01—About
Sherif ElMasry
Venture Architect · Strategic Advisor · Builder in the AI Economy
Sherif ElMasry is a venture architect and strategic advisor with a track record of building, repositioning, and scaling technology-enabled businesses across digital infrastructure, operational software, and AI-native platforms.
His career spans multinational corporate leadership at British American Tobacco and BG Group (acquired by Shell), chairman's office strategy at Benya Group, turnaround and portfolio restructuring at Centro CDX, and founder-led venture building through Macber and Comet Innovations. He has operated across the United Kingdom, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.
Sherif's work consistently centres on three things: identifying under-shaped commercial opportunities, redesigning the operating and economic logic of a business, and building toward recurring revenue, strategic scale, and exit optionality. He has contributed to a multi-million infrastructure raise, led corporate rebrands and post-acquisition integrations, driven two consecutive years of 2x revenue growth, and founded an AI-native vertical software business currently operating across real estate and hospitality environments.
He is an educator in Strategy and Innovation at Duke Corporate Education, a mentor at Founder Institute GCC, and a judge at the Future 100 Initiative of the UAE Ministry of Economy. He has spoken at the Annual Investment Meeting in Abu Dhabi and the UN World Investment Forum on AI, investment, and the transformation of the competitive landscape for businesses in emerging markets.
How I think.
On strategy and capital
Most businesses arrive at inflection points under-positioned — not because of execution failures, but because their commercial logic, market framing, or operating model no longer matches where value is actually moving. The work I find most meaningful is helping leadership teams see that gap clearly, and then building the structure that closes it.
On the AI economy
The shift happening now is not about AI adoption. Most companies are adding AI to existing workflows. The more consequential shift is structural: AI is beginning to replace the workflow itself. That changes how businesses are organised, how revenue is generated, and where competitive advantage accumulates. Companies that redesign around this shift — rather than bolt it on — will occupy fundamentally different competitive positions over the next decade.
On building across the UK and MENA
Operating across London and the Middle East is not just a geographic fact — it is a structural advantage. The UK provides access to institutional capital markets, governance frameworks, and global credibility. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE offer some of the fastest-growing operating environments in the world, with significant government-backed transformation programmes and under-served market opportunities. The ability to navigate both fluently, and to connect capital and execution across them, is something relatively few people can do with direct operating experience on both sides.
Earlier career.
Earlier in his career, Sherif held senior international roles at BG Group and British American Tobacco, managing global technology portfolios, regional strategy, and organisational governance frameworks spanning Egypt, North Africa, and the United Kingdom. That multinational grounding — and the discipline of operating inside large, complex institutions — shapes how he approaches every venture and advisory engagement today.