Ahmed Khalil, CEO of Raya Holdingfor Financial Investments: Each week, MyMorning 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 Ahmed Khalil (LinkedIn), CEO of Raya Holding for Financial Investments.

My name is Ahmed Khalil and I am the CEO of Raya Holding, a home-grown globalinvestment conglomerate. Raya started out as a merger between IT and distribution companies and transformed over time into an investment company. We have started to grow our footprint outside of Egypt and currently operate in over seven countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Poland.

Our edge is our regional presence: Raya’s focus is on creating value for its shareholdersthrough the expertise, resources, and network we have in Egypt and the wider region. We think that having an actual footprint in the region — via our management and senior teams on the ground — gives us a competitive advantage in the market. It provides us with the ability to create value that many other organizations don’t have.

What lies ahead? I am on a journey to transform Raya into an investment company. Rayastarted out more along the lines of a conglomerate business model that was investing in different industries and growing outside of Egypt. Now we want to turn it into an investment vehicle where we run our portfolio by returns and exits.

I joined Raya in 2012 after finishing my masters degree and took over from my father as thegroup’s CEO four years ago. My role is basically to oversee the overall growth and strategy of our portfolio companies, solving deadlocks, and making sure that our governance is up to date with the challenges.

My day starts around 7am when I have breakfast and go over my to do list for the day. Forthe first two hours of my day I like to reflect, prepare for meetings, read my emails and of course EnterpriseAM. I’m at my desk in the office by 9am, and depending on the week I either meet with CEOs from our portfolio companies or with the management team. It tends to be a mixture of formal and informal meetings depending on the week and the time of year.

With the electricity cuts in Egypt I have found it almost impossible to work remotely, so Imuch prefer to work in the office. I work almost every day of the week to match the Western working schedule. Westerns like to schedule their calls on the last day of their week, which is a Friday. On Saturdays, I have more time for myself to prepare for the week ahead.

Evenings are for family and exercise. I have dinner around 6:30pm with my family beforeputting the kids to sleep, then between 10-11pm I exercise — except on Tuesdays when I take the day off to socialize with friends.

At this stage in my life, work is taking up a bigger chunk of my day-to-day life, but I havecertain rituals throughout the year that break my routine. In August, I work remotely from the North Coast and I spend Christmas with my family abroad. I also try to take at least one ski trip a year with friends.

There are three constants in my day: The first is nutrition — ever since I hit my 40s I havereally started to take care of my protein intake. Second is my daily exercise and third is having dinner with my kids every evening.

I’m trying to navigate my forties and making sure that I enjoy the journey and push myself todo new things whenever I can.

My recommendations: I’m currently listening to an audiobook called Never Split the Difference:Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator. And a podcast that I really love is Acquired, a very detailed and well researched series that dives into the stories of companies and their founders.

The best piece of advice I’ve been given is a saying that runs in my family, and it is to begenerous when you invest in yourself. We have this thing in our family where we never hold back on spending money if it means we're going to learn something new. It’s important to be generous when investing in yourself.

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