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Nader Aboushadi, group treasurer at Sidara: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Nader Abushadi (LinkedIn), group treasurer at Sidara. Edited excerpts from our conversation:
I’m Nader Aboushadi. I’m an entrepreneur, a dad, husband, and the group treasurer at Sidara, as well as one of the co-founders of Dar Ventures. Sidara is one of the top 10 leading engineering firms in the world.
In a nutshell, we solve some of the most difficult problems in the world, with a focus on livability and sustainability. Dar Ventures is the venture arm for Dar al Handasah, which is the founding pillar of Sidara. The VC aims to foster innovation and build up the ecosystem of the architecture, engineering, and construction (AED) space in the Middle East, and try to create a pathway for entrepreneurs and startups in this space in our part of the world by providing mentorship, funding and support with projects to get these entrepreneurs off the ground.
On the corporate side, there’s several different hats that I wear. I’m a member of the sustainability committee of the organization, as well as several other boards across the group, globally.
At Dar Ventures, we have a very capable management team in place, which is headed by a dear friend of mine, Zeina Mandour, who used to also be part of another business that I co-founded called Cairo Angels. My contributions at Dar Ventures are more on weekly steering calls and selection and investment committee at this stage.
Being a group treasurer, on a day to day basis, is a lot of handling of banks. We’re the main interface with the banks for the organization. For an organization that operates in over 250 offices around the world and over 200 countries, with banking requirements in each and every one of these countries, it’s quite a handful. It’s all about managing the team, managing the liquidity, continuously building relationships with new banks, enhancing the relationships we have with our existing lenders.
It’s also about understanding the collections across the group and ensuring timely collections to meet payments, and so it’s putting the whole thing together and basically, acting as the backbone for a business of this magnitude to operate.
We’re constantly on the hunt for different ways of diversifying our funding base. We’ve tapped into some very interesting financing [agreements] over the years. Recently, for our UK headquarters, we financed that out of pension fund money in the UK, which, from a cost perspective, was extremely lucrative. We were able to fix that at a 3% all-in at a time when the curve was at a very good point. We’ve also done a few sustainability-linked loans here in the UAE with regional lenders. We’ve been setting KPIs on several different tracks, and we’re working with the consultants to audit our sustainability roadmap and work with us to assure those KPIs.
When you look at funding, liquidity varies at different times in different parts of the world, and you try to follow that liquidity by having relationships all over the place to be able to tap into those liquidity pockets when you need them. At this point in time, for example, the Middle East is flushed with liquidity, and you’re able to get better rates in this part of the world than others.
We have not as of yet as an organization moved into the debt capital markets, which is something that we’re currently exploring. Within our five year roadmap, we definitely have a potential rating and a debt capital markets issuance coming up.
I usually start my day with the kids heading out to catch their bus, and I head out to the gym and have a workout in the morning or a cycling session. I’m a big indoor cycling enthusiast. If I’m not doing that, I sometimes start my day with a walk on the beach, which we’re very fortunate to be able to do here in Dubai. Then, I head into the office, and that’s when I get to my morning read of EnterpriseAM UAE.
When do I wind down? I’m sure my wife would have a lot to say in response to this [laughs]. Given the global nature of the role, there’s no time limits; I’m constantly on the go. We work US and Australia timezones, so there is a need to be accessible at some tricky times. I try to limit my day in the office to about 4pm, and go home, have lunch with the family, and then do a little bit of the kids’ sports runs — whether it’s football or basketball with with one of the kids — and then plug in after that for a second round with the trickier timezone markets.
I think I need a lot of help when it comes to staying focused and organized. I think the most important thing is just putting down your priorities and keeping that in mind, and having everything else come second to that. If your organization allows you to do so, then you know you’re working in the right place.
I definitely believe in a work-life balance. I make time for myself in the morning to get myself off on the right foot, I create time for the family and get whatever is needed in from a work perspective. It’s critical. And a day without sports for me? I definitely feel completely off balance. Those three components — there has to be an element of them somewhere in there everyday.
In terms of my personal goals, my eldest son has just completed his GCSEs and is starting his A levels and starting to work on university applications, so that’s a key goal of mine — to work with him and support him to get his ambitions and goals achieved. My younger son’s dream is to play football professionally, and he’s been doing quite well, so I’m also supporting him there.
Professionally, I’m very keen to see Sidara grow to become a top-three global player, and to play a key role in making that happen for the organization.
Two movies that I can watch over and over are Scent of a Woman and Top Gun. In terms of books, I really enjoyed The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
The best piece of advice I’ve received was from my wife — it was to put my head down, focus, and disregard the noise.
