Haitham Sadek, general manager and managing director at Danone North East Africa: 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 Haitham Sadek (LinkedIn), general manager and managing director at Danone North East Africa. Edited excerpts from our conversation follow:

My name is Haitham Sadek: I am an Egyptian engineer, Cairo University graduate, husband, and father of two daughters and two sons aged between 21 to 5 and a half. I joined Danone in January 2020 as managing director of the company’s North East Africa division

My workday usually runs from 8am to 6-7pm, and I tend to wake up at 6-6:30 am, which doesn’t quite make me an early bird by the standards in the US, where I used to live. I try to dedicate one hour in the morning to something called SAVERS, a routine that I learned from a book called The Miracle Morning. SAVERS is a six-step process that stands for silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. It’s extremely helpful and I do my best to make it a part of my routine though I can’t say that I’m religious about it. After that, I have breakfast with my family before heading to work.

My day-to-day routine is extremely busy: Danone is a big business, we have around 3k people working for us, all 100% Egyptian — something that I’m very proud of. I oversee the farm, the plants in Obour, and over 20 distribution centers around the country. There are lots of meetings involved, as you can imagine.

We have what we call a dual project, that is, we have social objectives as well as commercial targets, and we get measured for both. For example, we have milk collection centers where we work with 8k farmers, most of whom are women. We have another program for young entrepreneurs to distribute our products to rural areas.

I don’t think there is one constant in my day, except I don’t think a day goes by without talking to people, even if it’s not face-to-face, which is something I really enjoy. And on a personal level, I don’t think a day goes by without looking at my investment portfolio. Some people think it’s funny, but trading is a way for me to relax.

I used to spend more time talking to people face-to-face before covid. I liked to gather people and have a big town hall. We couldn’t gather the 3k people together during covid, so we got people together in small teams and I think we managed the situation quite well. This adjustment of our daily routines will be ongoing as we adapt to the new reality.

After I finish work, I dedicate time to my hobby, which most of the time is investment. I like to trade in the American stock market, so that’s when the fun starts.

Family is a big priority for me: I always do at least one thing with my kids each day, which keeps us connected. And I try to stay healthy as well, so I try to do at least half an hour of activity every day, even if I’m not very consistent.

I love to read books about investment, and personal and professional development during my spare time. Go check out this book by former GE CEO Jack Welch. It’s a great book. For personal development, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is great, and for investment, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

I stay focused and organized by always having a plan. It sounds boring, but I start with a yearly plan that I divide into quarters, and I try to move that into daily habits. You really have to cut it down into small pieces and take baby steps to achieve it. That’s what I did to get better at running, which I used to hate. I made a plan and broke it down into daily and weekly habits and after six months, I was able to run 25k over four weekends.

I think it’s really important to grow up having a true belief that everything is possible. I think my dad was the first person to give me this piece of advice, but I don’t think that belief comes from just one person telling you that, it needs repetition from when you are very young. Sometimes, we don’t know how, but if you believe that you can, you will find a way. It makes you look at the world in a different way.