My Morning Routine: Josh North, owner’s representative and asset manager at TMG Golf

Josh North, owner’s representative and asset manager of TMG Golf. 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 Josh North (LinkedIn), owner’s representative and asset manager for TMG Golf.

Edited excerpts from our conversation:

I’m an Englishman in Egypt, and I’ve been here long enough to know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’ve been in the golf industry since I was 16, coming up through the British PGA as a professional player and coach before gradually shifting toward operations and management. That shift brought me to Egypt in 2007, and I haven’t left.

I arrived at 24 with a suitcase, a golf bag, and no particular plan beyond saying yes to an adventure. My previous boss worked with Marriott Hotels and Golf, and they needed a coaching professional at the JW Marriott in Cairo. I had no ties, I was frustrated with teaching in the rain in England, and I thought: why not? Egypt was warm, the people were extraordinary, and I fell in love with the place. Somewhere along the way, I also found my wife, who’s English, and now we have three boys, a couple of dogs, and a lot of suitcases.

My job is to sit between TMG’s ownership interests and the architects, contractors, and third-party operators who actually build and run the golf assets. The role demands fluency in multiple languages at once: the technical language of course design and agronomy, the commercial language of P&L and returns, and the operational language of hospitality. Each of our four properties is at a different stage, so no two days look alike, and the job never stops.

Each TMG project is completely distinct. Madinaty, where I started as pre-opening GM in 2019, has won Egypt’s best golf course five years running and Africa’s best for three. At the Four Seasons in Sharm El Sheikh, grass is going down on the course, the clubhouse is taking shape, and it will be a luxury resort golf experience under one of the world’s most recognizable hotel brands, aimed at the international golf tourism market we’re building. SouthMed on the North Coast is in the design stage, tailored to the Mediterranean coastal market. And then there’s the historic Mena House course redesign. With the Pyramids as the main story, we are not rushing it.

We are also actively working to make golf more accessible. Egypt currently has more golf courses than active golfers. After running the numbers, a full Topgolf franchise didn’t stack up financially, so we’re pursuing a similar high-entertainment, low-barrier format tailored for the Egyptian market: one designed to draw in families and non-traditional players.

I’m up at 6am — not by choice. I have a 6-month-old, a 2-year-old, and a 5-year-old. But I’ve learned over the years that I do my best work in those early hours, between 6 and 9am, before meetings take over. I try to get to the gym before the day starts demanding things of me. I’ve always been a glass-half-full, high-energy person, what the English call “gung ho,” and the gym is how I channel that. After the gym: coffee. Always coffee. Coffee and family are, without question, the two constants that never move regardless of what any given day throws at me.

The thing I’ve had to accept about hospitality is that your peak is everyone else’s off-peak. When people are off work, that’s when operations get busy, when situations arise, when things go sideways. Weekends aren’t weekends in the traditional sense. The only thing that’s genuinely forced me to switch off is having young children: phone on airplane mode for the bedtime routine, and you’re present. That is it. That is the work-life balance. A conundrum, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d be bored senseless at a nine-to-five.

International awareness is Egyptian golf’s biggest prospect. Golf tourists spend four times more than standard visitors. With year-round playable weather and a manageable dry heat, we recently held 90 meetings across 25 nationalities at the IAGTO convention in Malaga, alongside the Golf Federation and the Tourism Authority. We are now on an 18- to 36-month roadmap to convert those conversations into foreign-currency bookings.

When I get time to switch off, I play rugby. I know, an odd choice for a golfer. I played at school in England and joined Cairo Rugby when I arrived, which is also where I first met EnterpriseAM’s own Moustafa Bassiouny, some 17 years ago. Golf and rugby are polar opposites in energy: one calm and composed, the other decidedly not. That contrast is exactly the point. A great team sport, with great friendships, and a genuine escape.

For reading, I keep coming back to Robert Kiyosaki: Rich Dad Poor Dad and his podcasts for business mindset, or The Rugby Pod when I have the time.

The best advice I received came from my late stepfather, who passed away about 13 years ago. He told me that if you’re heading into an argument, always lead with “with all due respect.” It teaches you to acknowledge before you confront, to hold your ground without burning the relationship. In a role spent navigating the competing interests of owners, operators, and guests, that lesson has never left me.