Zeinab Noureldin and Pauline D’Arcy, managing partners, AIMS International Egypt: 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 are our friends Zeinab Noureldin (bio) and Pauline D’Arcy (bio), the managing partners of AIMS International Egypt. Zeinab also wears the hat of vice president for the EMEA region: AIMS is a global institution, and the Egypt office began with a business Pauline founded in 1997.

This week’s column is special: We sat down with Zeinab and Pauline after they asked to sponsor this section. The agreement was simple: If they want to associate their name with this space, they’d have to sit through the same interview as everyone else. Edited excerpts follow. (In a departure from our usual style, we’re running this week’s column as a Q&A to make it easier to follow who’s speaking.)

ENTERPRISE- The first question is always the same: You need to introduce yourselves to those in the community who don’t know you.

Zeinab: Before anything else, I’m a mother of two, ages four and eight. That’s the biggest part of my life now. Secondly, I’m managing partner in a business that has grown quite fast over the past six years. My focus is on the business development and client relations side of the business, though I still enjoy keeping my hands in operations, because you never want to lose touch with the core of what you do.

Pauline: I am the proud founder of a business I started many years ago — back in 1997, when I learned how wonderful it is to be your own boss, particularly when you have a one-year-old child and your office is right next to your home. We’re still in that office, in fact. It’s fun to have people come through who first met us as young professionals and today they’re well-known CEOs and CFOs.

ENTERPRISE- Where do you do most of your business — with multinationals? Large Egyptian corporates?

Pauline: Traditionally, we’ve been very strong with multinationals and other foreign clients arriving in Egypt, but our fastest-growing segment today is with large Egyptian institutions and family businesses, who appreciate that we have plenty of experience with multinationals, but a very deep understanding of the Egyptian market and of all the various factors — including culture — that go into finding the right people for the right roles.

ENTERPRISE- This is a My Morning Routine interview, Zeinab, so let’s start with you: What’s your morning routine?

Zeinab: I’m up by 5:45am and hit snooze until 6am. The first part of my day is getting the kids off to school by 6:40 or so. Then I have, recently, started taking a 20-30 minute walk — just to around the block to take some time for myself. By 7am, I have this really productive hour in which I drink my coffee, read Enterprise (particularly to see what business leads I can pull out) and do some quiet thinking and set up my day.

Once I’m at the office, it’s about meetings in Egypt until sometime in the afternoon, then it’s time to work on AIMS International, where I’m an executive member of the global board and other than my focus for the MEA region I’m also a co-marketing lead. Being double-hatted to do global work is a lot of fun, though the time differences can be challenging — one of the people I work most closely with is in our Mexico office, for example, for our global rebrand, so stay tuned…

ENTERPRISE- What about you, Pauline?

Pauline: It’s a little bit different as I have nobody to talk to in the morning. I’m also awake by quarter to six and I try to stay in bed as long as I can before I make myself a leisurely breakfast. I’m in slow mode until I arrive at the office somewhere between quarter to eight and half-past eight. I’m old fashioned and don’t like this work-from-home stuff. Work starts when I arrive at the office.

ENTERPRISE- You’re not a fan, huh?

Pauline: I find the office energizing, and frankly I find I have to be much more disciplined to work from home. But in the office, I love interacting with people — our team and our clients — face-to-face.

ENTERPRISE- Are you seeing the same brain drain that we’re seeing?

Zeinab:That’s a big trend, and it has accelerated very fast in recent months. Mostly to Saudi Arabia, but the UAE is still in demand. It can be challenging, sometimes, when someone you think would be a perfect fit for a role, a company, a culture, but isn’t interested because they are looking only outside the country.

Pauline: It’s not just tech. We’re seeing a lot of companies in the Gulf moving functions including finance, HR, audit, and compliance to Egypt. Back office functions where they can pay substantially above the market, but the employer saves because they’re still paying less than they would to base those roles in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Riyadh.

ENTERPRISE- What’s the hardest role to fill right now?

Zeinab: The one that stands out is chief technology officer, because the expectations are so high right now. And CFO can be very challenging. But CTO, for certain. One thing we’ve seen a bit of recently is companies outside Egypt hiring and basing senior tech talent here to build teams and then serve international business. We have a lot of talent, and the price differential between here and the Gulf is great.

ENTERPRISE- Let’s say I’m a candidate. You think I’m a great fit. The company wants me. What’s the number-one reason why I will say “No” and decline a job?

