Walaa El Husseiny, country director of UN Global Compact Network 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 is the UN Global Compact Network Egypt Country Director Walaa El Husseiny (LinkedIn). Edited excerpts from our conversation:

I’m Walaa El Husseiny. I’m a mother and researcher. I’m a proud graduate of the faculty of economics and political science at Cairo University, and I lead the UN Global Compact in Egypt. It is the local arm of the UN initiative that works with companies to make sustainability part of how they do business. Simply, I spend my time helping businesses to grow responsibly and to profit with purpose.

I don’t have a fixed daily schedule. I do strategies, meetings, budgeting, and coaching for my team. I’m connecting with businesses, I’m creating ideas, as well as initiating projects; every day is different.

The initiative was born from the belief that the private sector can be a real force for good. It should be given the right guidance, partnerships, and accountability tools. When we started, our goal was a simple but ambitious one. We wanted to make sustainability a language that every Egyptian company speaks fluently.

When our network started, we had a very strong belief that Egyptian businesses can compete globally if they embrace sustainability, innovation, and integrity. We built it locally, step by step, with the guidance of our global office and with the trust and partnerships we managed to have across Egypt. For me, what I like about it is that we are bridging between global goals and what we talk about when we want to take a local action for sustainability.

Trends are evolving every day, and they’re all interesting. For instance, before the COP climate summit, we had never heard of some concepts like mitigation, adaptation — but now it’s becoming the norm. We were not used to talking about diversity and inclusion, but now it’s also become a norm.

My mornings are my quiet time. I’m a person who’s in love with silence, so I need to have a calm restart. I wake up around 5 to 6 in the morning, then I pray. I try to make it a habit to read the Quran, although sometimes it’s hard. Then I have my mug of milk tea, which is my friend throughout the day. Then I try to listen to some light music, like Fayrouz. Then I stay calm for five minutes, without talking to anyone, and just enjoy stillness. I then drive my son to school, walk for 20 minutes in the club, and go back home around 8:45am.

I’m not an organized person by nature, so I spend some time in the morning writing down on paper everything that comes to my mind — my priorities, plans for the days, what I missed yesterday. I’m old school; I love to use my pencil and my notes, and write everything down. I then go to work around 10:30am. I start my day with Zoom calls, team meetings, stakeholder meetings, or talking with my team.

I delegate and empower my team. They take care of the job unless they need something on a strategic level or something that they cannot sort out on their own, which is when they come to me. I learned not to do everything on my own, but it was difficult.

There is nothing called work-life balance, especially for me, maybe because every day is different for me. I think it’s about rhythm, not rules. So some weeks are full of work. Others are slower. I’ve learned not to punish myself for that, which is something I used to always do, along with feeling guilty.

I’m naturally a workaholic, and used to work like 14 hours a day without blinking. When there is a big project or agreement I want to close, I can work day and night until it’s done. But once you have a family, you realize that this pace is not fair to them, and for you as well, because you want to enjoy time with your family.

The key for me is being present. When I’m at work, I give it my all. When I’m home, I try to be there not only physically, but mentally too. I learned to accept that there are seasons when work is going to take more time and more space.

I love personal development books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, ThePower of Habit, The 5 AM Club, and other books like this. I also used to love reading Naguib Mahfouz and Anis Mansour, but I haven’t read them for a while. I’m planning to come back to them soon.

On a professional level, I want to take the Global Compact to a regional level, and really see a big impact across the private sector in Egypt — and this is not an easy mission. It’s very difficult, but I believe in our vision, and I believe in my team.

On a personal level, I love learning, so I plan to learn more and more. I’m digging more into corporate governance, which is a big interest of mine. And I’m also going to work on my master’s in economics as well. I had started it ten years ago, but stopped when my father passed away. Economics is another passion of mine, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.

There are two pieces of advice that really changed how I see the world. First, the idea that if it will not matter in five years, don’t spend five minutes worrying about it. I used to be this person who used to worry about everything. I used to think a lot and feel guilty for everything. I’ve come to realize that I have to trust the process and that everything happens for a reason. The second piece of advice that had an impact on me is to lead with empathy, but not to lose my edge, which my father told me. You can be kind and still be firm, care deeply, and make tough decisions.

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