To run and grow a successful business, advisory can be the right bridge for success.
Nobody knows your business better than you do. However, bringing your vision and aspirations for your startup to fruition can be a rocky path.
Getting a hands-on advisor can materially improve the way your company operates and achieve your goals quicker by leveraging the experience of professionals who have walked the same path.
The advisor can think about all aspects of your business and provide an external point of view essential to founders who often deep dive into specific tasks and sometimes miss the big picture.
The advisor will provide proper advice, useful intros, help you develop an investment plan, give you social proof and monitor you decision making process.
In a nutshell, set your business on the right course.
Designed by Mind Cloud Academy and Advisors Genny Ghanimeh and Marwan Salem, the advisory process covers the core components of an effective success roadmap for your startup or business.
Here is what we can practically do together.
First, we will help you get investment ready by:
– assisting you in setting your operational plan,
– identifying you unique selling proposition,
– establishing the right go-to-market and customer acquisition strategy,
– creating credible financial projections resulting in the development of a pitch deck and financial model presentable to investors and VCs.
Following the investment and if need be, we can assist you in developing your business by advising management on every aspect of your operation including but not limited to sales strategy, setting processes, high level digital marketing plan and HR policy.
Our approach is not one of a consultant but rather practical advisory where we accompany the founders reach their goals.
Who is Advisory for?
– Startups and small business who want to grow and expand
– Founders, entrepreneurs and business owners who want to raise funding
Meet your Advisors!
Marwan is an e-commerce expert, strategy advisor and qualified finance professional turned entrepreneur with more than 20 yearsâ experience in business planning, corporate finance, investment banking, research, private equity, digital strategy, innovation and operations. He delivered successful projects in different industries among which real estate, banking, microfinance, telecom and retail in Lebanon, UK, USA, France, African and GCC countries before co-founding and managing an ecommerce and dynamic pricing operation in the UK and operating it during 6 years.Â
Marwan has strong, practical, analytical and interpersonal skills with extensive knowledge in getting companies investment ready. He believes above all in intellectual integrity and good corporate governance in order to create sustainable, long lasting and scalable operations.Â
Marwan provides mentorship and strategy consultancy services on a regular basis in the digital field (i.e. financial modelling, pitch deck preparation, feasibility studies, operational and strategy planning) and is invested in several startups in online retail, edutech and proptech.
 Marwan has a bachelor degree in Economics from the American University of Beirut and a Master degree in Management and Finance from ESCP Europe. He has taught for seven years at Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
USP's of working with Marwan:
Marwan has practical experience on both sides of the investment spectrum, having worked in fund management and investment banking as well as being a startup founder. He understands what investors are looking for and the way to formulate it properly. He doesnât work as an advisor, he acts as part of the team sharing his knowledge, experience and saving startup founders precious time by avoiding them the many hurdles entrepreneurs usually face.
Following her passions for the MicroFinance & the Online industries, and after a life-altering trek in Kilimanjaro, Genny founded Pi Slice in March 2013 and negotiated a partnership agreement with MicroWorld from the Group PlanetFinance to build and administer the first crowd-lending platform for microfinance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
This journey led to Genny founding Mind Cloud Academy, the 1st entrepreneurship academy teaching a program of 10 certified courses under KHDA, including Business Model Canvas, Design Thinking, Finance & Investment, Marketing/PR, Customer Acquisition, Sales & Operations, Legal & Governance, Mindful Leadership, Scaling Up, Pivoting. The program ends with a demo day of the investment deck to a panel of regional VCs & Investors. Genny also launched a Business Coaching Track under Mind Cloud, helping entrepreneurs on one-on-one in their journey from validating & testing their business model and implementing growth strategies, to getting ready to pitch investors.
Founding Mind Cloud Tribe comes as a natural progression after Mind Cloud Academy. An online platform of tutorials, tools, tool-builders for the Business Plan and the Investment, along a market-place for experts and tutorials. Mind Cloud Tribeâs vision is to allow anyone, anywhere, to overcome all the barriers and challenges, be able to fulfill their dreams and step into their vision.
Along Mind Cloud, Genny is a founding member of the EMIR Mentorship Program at London Business School and a recognized Business Coach with a track record of 30+ founders, CEOs
& entrepreneurs coached and mentored over the last three years. She is mostly passionate about helping others find their âreal inner whyâ, while equipping them with resilience, self-belief and other resources to thrive and excel in what they do.
Prior to Pi Slice & Mind Cloud, Genny began her career in Development Project Finance, and later shifted her focus to the financial industry and business development, where she honed her entrepreneurial skills in founding her 1st company Pro-ID in 2003; initiating start-ups and identifying market opportunities for the international corporations represented. She also consulted in setting-up & managing a financial security semi-governmental company in Dubai. In 2007, Genny founded and managed Pi Investments, working mainly on mergers and acquisitions deals in emerging countries, Fund Advisory and Placement Agent. In 2010, Genny joined a DIFC based investment bank as the Head of Business Development.
Genny is a recognized voice, and a dedicated Author and Contributor in different outlets like Entrepreneur Magazine, Executive Magazine, Philanthropy Age and Pi Slice Blog, writing about Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, Impact Investing, CSR and Microfinance. She is currently a Lecturer at London Business School, Hult Business School and Dubai Women Business Council; and a Founding Mentor at EMIR Program at London Business School and other Incubators like Afkar ME, Flat6Labs and UK-Lebanon Tech Hub. Genny also organized and launched CEO Talks interviews in partnership with Impact Hub and In5 Dubai, where she interviewed top Dubai CEOs. She is a regular Professional Speaker at events like CSR Summit, Global CSR Congress, SME Advisor Events, Bold Talks, WEF.
Genny has an M.A. in Civil Engineering, a B.S in Physics, an MBA from London Business School (UK) and Business Coaching Certificate from Universal Coach Institute.
Ready to Grow your Business and be Investment Ready?
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