Zeinab: Culture. Number one, by far, is that you don’t see yourself as a fit with the culture. This includes a mindset that is open to change. Execs know that if they don’t gel with other C-suite managers or the CEO knows she doesn’t align with the board — how they operate, where they want to take the business — they will fail to have an impact. Compensation is a factor, too.

I think it’s really telling, though, that we’re seeing more younger execs decline C-suite roles because they’re concerned about having an impact. They think, “I have a name. I’m coming to this company and need to take it from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. Does the company want to go on that journey? Do they want to change and grow? Or are they hiring me just to be able to say they have someone running the function who has a certain educational or employment background?” No executive sees growth or value in that setup.

ENTERPRISE- What’s a trend in the industry that you’ve picked up on, but that you think might surprise our readers?

Zeinab: There’s a growing focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion across the Middle East. It’s focused on areas that aren’t emphasized as much in other parts of the world, but it’s there. It’s about gender, about age and abilities vs. disabilities and experience.

ENTERPRISE- I get gender, of course, but age? Really?

Zeinab: Look, what we do — whether at the executive level or at the board level — is all about getting the right people into the right seat. There’s a push on now to put the right people into the right role — they’re not “too young” to wear the hat, nor are they “too old” to report to a younger person. It’s about attitude and aptitude. And there’s nothing wrong with being a great professional who, despite being a certain age, just doesn’t want to be C-level.

ENTERPRISE- And you’re seeing companies actively looking at the question of age in hiring?

Zeinab: We saw it at multinationals first, because they have the processes in place to prioritize it, and we’re seeing it at large Egyptian corporates now, too.

ENTERPRISE- It strikes me that a lot of your job is about sales — selling clients on retainer search, of course, but then also selling candidates on companies.

Zeinab: And companies to candidates. I won’t disagree, but more than sales it’s about advisory and troubleshooting. Often, a large part of what we do is work with top execs to sort out what they’re really looking for in a role, to redefine job functions, or sort out lingering issues that you know might be an obstacle to placing the right person — and having that person stay. We don’t give up on our clients — not only because we do retained search, but it’s all about long-term relationships.

ENTERPRISE- How important is work-from-home for the people you’re placing?

Zeinab: Young professionals? They love it. They expect it.

Pauline: I don’t think older people care as much.

ENTERPRISE- What about the companies? I get a sense the shift against WFH isn’t just a “Western” thing.

Pauline: The multinationals don’t mind it so much — they’re fine with hybrid.

Zeinab:I’d say Egyptian corporates don’t love it. If they have to, they’ll do one day, the minimum, but they don’t love it.

ENTERPRISE- What about you ladies?

Zeinab: We do one day a week, but we also have a lot of flexibility, so if someone wants to work from home for whatever reason, we’re very flexible. But we love being in the office — being able talk face to face, even walk into someone’s office for a chat, rather than booking a Google Meet time to have a discussion.

ENTERPRISE- Did you immediately succumb to the gravitational pull of the family business, Zeinab?

Zeinab:I wasn’t pushed into it, no [laughs]. Pauline had started working in the field six or seven years before she went out on her own, back when she was with Arthur Andersen. But she didn’t push it on me. My father, though? He would always say: This is your future, this is what you need to do. I explored other things, but this was what I was meant to do. I really have a passion for commercial, business development, communication, and marketing — for that side of things — and this is exactly what I want to be doing. I grew up in the business and still love it.

ENTERPRISE- What’s next for you as a business?

Zeinab: I think it’s simply about making certain that Egyptian corporates understand that there’s no need to go retain a firm in London or Belgium to run a search for them when we’re right here in their market that we know best. We offer the best of both worlds — we have deep local roots and insight, global experience, and an international footprint with our global locations. And, frankly, our quality is at least the same if not even better.

I also see a lot of room to grow our boardroom practice — we’re very good at finding the just the right independent non-executive director who can help add significant value to businesses, that’s your diversity there.

ENTERPRISE- Okay, let’s wrap this up. What’s in your Netflix queue?

Zeinab:I always unwind at night for a bit with Seinfeld or Friends. I need something that provides a chuckle, but doesn’t engage me too deeply, because by bedtime, I’m spent. I don’t want something that demands concentrated attention — even if it’s a film or a series I’d really enjoy. I’m “on” all day.

Pauline: I’m different. I don’t watch the same thing twice. I’m always on the lookout for something new. I’ve loved The Crown, of course — I lived that history, right. But what I really love are documentaries. The last great one I watched was Cuba Libre, about Fidel Castro.

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