Suggestions
Salah Makkouk
Innovation @ Saudia Group
Professional Background
Salah Makkouk is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in innovation, technology management, and startup incubation. He currently serves as the Senior Director of Incubation at Careem, a leading ride-hailing and logistics company based in the Middle East. With a visionary approach to tackling industry challenges, Salah has made significant contributions to driving forward-thinking initiatives in the aviation and technology sectors.
Before his current role at Careem, Salah honed his expertise at Emirates Group, where he occupied several key positions, including Head of Innovation. During his tenure, he was instrumental in promoting Dubai as the Aviation Startup Capital of the World. His responsibilities encompassed identifying strategic investment and acquisition opportunities that aligned with the Group’s vision of innovation.
Education and Achievements
Salah Makkouk holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the distinguished American University of Beirut, where he graduated in June 2001. In addition, he pursued coursework in Business Studies at the Lebanese American University. He further enriched his skill set by studying Design Thinking for Innovation at the University of Virginia.
His innovative mindset led to several key achievements during his time at Emirates Group, highlighted by the launch of transformative programs such as:
- Intelak: A travel, aviation, and tourism incubator aimed at solution-finding through entrepreneurship and technology.
- Accelerator Program in Partnership with Dubai Future Accelerators: This initiative aimed to foster innovation by connecting startups with high-impact mentorship.
- Aviation X LAB: Recognized as the world's first aviation lab under the Dubai Area 2071 initiative, this lab is dedicated to fueling funding ventures to address unprecedented challenges in global aviation.
- Robotics and Web 3.0 labs: Salah led the establishment of technological laboratories that explored the frontiers of innovation in AI and decentralized technologies.
- Innovation Office: He successfully set up a governance framework that enabled better management of innovation processes across the organization.
His innovative leadership style and strategic thinking facilitated the establishment and growth of critical units within the Emirates Group, such as the Technology Strategic Partnerships unit, which cultivated collaboration with global technology leaders.
Career Highlights
Salah Makkouk's career journey has been marked by significant advancements and a commitment to innovation. Prior to his impactful roles at Emirates Group, he began his career in IT management with Citibank in Lebanon, later transitioning to Portugal as the IT Director. This foundation in IT management has equipped him with the skills to effectively navigate the complexities of technology in large organizations.
Over the years, Salah has held various noteworthy positions that enhance his professional repertoire, including:
- General Manager of Innovation at Saudia Group: Leading innovation initiatives to push the boundaries of the aviation sector.
- Senior Director Incubator at Careem: Streamlining incubation efforts to foster business growth and innovation.
- Head of Innovation at Emirates: Spearheading initiatives that put Emirates at the forefront of aviation innovations.
- Incubators & Accelerators Manager at Emirates: Developing startup ecosystems within the aviation industry to encourage entrepreneurship.
- IT Operations Manager at Emirates: Oversaw technology operations contributing to the efficiency of the group's extensive network.
Personal Insights
Salah Makkouk's diverse career pathway is complemented by a rich personal life. He is a dedicated family man, married with an eight-year-old son. His life experiences span five different countries, allowing him to cultivate a broad worldview and understanding of various cultures. Fluent in three languages, Salah embraces multiculturalism and leverages his linguistic skills in professional settings to enhance collaboration and partnerships.
In summary, Salah Makkouk embodies a rare blend of technical expertise, innovative vision, and leadership prowess. His ongoing contributions to the fields of aviation and technology position him as a key player in driving future advancements in these areas. With his career marked by notable achievements and a commitment to fostering innovation, Salah continues to inspire those around him, demonstrating that strategic thinking and creativity can indeed reshape industries.
Achievements
Highlights
I appreciate Shagun Sharma and Khaleej Times for highlighting the value of Careem's One Click Checkout as a solution that is essential for the e-commerce industry. Get in touch with myself or the team to find out how you can enable a One Click experience for your customers.
One-Click Checkout: The Fastest, Safest, and Easiest Way to Checkout
Are you looking for a way to deliver an exceptional checkout experience, grow your business, and protect yourself against fraud? If so, then you need One-Click Checkout!
Careem Pay One-Click Checkout is the fastest, safest, and easiest way to checkout. With One-Click Checkout, your shoppers can checkout in seconds without having to enter their payment information again. And now, with our 100% fraud protection guarantee, you can rest assured that your business is protected.
One Click Checkout Benefits:
- Boost conversion with the fastest checkout in town
- Enable serviceability with smart locations
- Accept Careem Wallet balance payments
- And now protect yourself against Fraud
If you're interested in learning more about how Careem Pay One-Click Checkout can help you with Fraud and protect your bottom line, sign up for a quick demo today.
https://lnkd.in/dPp7Zrty
#checkout #payment #fintech #ecommerce #paymentsolutions #customerexperience #experience #transformation #innovation #sales #fraud #fraudprevention #fraudprotection
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.