I’m A Serial Imposter

I’ve been writing for the past several years, but never published. While in the middle of scaling a startup to multiple countries simultaneously, I triggered a strong anxiety response to the many moving parts around me.

I’ve explored many different coping mechanisms but found journaling to be the most effective way for me to structure my thoughts. My thoughts then became my feelings, and my feelings influenced my emotions. While this isn’t a perfect recipe, it’s worked well for me.

Today most of my writing is a function of the rabbit holes I go through to understand different systems and philosophical topics. Mostly I write about dots from different arenas that I think should connect.

Who am I?

I am a serial imposter. That’s probably the best way to describe myself.

I grew up on an island called Bahrain, spent 14 years in one school, over achieved in school, then decided to go to the University of Miami. The experience of leaving an environment where you were one degree separated from the people around you, to being a dot in an ocean of people from all over the world had a big impact on me, and the way that I think.

I graduated early thinking I would rush back to work in a multi-generational family business. Three months in, I realized I wasn’t cut out for it and I needed to scratch the itch on my shoulder of finding my own identity as an individual. I picked up an internship at Kimberly-Clark started working with a 100+ year old Global FMCG while I studied my Case In Point, waiting to interview for your usual suspects in consulting, I spent 6 years with Kimberly-Clark across 3 brands, four categories, 7 countries and 2 continents. This ended up being one of the best decisions I made, I started in consumer research, moving to understanding the principles of how to go from customer insight, to product development to go to market strategies. Looking back, I believe Kimberly-Clark has had the biggest influence on the way that I think and how to build a sustainable business.

I’m an operator, turned investor, turned operator, turned investor. Today, I wear multiple hats, you can find most of them here. The one theme of my professional journey so far has been to continuously make new decisions as I learn new information. I studied entrepreneurship but went into strategic marketing, which that went into general management, before exploring investments from multiple roles, to graduating to board governance roles, then jumping back into the operator seat of a start up that we expanded to six countries to now spending most of my time on investments and post investment value creation. This might read like the journey makes sense, but with each shift or pivot it felt like I needed to learn an entirely new industry. The only constant has been that as I get comfortable I end up convincing myself that discomfort is the best route forward.

What to expect

Expect to see posts about actionable ideas, frameworks, and lessons learned from the frontlines of building and investing in high-impact businesses. Here’s a list of what I would expect to write about:

• Frameworks for designing organizations that thrive in uncertainty.

• Deep dives into early-stage investing and what separates the best from the rest.

• Stories from the frontlines of scaling businesses in emerging and mature markets.

• Insights from consumer behavior and how to leverage them.

My objectives

Now that you know a bit about who I am, I’d like to share why I have decided to post what I write. The first is that I would like to meet like-minded people. I enjoy meeting new people, but it’s difficult to identify the signal from the noise sometimes. I hope that by publishing these blog posts I’ll be able to meet intellectually curious people to have meaningful conversations and debates.

The second and probably more important one is understanding the leverage that media (written or visual) has in making thoughts and concepts accessible. My journey as an entrepreneur, operator and investor has been a constant need to learn things quickly. I’m hoping that some of these posts can help any reader connect the dots faster through simple language and constructs.

Finally, I believe this will be fun, and one of my 2025 goals is to discover my definition of “fun” away from what I do professionally.