Upon meeting M Squared’s new CEO, one is immediately struck by his energy, quick wit, and positive vibe. Karim Malash doesn’t fit into the usual CEO box, or any box, for that matter. A compassionate, intellectual, and professed DIY man who likes to roll up his sleeves and fix things, he also loves exploring, thrives on challenge, and enjoys the simple pleasures in life. eniGma’s Réjanne Mortagy had the chance to interview this dynamic, charming, and inspiring CEO. Here is an excerpt of their engaging talk.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I started my career in the oil and gas industry. Since I was a kid, I’ve always had a passion for the oil and gas industry because I was brought up in it. My mom worked in the industry and my dad was in the Navy. Growing up in Alexandria, I’ve always loved the sea, loved being offshore and on land rigs, living this beautiful life and meeting different cultures. I love the sea 100 percent; I’m happiest barefoot in the sand. Throw me on a beach for 12 hours doing nothing and I love it. I’ve lived by the sea most of my life and spent my summers in Agamy and Montazah. I love to cook, enjoy good wine, love sports, kids, animals, and running around helping people do whatever needs to be done. After obtaining my production engineering degree from the University of Alexandria, I went to the UK for a bit and then got a senior role at EXXON Mobile in Egypt. After that, I landed a job at Schlumberger, where I stayed for about 24 years. I wanted to travel and explore the world, and I was lucky that I got to do that. I was stationed in 11 countries throughout my life and have visited more than 80 countries and close to 200 cities.
What prompted your move back to Egypt and to leave Schlumberger after such an illustrious career?
I took the decision to leave after COVID. I wanted to come back home to be closer to my family. My second reason for returning to Egypt was to start thinking about what I really wanted to do. I had several good offers both in London and in Dubai, and I was thinking whether I should open my own management consultancy firm, when I met Ayman Abass, the owner of M Squared. We had a casual coffee and clicked. At our second meeting, I also met Hatem Soliman, the head of Inter Holding, and he said, why don’t I do something at Inter Holding? They have 18 companies across a myriad of industries. He asked where I could see myself fitting, and I told him I could fit anywhere, but after 24 years in the oil and gas industry, I wanted to do something different. There are a lot of similarities in the “modus operandi,” or modes of operation, of the real estate and the oil and gas industries.
What drives you?
I’m driven by challenge, the desire to explore, and a passion for people, culture, and technology. The love of research, the love of development, have made me different in my own way. I have a passion to grow, a passion to lead; that’s how my personality evolved throughout the years. I’m also a very hands-on person, I like to use my hands, roll up my sleeves and do things – I’m the ultimate Do It Yourself guy. To me, exploring is the heart of life. If you stop exploring, you end up not learning. The cycle of life must continue.
Tell me about your vision for M Squared.
When I met Ayman, I told him, “I don’t want to be an employee.” For me, being part of the equity of the company gives me a lot of drive to change. When I came on, M Squared was in a certain position in the market, a medium-sized real estate company facing some challenges. What I want to do in simple terms is to reposition the company into a boutique development. Size matters. One of our projects, Trio, is 35 Feddans and Masyaf is 112 Feddans, so something within these ranges is very nice. I want to build on the experience. I want to make sure that people go to M Squared because they see a difference in the community. They see a difference in the attention to detail of every single item in the project. Hence, I’ve created a hospitality arm for M Squared; no other developer has this component. I wanted to take things a notch higher, so we’ve hired a bunch of ex-hoteliers and created this seed company to ensure that we can start working on building the experience. Another vision I’m working on, that I totally believe in, is digital transformation. I believe that the elimination of manual tasks is a must. I’m efficient and would love to redefine real estate development by putting certain practices in place. If you digitize, you allow people to eliminate the low-added-value tasks that a machine can do. Then they can have more time to do something which is useful and beneficial for the company.
Tell me about Marmarica, the boutique hotel at Masyaf.
Marmarica is a beautiful, boutique cabana concept that we managed to build in just 70 days. I wanted to anchor the experience of being at Marmarica for people. The attention to detail is key. They ask you what kind of service you want, how hard or soft your mattress should be, the size of your bathrobe and slippers, scented or not scented, your drink preference, your food preference, etc… It’s civilized. When people start seeing that, they know that M Squared is going in a different direction. With the stiff competition in the industry, you must have a bit of a competitive advantage and that’s what we have.
You mentioned you were passionate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Tell me more about that.
We are creating a green community. It’s important for us to use select materials that aren’t damaging to the environment in any way throughout the whole cycle. However, there’s a change that must happen to the mindset, because not everyone is interested in this. Even so, we are committed to having certain things managed by solar energy, we want the project to be carbon-free to some extent. The other thing I’ve been pushing for Masyaf, is to give the project a bit of an artistic feel. We’ve partnered with Art D’Egypte to create 4 installations there. The word Masyaf comes from its simplicity – zay zamaan – the old, beautiful way of having fun. As they say “El halawa fil basata.” It’s all about simple pleasures; it’s not complicated; it’s not pretentious. When I spoke to Nadine at Art D’Egypte, I said this year we want to do something that reminds us of summer and its simplicity. So we came up with 4 beautiful installations. Next year we’re going to have 4 more installations with a different twist, and so on. After 4 years we’ll have 16 installations distributed all over the project. Once we start delivering, people will have a memory of, “Oh, 4 years ago I saw this installation by the beach of a bicycle, etc!” You create a memory from the experience. This CSR part didn’t exist here and I’m trying to revive it.
What has changed at M Squared since you’ve come on board?
I think any major success for any company goes back to the people, their mindset, and their ability to change. Now, I think they’re being utilized at their best. Now, they’re more structured. If I run with something, they run with me. Throughout my life, I’ve always believed that failure isn’t an option; we’re going to make it, we’re going to deliver on time. If you want to lead, you have to “walk the talk”. What you apply to people, you must apply to yourself. That’s one of the reasons I like to go on site. I’ll go and stand with the people, give them support. It motivates them to see that this guy isn’t sitting in his “ivory tower.” The market has changed and now there’s a bit of uncertainty, so we’re trying to address that, and to make sure that we honour our commitments regardless of what’s happening.
What’s your proudest achievement so far?
I think I’ve had a lot of proud moments in my life, and I cherish them, but I don’t take credit for them alone. In Schlumberger, I had quite a lot of proud moments with key projects being delivered on time and before time. A major proud moment for me was obtaining my MBA under challenging circumstances. I was the operations manager at the time, which is a 24/7 job, and my wife was having our first baby and I was in the middle of doing our house myself – painting it and cutting cables and laying the floor. So, adding all those components, for me that was a very proud moment. If I talk about M Squared, in general I think a proud moment for me is seeing that the name of the company is changing in the market, from not being well-known at all. We have a fantastic team and great products. In 2022, we added trust and credibility to the company. When people saw a change in delivery for our Trio project, that’s when I started to hear from people who know the market very well. That’s a major proud moment for me. I am very proud for the team, much more than for myself. And we’re going to celebrate, by having a nice meal and doing workshops – I love having these workshops, where I get to know the second and third line in each department. There’s another thing I’ve done since I came and I think this has made a nice, big change. I said, “Nobody will get hired at the company until they come see me. Anyone, from the office boy to the senior department head, every single person that comes to the company will spend 5 minutes with me.” I’ve seen thousands of people in my life; I can see the passion; I can see the interest and I can build my thoughts about a person in a short discussion.