Ayman Hakky, CEO and founder of The TriFactory: My Morning / WFH 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 just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Ayman Hakky, the CEO and founder of The TriFactory.

My name is Ayman Hakky, and I’m a proud husband and father to a lovely little baby girl. I’m the founder of The TriFactory, a Cairo-based company that organizes sports events all over Egypt. I have always been passionate about sports and grew up playing tennis and later water polo, winning the national league for Gezira Sporting Club, where I now proudly serve as the youngest board member.

A bad knee injury 10 years ago led me to discover a new passion: Triathlons. Being a former competitive athlete and overall sports enthusiast, it was hard to face the reality of having to leave behind contact sports and find an alternative. My first experience with triathlons was in 2011 while visiting Trinidad & Tobago on a work assignment with my previous employer, BP. One race and I was immediately hooked.

I decided to form a triathlon team, ‘Train For Aim,’ and to start training for races with a group of amateur athletes. This was the kernel of my current business. The group expanded quickly and we traveled all over the world to participate in endurance events, which made me wonder why Egypt lacked such good quality endurance races. Eventually, I organized the first triathlon event in Gouna in the summer of 2014, followed by the first Sahl Hasheesh Triathlon in December of the same year. That’s when I realized I had built something special and decided to quit my corporate job to establish The TriFactory. Today, The TriFactory has a strong management team and organizes popular mass participation sports events in Egypt, including the Pyramids Half Marathon, Sahl Hasheesh Endurance Festival, and Tough Mudder Egypt.

I’m responsible for managing the team and the growth of the company as the CEO. I work closely with a team of 10 managers and employees to apply international standards across all of our races and deliver the best sports events in Egypt.

On a normal day, I try to get as much sleep as I can until my daughter wakes me up around 7am — 8am if I’m lucky. I spend time with my family in the morning, have breakfast and play together before I shift my attention to work and spend a few hours on my laptop and phone at home. At around 10am, I read Enterprise to get caught up on the news. On days when I need to be fully focused, I head to our currently empty office to get things done. In the evening, I enjoy a run or bike ride around Zamalek with friends.

Working from home was very challenging for me. I don’t usually have a strict routine and I’m constantly on the move every day, managing our events or exploring new venues and attending meetings.

There are obviously many distractions at home and to be honest it’s not easy to stay on task for long periods of time, so I instead try to work in several short periods during the day or just put everyone to sleep as early as possible and work at night.

As an event management company, it was hard to do our usual thing during the lockdown, but we launched a series of virtual races — the Stay Safe Marathons. These proved to be very popular and attracted hundreds of participants. In virtual races, participants “join” remotely using smartphones or gadgets that allow us as organizers to track progress and send a finisher medal when they complete the race. Several editions of the Stay Safe Marathon also included charitable elements, which we are very proud of. As well as managing our virtual races, we were also able to develop and launch new events for the future, which we hope to organise in real life starting on October 1st.

I think that the 9-5 office job isn't necessarily dead yet, but that the general trend seems to be moving in a new direction. People probably now finally understand that success is not about the number of hours spent at work but rather the quality of the work delivered. In the future, I think we will see companies offering their staff a new combination of greater flexibility and greater accountability, allowing them to manage their work-life balance safely and appropriately, while ensuring deliverables and KPIs are met.

We were quite lucky at The TriFactory to have already had experience organizing virtual events. During Ramadan in previous years, we had organized virtual running competitions, so we were able to build on the concept quickly once the coronavirus lockdown began.

With more time on my hands, I decided to use the knowledge and entrepreneurial experience I built over the past 5 years to contribute to new projects. I helped establish Doctor Online, a new telemedicine app offering real virtual clinic experiences, founded by one of my business partners, Mahmoud Abdelhakim. I also co-founded Leya Olive Oil with my wife Dina Targam and other business partner, Seif Fawzy, offering all natural and cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, sourced from my family’s farm.

I’m actually a big fan of the Enterprise podcast Making It and in general love reading or watching success stories and biographies, especially in the field of sports because they really inspire me. During the lockdown I really enjoyed watching Michael Jordan’s docu-series The Last Dance, and I also enjoyed reading Andre Agassi’s biography Open, and Shoe Dog, the autobiography by the founder of Nike.

I can’t wait to start organizing events and reuniting with all of our participants. Just before the lockdown we organized our biggest event to date, the Pyramids Half Marathon, attended by over 4000 participants from 80+ countries, and we’re excited to get back out there and build on this major success.

One of the major events we were looking forward to all year long was the 10th edition of the Sahl Hasheesh Endurance Festival, a major milestone for me personally and The TriFactory as a whole, which we are looking forward to seeing happen in the next few months.