Top Business Leaders Defining New Era of Leadership
Leadership is being redefined. The leaders who carry the most influence today are not necessarily the ones who command the largest organisations, but those who combine vision with adaptability, ambition with accountability, and technical strength with a genuine commitment to people. In an economy shaped by rapid technological change, shifting markets, and rising expectations, a new standard of leadership is taking hold.
This edition of The Arab Mashriq brings together business leaders who embody that standard. They come from different industries, regions, and backgrounds, yet they share a clear-eyed understanding of what it takes to build and lead in this era. They make decisions with the long term in mind, invest in their teams, embrace innovation, and measure success by lasting value rather than short-term gain.
Their stories reflect the full range of modern leadership: Founders turning bold ideas into growing enterprises, specialists bringing deep expertise to new markets, and executives guiding organisations through constant change. Each journey offers practical insight for entrepreneurs, executives, and investors who want to understand what leadership demands today, and where it is heading next.
These are the leaders defining a new era. And this is where their stories begin.
Anastassiya Matsenko: Designing Spaces with Sustainability at the Heart
Anastassiya Matsenko is the Managing Director of MAVX Design Plus, based in Doha, Qatar, with 15 years of experience in the region’s construction and interior fit-out sector. She oversees business development, project delivery, client relationships and company operations, combining commercial understanding with a lifelong passion for design. A graduate in Economics from the University of International Business, she chose to pursue the creative industry she had always wanted to work in. One of her proudest achievements is MAVX’s design-and-build project for Newton International Academy in Lusail. Working within a demanding schedule, the project challenged the team to expand its capabilities and take on work at a greater scale, and she credits the team’s commitment and collective effort as essential to its delivery.
Her commitment to sustainability grew from firsthand experience on construction sites, where she observed material waste, packaging and missed opportunities to use resources more thoughtfully. Today, she advocates for reuse and introduces clients to options such as panels made from recycled plastic. She approaches this work realistically: progress requires trust, a shift in mindset and practical changes introduced one project, and sometimes one element, at a time. Alongside a Diploma in Interior Design, her continued education includes Executive Sustainability Certification from EIIS, Italy; Regenerative Materials and Construction from ETH Zurich; and Key Essentials: The Sustainable Development Goals and the Law from the University of Cambridge. For Anastassiya, learning is an ongoing responsibility that informs both her professional decisions and her everyday life.
Beyond MAVX, she is developing “Zara’s Green World”, a children’s book series that introduces young readers to recycling and caring for nature. Four books are prepared, and the first has been printed privately and shared with a small circle while she explores publication. Her ambition is to grow MAVX through thoughtful, challenging and interesting projects, and to make sustainability part of the conversation from the earliest design decisions. At the heart of her work is a commitment to keep learning, to teach others, to support her team and to deliver spaces that make clients proud.
James Doughty: Turning a Lifelong Passion for Cycling into UAE-Made Bike Storage
How the Velohawk founder is giving bikes a proper home in residences, offices and modern developments.
For James Doughty, some of the most productive meetings happen at twenty miles an hour. Cycling has never been a hobby he packs away when the working day begins; it is the rhythm of his life. “Cycling is woven into my everyday routine,” says Doughty, founder and CEO of Velohawk. “Some of the best conversations, friendships and ideas I’ve ever had happened on a bike or over a quick coffee afterwards.” He first took up cycling and triathlon in the Middle East in the early 2000s, went on to complete numerous Ironman events and represented his age group at the 2025 Gran Fondo World Championships. Two decades later, as road riding and mountain biking surge across the region, he has returned with a business built around an unglamorous but universal problem: what happens when the ride is over?
“To anyone who rides, a bike isn’t just sports equipment. It’s an investment of time, passion and pride,” Doughty explains. “Yet so often, the moment you get home or arrive at work, it suddenly turns into a nuisance or an obstacle in the hallway.” For individual riders, that friction means cramped apartments and cluttered villa walls. For commercial property managers, employers and residential developers, it creates a much larger operational headache: bikes leaned haphazardly against glass partitions, crowded fire exits and basement corners that look like an afterthought. That is the gap Velohawk was created to bridge. Rather than treating bicycle parking as an afterthought tucked away in a service corridor, the company designs and manufactures dedicated storage systems in the UAE, from architectural freestanding stands and wall racks that look like interior furniture to heavy-duty commercial racks, secure lockers and complete end-of-trip facilities for major developments.
“Bike parking shouldn’t be a metal bar bolted into concrete as an afterthought,” says Doughty. “If a commercial building wants to attract modern tenants, promote active living or meet sustainability standards, the arrival experience matters. People need to know their bikes are safe, easy to park and properly integrated into the building’s design.” To solve the planning puzzle before ground is broken, Velohawk works directly with developers, architects and corporate clients across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the wider Emirates, providing free layout recommendations, capacity planning and custom architectural finishes tailored to a project’s aesthetic. For Doughty, making the products locally is both practical and personal. “I discovered cycling and triathlon right here in the Middle East, so building Velohawk here feels like a true full-circle moment,” he says. “We manufacture our products in the UAE because we understand the climate, the architecture and the community. We want to protect what people love, and help our cities make room for it.”
