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Mohamed El Masri, managing director at Hodler Investments: 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 Mohamed El Masri (LinkedIn), managing director at Hodler Investments. Edited excerpts from our conversation:
If this was a LinkedIn conversation, my headline title is I’m a corporate finance professional, but at the end of the day, I’m a serial social entrepreneur at heart. It’s just my spirit and I cannot control it — if I see a problem, I have to fix it. That innate passion is reflected in my journey building Hodler Investments and all the ventures underneath its umbrella, including our digital energy platform PermianChain.
I was born in Montreal, Canada, but I was raised in Saudi Arabia for most of my childhood and young adulthood. I moved back to Canada at the age of 17 to attend Concordia University and study political science. Since then, I’ve always felt that I can do more, and I didn’t feel like what I was studying was enough for that, which is why I decided to venture into finance and get my diplomas and certifications to start my financial services career.
By 2014, I was back in Saudi working as a corporate finance advisor for a few years and continued that in DIFC in Dubai, until 2018 when I established my ventures and eventually set up Hodler in 2021.
Throughout that journey between 2008 and 2014, I was following Bitcoin during the early days and watching its price movements, so by 2017, I started to dig deeper and do more research — putting my political scientist hat on — and started to understand the mission and the purpose behind it.
It intrigued me and resonated with me — the need to have decentralized economies and for people to own their wealth and be able to transact freely without the presence of central authorities, but for me, something was missing, which was the compliance element. That’s where I put my corporate finance hat on, and I was able to merge the two worlds — between finance, monetary policy, and politics. This is when I realized that for all of this to actually operate, massive amounts of energy are required.
Globally, I think we’re close to 3% of the world’s electricity being consumed by data centers, and with the acceleration of AI and other modern technology, computing requirements continue to grow. This will require a lot more energy. Large companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, are looking for this infrastructure, so the market is there.
Consolidating my ventures under Hodler just made my life easier from an investment perspective and allowed me to focus my efforts top down. I have multiple ventures that are in vertical avenues, from energy to AI to digital asset mining, and the platform that manages the ecosystem is PermianChain. So we established Hodler in order to be able to do exactly what we’re doing today, which is to forge partnerships with key players in the market and reputable firms like EHC and Gewan, to allow us to execute on our mission.
Our approach to set up an investment fund in DIFC with our fund manager is also part of our business model, to be founding members of these investment funds that support the industries that we are in.
In terms of my responsibilities, I’m basically everywhere at the same time. I’m talking to you right now. I’m drafting a term sheet for a new client. I’m running through calls and meetings. At this point, I’m still not fortunate enough to have an assistant, so it’s just me and my partners. We’re at the office in the morning; we’re on calls throughout the day, and we’re driving to Abu Dhabi every other day, strategizing with our partners, working with engineers — whether it’s petroleum engineers or electrical, mechanical, or data center engineers — and putting the pieces together.
My morning usually starts with my kids jumping on the bed — that’s my alarm. Then I take a quick drink of water, have my coffee, and get ready to start the day, usually starting with the gym and then to the office. I take time in traffic to answer emails.
The constant in my days is caring for my family, and forcing my business partner to join me at the gym.
For the last year, I have not been doing any switching off. I just try to get my six to eight hours of sleep.
There’s no such thing as a work-life balance, because honestly, if you love what you do, you can’t stop, even if you want to. You would go to bed and if you have your phone next to you, then you’re going to turn it on and try to check on things that you missed out on today, and think about things that you want to get done tomorrow. The only time I switch off is really in the morning when I’m at the gym.
Currently at Hodler, we’re in that phase where we can’t switch off. Maybe later, the time will come where we will move slower because we’re strategizing and we’re building on growth, but at this point, we’re on the launch pad.
My goals for Hodler are to put the USD 500 mn worth of projects under our portfolio and strengthen the existing partnerships that we forged with EHC and Gewan, because it’s a real honor to be working with them. In terms of my personal life, I think I’ve achieved everything that I’ve set out to achieve ever since I was 18 years old. I don’t measure my success with money, I measure it based on milestones and relationships, and the relationships I’ve built at this point are beyond what I would have ever dreamed of. Having the blessings of my parents, and the love of my siblings and wife and kids — what more can a man ask for?
I’m currently reading a book called The New Map by Daniel Yergin. It really offers a global perspective on what’s happening in our world at this time, and how energy is the base of every nation’s sovereignty. I also like to read a few pages of the Quran at night to give me the advice and reassurance I need to remain sane and hopeful.
The one piece of advice that has always resonated with me is the advice I received from my father, and it’s actually a verse from Surah Al Luqman that says to always be humble, but not let people walk all over you.
