** Our first Enterprise CEO Poll kicks off this morning. We’ll have 13 top executives speaking over the course of this week in industries ranging from financial services to food, banking, private equity, manufacturing and law. We’re also very pleased that one of the most influential fund managers on Wall Street with an interest in Egypt has also joined us. We’ll be running the interviews all week long — alphabetically by last name — in the place of our industry news roundups, which will return next week.

Stability is the watchword of 2017. CEOs want policy stability from government on everything from taxes to investment incentives, but don’t expect economic or exchange rate stability until sometime starting the second half of the year, at the earliest. On the whole, they’re more optimistic about the long-term prospects for the economy and their business than they are apprehensive about what they almost universally agree will be a challenging 2017.

The format: Each CEO answered roughly the same set of questions, tailored only for their industry. The interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity and are presented in “as told to” format — that’s journalism speak for “in their own words.”

Today’s participants are:

• Karim Awad, group chief executive officer, EFG Hermes
• Ahmed Badr, MENA CEO and head of MENA equities, Renaissance Capital
• Ahmed Badreldin, partner, The Abraaj Group

Their interviews begin after our Image of the Day, below.