it’s a conscious decision as to where you’re going to focus your next hours or your day.

The part I enjoy most about my job is product development, especially when we have sophisticated projects or clients with uncommon requirements that need bespoke solutions. It’s a time when we try to bring people together, locally or from abroad, and often allows us to discover new talent in the market.

The glass industry is moving towards combining tech and the environment: Like everything else, glass is becoming smart. Around the world there are manufacturers working with their clients to develop smart glass solutions for vehicles or buildings and home appliances, where glass plays an interactive role in preserving and generating energy and enhancing privacy.

Design also remains important: Clients want the places they live in to be spacious and to have a lot of light in terms of their construction, meaning they want gigantic pieces of glass. This is where I think we are more advanced than others in the market, as Dr Greiche Glass has a new sheet of glass that is six meters in length.

I have just earned my executive MBA from IMD Business School in Switzerland — a really refreshing experience that exposed me to a diversity of thoughts and perspectives — so I’ve been considering what I’m going to do next in the company. I’m in the process of deciding between taking on a bigger role at Dr Greiche Glass beyond the construction sector or taking on entrepreneurial ideas linked to the glass industry on behalf of my family.

Switching off is all about taking time for myself: I am a very resilient female leader and an introspective person who can spend a lot of time on my own, yet I know how to balance that with sociability. Outside of work, I need to recharge on my own, but I also meet up with friends, usually for a couple of hours because I sleep very early. When I’m not working, I love to travel and can spend hours wandering around the streets of a city, contemplating architecture.

I’ve been given so much advice over the years, but the piece that stays fresh with me is from one of my professors at IMD, Anand Narasimhan. He said, “we do not learn from the experiences we live. We learn from reflecting on those experiences.” Sometimes we just live, we may think of our goals, but we don’t reflect on what we have done. I think reflection is where the most learning and the most self growth happens.

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