Frances Ames, Director of Research at Ajeej Capital: 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 Frances Ames (LinkedIn), Director of Research at Ajeej Capital. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Frances, but I go by Frannie. I'm American and grew up in the US, but I left almost 20 years ago. I speak Arabic fluently, which I started learning for fun in university. I love languages. I also speak some Japanese and German. I fell in love with learning Arabic during my university years and spent time in Jordan and Morocco. After working in litigation consulting in DC, I received a fellowship in Cairo to work on Arabic full time. While there, I met some of the Ajeej team, and joined the firm in Dubai in 2008, so I’ve actually been at Ajeej almost since the company was established. My husband and I have four kids under ten and we live in Dubai, with trips to the US to escape the heat.

I work as director of research at Ajeej, managing and planning our research, and I also sit on the investment committee. My main job is just to ensure that the ideas from the analyst team and the broader kind of macro and industry environment in MENA are clearly communicated and discussed in our investment committee as we make investment decisions.

My role involves supporting research analysts in their own valuation work and ensuring they focus on the most relevant companies in the sectors they cover. I have to ensure that we have a constant pipeline of new companies we're looking at, such as IPOs, smaller companies or companies undergoing significant changes. A lot of my job involves trying to identify those companies and then move them into our analysis.

Ajeej Capital was founded in 2007 by Tarek Sakka and Fouad Dajani. They set up the fund to be a world-class, conviction-driven investor. Ajeej was set up to initially manage the Ajeej MENA Fund. Today, we manage two primary funds, the Ajeej MENA Fund and the Ajeej Opportunistic fund. The unifying factor across all our products is really being excellent in terms of the depth and quality of our analysis, and the seriousness with which we take the job. That's very much my role, to ensure that we're always carefully considering the scenarios in which companies will operate in the region.

Currently, in public equities, the standout is the influx of new, high-quality companies joining the market after a decade of limited IPO activity. Over the past three years, we've witnessed a surge in these exceptional companies, which has greatly expanded our knowledge of diverse industries. Our focus has shifted towards understanding the transformative potential of digitalization and digital services across various sectors, particularly in the MENA region. We've spent a lot of time as a team trying to understand that better, particularly in the last six months.

My mornings begin early at 4:30 or 5am. I often go exercise, then get everyone ready for the day with checklists and schedules for our four kids. We make sure to have breakfast together at 6:15am before leaving around 7am. I have more control over my mornings due to the job's demands. My mornings I have more control over than the late afternoon and evening. So I or my husband tend to do the school drop-off, see the kids' teachers.

I'm at my desk by 8:30am, starting with reading emails and catching up on Enterprise editions. I read all three AM editions and the regionals later in the day when I get the chance. It takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to kind of go through most critical emails in the morning, and by then, the rest of the team is in. Our team functions in a very open way. It's pretty much non-stop discussion all day long among the different team members. We are a big team, but we also all really prioritize communication and working together.

A typical workday involves a mix of sitting with team members, discussing their work, and [having] between three and four calls daily, including group calls, one-on-one meetings, and discussions with industry players on something that we’re trying to understand better. I spend about four or five hours daily reading to learn more about the region's happenings. My day consists of reading, meetings, presentations, and discussions, all aimed at molding our investments in the portfolio for both short and long-term goals. Typically, I actually will eat lunch at my desk or go for a short walk because I try to prioritize being out of the office in the evening to see my kids again before bed.

Coffee is the one constant in my day. The Nespresso machine in our office gets very heavy usage by all of us. And I'm definitely there all the time getting more coffee to keep things going.

I have had a love affair with Excel for about 25 years, and I live my life on various Excel spreadsheets with many worksheets and tabs organizing all parts of my life, whether it's the kids or the work at Ajeej.

The best thing I've read about work-life balance is Emily Oster's perspective in her book The Family Firm, where it's not about achieving a perfect split but rather adapting as needed. Some days may lean heavily towards family, others towards work, and you just have to be comfortable with that and I think reframing it as that has been very helpful for me.

I'm a big reader and run a book club in Dubai, and I'm a member of another one. Reading is my key form of relaxation. I'm usually reading two or three different books at a time. I'm a big fan of Substack, subscribed to around 20 or 30 on various topics like parenting, finance, economics, and politics. I also listen to the Marketplace podcast from NPR, which I've been into since I was 13 — and still listen almost daily. My favorite book that I've ever read and that I actually think I buy and give away maybe 10 or 12 copies a year is called Travels with a Tangerine by Tim Mackintosh-Smith. He's a British historian who retraced the travels of Ibn Battuta all over the world.

The best piece of advice I've received came from my first boss. He said, 'When you're working, there are no more grades. No one will give you a 100% on everything, but you still need to aim to do your best and understand that your performance is going to stay with you.' It was great advice that the content you create, wherever it is, stays with you, and you should always be conscientious about the impression you're going to leave behind. There are no grades anymore, no transcript, but that's the impression you're going to leave behind.

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