Author
Sharif El-Badawi currently serves as Partner at 500 Startups, the most active venture capital firm in the world. In his role, he manages 500 Startups' MENA fund, focusing on seed stage investments in the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, Sharif is the Chairman of the Board and Head Mentor at TechWadi, where he leads the TW100 mentors and helps bridge MENA startups with Silicon Valley and serves on several advisory boards for startups in the MENA region and Silicon Valley. Previously, Sharif was the Partner Lead to VCs and Startups at Google where he worked with top tier VCs and their most promising startups on strategies that bring all of Google to their businesses. Joining from AdMob almost 7 prior, he led performance advertising strategy for Google's largest customers in North America covering Mobile, Search and Display ads. Before AdMob, Sharif was a technologist and serial entrepreneur having founded or co-founded several companies in the Consumer Internet and B2B space over twelve years. Sharif earned his MBA from UC Irvine Merage School of Business and his BS in Neuroscience from UCLA. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.
MindValley Hispano co-founder and COO, IronMan, and 500 Mexico Mentor. Made in Argentina, this father of 2 joined Mindvalley in 2008. Juan’s sales and marketing mindset, plus the growth and scaling strategies he learned in the corporate world ( IBM, a few Oil and Gas companies, Telefonica Group and others) made him the right guy to become Mindvalley's first COO. While helping grow and structure Mindvalley in 2009 and 2010, Juan decided to try a little experiment in the Hispanic Market... Today Mindvalley Hispano, the company he co-founded, is one of the biggest (we've stayed a little bit humble, so we don't say THE biggest) digital Personal Growth publishers in the Hispanic Market with over a million subscribers and multiple 7 figures in revenue. And, Juan and his team are just getting started. Mindvalley Hispano is also pioneering a Completely Virtual "Results Only Work Environment" where everyone works from home with no schedules, they come to the office only if they want to. He is so passionate about the new work arrangements that internet allows that he took on making a movie to spread these ideas and show the new professions that are available. When he is not readying books on business or human psychology to implement in his business he might be found paragliding, diving or running triathlons (he finished 2 half Iron Mans!). Wanna tap his brain? He doesn't drink alcohol but will do almost anything for a Diet Coke and a Grass Fed T-Bone Steak.
