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Thursday, 4 April 2019

My Morning Routine: Karim Khalifa

My Morning Routine looks each week at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions because we simply can’t help ourselves. Extracts from our conversation this week with Karim Khalifa, co-founder and soon-to-be-former-CEO of Digital Republic:

I’m Karim Khalifa, father of Aly (10) and Layla (5) — and co-founder and (soon to be ex) CEO of Digital Republic linked by Isobar — a leading non-traditional digital advertising agency. As CEO of Digital Republic, I’m part of the team that works on helping major brands enhance their presence and drive their engagement with consumers online.

I’m normally up at 8 am, where I spend my waking hour quickly knocking back a glass of warm, fresh lemon water followed by not so quickly sipping an English breakfast tea while reading Enterprise. This is followed by a 20-minute meditation session using my favourite meditation app Headspace (yes, there’s an app for that). I then proceed with my morning workout at the club — using my favorite running app NRC, after which I head to work having pre-ordered breakfast to the office using my favourite food ordering app. My home, work and sports activities are all within the same neighborhood, so I easily move from one to the other on my Vespa to avoid Zamalek traffic.

In general, my day will consist of people management, key client and stakeholder engagements, financials and strategic planning and capability building discussions. I’m also quite active in the startup ecosystem, both as an advisory board member in a variety of tech startups, as well as an active mentor for a number of VCs and organizations including Endeavor and Flat6labs, among others. When it comes to the day to day operations at Digital Republic, a day in the life of an advertising industry exec is relatively adhoc — dealing with a lot of curve balls that come at you throughout the day. Although I do try to allocate planned slots for myself, I also embrace the unpredictable nature of the day-to-day business. I like to equate it to driving in Cairo: If you try to drive in Cairo like you would in Switzerland, you’ll probably crash. If you let go a little and go with the flow, somehow, miraculously, things do tend to effectively move forward.

Apart from meticulously combing through Jamie Oliver’s new book Jamie Cooks Italy, I recently enjoyed Radical Candor by Kim Scott. But I’m more of an audiobook fan and lately I’ve enjoyed listening to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time as well as rekindling a childhood favourite Gulliver’s Travels — I highly recommend it, even for the over 40s.

I also spend a lot of my time listening to podcasts and have immensely enjoyed the true crime podcast Serial and BBC’s Our Man in the Middle East by Jeremy Bowen. In terms of watching, other than a general addiction to true crime series (Making a Murderer), I recently immersed myself again in Blue Planet II and Frozen Planet. Apart from the incredible footage, they really drive home how perilous our situation is regarding the environment, in particular with respect to plastics in our oceans and the melting of ice at the poles.

Digital Republic started a decade ago initially as a tech start-up developing a mobile platform that rewards users for receiving mobile ads on their phone. Suffice it to say that after a lot of investment, and heartache, it failed. But the silver lining was that it put us in the spotlight with several major advertisers who appreciated our innovation, so we pivoted and started developing the foundations of our digital advertising solutions for them. Our first to market advantage led us to quickly signing on some of the largest brands in the market, major brands that I’m proud to say started their digital journey with us in Egypt. Two revolutions, a global financial crisis, two acquisitions and several awards later, I can safely say it’s been quite a ride.

What do people not understand about our business? The digital ad industry in Egypt is currently going through a phase where a brand “going digital” entails producing a TVC and putting it on Facebook or YouTube. This is a misunderstanding of what being a digitally enabled brand entails. In today’s digital economy, it is no longer just about advertising, it’s about creating experiences. In other words, it’s about transforming the way the consumer interacts and engages with a brand or product through experience-led solutions on digital platforms.

One force that will create the most change in our industry is data and data privacy. We’re all familiar with the data privacy breaches and misinformation campaigns that have plagued the major online platforms and arguably have had significant influence on our lives. Data is a double edged-sword. How this plays out in terms of control and regulation will have a significant impact on the internet in general, the digital advertising industry and consequently on how brands engage consumers online. Artificial intelligence also plays a key role in this and will continue to significantly shape the industry going forward.

What’s next for me after Digital Republic? Even though I’ve been finding myself tempted to jump into opportunities that have come my way recently, I’m being consciously mindful to not fall into anything too soon after having been so closely tied to something for the past 10 years. I want to avoid taking any rash decisions, so I plan to take some time off to allow for new inspiration and give time for my next move to ‘percolate’ nicely in my mind.

Having said that, I will continue to engage in the start-up ecosystem, supporting venture capital and private equity firms with some of their investments and will continue participating on the boards of the various start-ups that I’m involved with, as well as the mentorship networks I work with.

Finally, as a big planetary science and cosmology enthusiast, I’ll continue working on an initiative that is particularly close to my heart: the “Make Space Yours” program (with Omar Samra). A one of its kind initiative that aims to encourage the next generation of Egyptian youth to get involved with and be inspired by space. You’d be surprised how much curiosity children have for the cosmos.

In my time off I love to keep fit, spend time with my family, travel, and I enjoy playing tennis, scuba diving, and sailing.

The best piece of business advice I’ve ever been given was on decision making that I got from my first boss at Maersk in Denmark many moons ago: Your instinct is the best decision maker. When stuck, do what’s ‘right’ in your gut, even if the reward isn’t immediately evident. You will be rewarded in good time.

I use a task management app called Minimalist to stay organized. It’s simple and great. I try to be deliberate and do one thing at a time with intention, rather than multitasking — although I am guilty of multitasking more often than I’d like to. Attention management is key in today’s digital jungle.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

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