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Fatima Al-Rashid
I studied economics at the American University of Sharjah and got my MBA at INSEAD. Between those degrees, I spent two years at Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company) in Dubai, doing the kind of consulting work that teaches you to build frameworks for everything and understand nothing deeply. But it gave me a foundation in strategic thinking that proved useful later.
I joined Careem in 2017, two years before the Uber acquisition. Careem was the dominant ride-hailing platform in the Middle East and North Africa, operating in 100+ cities across 15 countries. I joined the strategy team and spent two years working on market expansion, figuring out which cities to launch in, how to localize the product, and how to compete with Uber's global resources using regional knowledge.
The Careem story is a masterclass in why local context beats global scale. In Saudi Arabia, we had to build features for a market where women couldn't drive (this changed in 2018) and where mixed-gender interactions had cultural sensitivities. In Pakistan, we had to optimize for cash payments because 85% of users didn't have bank accounts. In Egypt, we had to build an entirely different pricing model because fuel subsidies made cost structures unpredictable. None of these challenges show up in a Silicon Valley playbook.
After Uber acquired Careem for $3.1 billion in 2020, I stayed through the integration. Watching a local company get absorbed by a global one taught me everything about what's lost and what's gained in acquisitions. Uber got Careem's local knowledge, relationships, and market position. Careem's users got a more polished product but lost the cultural intimacy that made Careem feel like "theirs." The brand still exists, but it's a different thing now.
I left in 2022 and spent a year advising the tech investment arm of a Gulf sovereign wealth fund. I evaluated 50+ deals, everything from Saudi fintech startups to Egyptian edtech companies to Emirati logistics platforms. The experience gave me a panoramic view of the MENA tech ecosystem that few people have.
I write about tech strategy in emerging markets because the dominant narrative is lazy. The Silicon Valley framework is: build a product, find PMF, scale globally. The reality in MENA (and most of the world) is: build a product for a specific cultural context, navigate regulatory environments that change every six months, compete against local incumbents who have relationships you can't buy, and do it all while managing currency risk and geopolitical uncertainty.
I live in Dubai Marina. I free-dive on weekends, I read Arabic poetry, and I'm convinced that the most interesting tech company in the world right now is one you haven't heard of, operating in a market you can't find on a map.
Experience
- Strategy Lead, Careem (pre/post-Uber acquisition)