Monica Janus-Manczynska: Building Organisations That Thrive Beyond Their Leaders
Global Financial Services Executive | Transformation Leader | Business Strategist
For more than two decades, Monica Janus has built her career around a conviction that challenges traditional definitions of executive success: exceptional leadership is not about maintaining control, but about creating organisations capable of thriving beyond the individuals who lead them. “The true measure of leadership is not how indispensable you become, but how successful an organisation can be without you,” she says. She has held senior leadership positions at State Street, BNY Mellon and Brown Brothers Harriman, including Managing Director responsibilities across European financial services operations, and has led complex international transformations spanning operating models, technology, governance and organisational performance.
Her achievements include redesigning regional structures to deliver approximately $2.5 million in savings, driving operational standardisation that enabled a reporting hub to double its output with 20% fewer staff, and transforming fragmented operating models into more integrated, scalable organisations. Her leadership philosophy is rooted in a deceptively simple principle: “Operating model first. Technology is the enabler.”
Her ambitions now extend beyond operational excellence. Having built and transformed businesses across international environments, she is increasingly focused on a question at the intersection of leadership, strategy and long-term value creation: what makes an organisation truly resilient when the people who built it are no longer there? Her vision is to bring the discipline of institutional transformation to a broader business landscape, helping leaders challenge outdated structures, reduce organisational dependency and build enterprises capable of succeeding across generations. She believes the next frontier of leadership is not simply achieving better results, but creating something more enduring: businesses that outlast their founders, leaders who develop their successors, and success that does not depend on one person’s continued presence.
Samya Lakhouired: Bringing a Business Perspective to FinTech Innovation
With over two decades of experience across technology, retail, telecommunications, and financial services, Samya Lakhouired has built an international career that combines marketing leadership, business development, and strategic growth across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Her work spans international market development, strategic partnerships, and the launch of technology-driven financial solutions. A Harvard FinTech Programme alumna, she pairs executive experience with a deep understanding of the financial services industry.
In 2026, The Fintech Marketing Hub named Samya Lakhouired among its Top 30 Most Influential FinTech Marketers, alongside marketing leaders from companies including Revolut, Coinbase, and Flutterwave. The jury also recognised her as one of its “Trust Champions,” highlighting an approach grounded in verified facts and measurable outcomes. As artificial intelligence reshapes business operations, she is particularly interested in its practical applications across marketing, customer engagement, and financial services. Her focus is on translating AI innovation into measurable business value, with close attention to data quality, decision-making, and responsible automation.
Beyond her executive career, Samya Lakhouired teaches FinTech and digital innovation at international business schools. She also co-leads marketing and communication for African in Tech, Moroccan Chapter, supporting women’s visibility and participation in technology. Guided by her personal philosophy, Driven by Purpose, she brings a business-driven perspective to financial innovation and emerging technologies, with a strong focus on the evolving FinTech landscape across EMEA.
Faissal Abdourabou: Building Human-Centred Organisations Across Morocco’s Industrial Landscape
The Group Chief Human Capital Officer of King Pélagique on leading people, driving transformation and making HR a core strategic function.
With more than 20 years of experience leading human resources functions, Faissal Abdourabou is Group Chief Human Capital Officer at King Pélagique, a leading player in Morocco’s fishing and seafood industry with around 2,500 employees. His career stands out for taking on senior responsibilities early. At 32, he was appointed HR Director for Morocco at FADESA, a Spanish multinational real estate developer with 2,800 employees.
He went on to lead HR at industrial and diversified groups, including Parthénon Holding, Alf Sahel, DIMATIT (Chaabi Group) and King Pélagique. In these roles, he built or restructured the HR function, led organisational transformations and managed social dialogue in demanding environments.
Convinced that people are the foundation of sustainable performance, Abdourabou champions a leadership style that combines operational rigour, fairness and closeness to the field. He sees HR as a core strategic function: anticipating economic and technological change, embracing evolving management practices and new ways of working, and building more agile and responsible organisations where everyone knows where they are heading and sees their efforts recognised.
CONCLUSION
The leaders featured in this edition come from different fields, yet their paths point to the same conclusion: the new era of leadership is built on purpose, adaptability, and trust. Each has shown that lasting success depends less on titles or scale and more on clarity of vision, the strength of the teams behind it, and the willingness to keep learning as the world changes.
Their journeys also show that leadership is no longer defined by a single model. It can grow from technical mastery, entrepreneurial courage, strategic partnerships, or a deep commitment to empowering others. What connects these approaches is a focus on building something that endures, whether a company, a community, or an opportunity for those who follow.
As markets evolve and new challenges emerge, the leaders who will shape the future are those who combine foresight with action and ambition with responsibility. The individuals in these pages are already doing so.
At The Arab Mashriq, we are proud to share their stories.
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