ReSET Qatar 2026
- Dates
- 5–7 Feb 2026
- Location
- Doha, Qatar
- Cohort
- 21 people
A high-trust gathering for decision-makers shaping capital, institutions, and large-scale ventures—focused on aligning power, responsibility, and long-term vision in a rapidly evolving region.
Who it's for
The cohort is built around these people.
- Founders scaling regional or sovereign-adjacent ventures
- C-level executives in institution-backed or high-growth companies
- Investors, family office principals, and capital allocators
- Leaders operating at the intersection of business, policy, and influence
Photos
Moments from the retreat.
Abdelrahman Barakat
Founder · Brands and More
Abdelrahman is content creator and built Brands and More in Kuwait to solve the problem that most growing businesses in the Gulf eventually hit: the gap between having something worth selling and knowing how to build a brand people remember, trust, and choose. He operates in an industry where the quality of the work is visible and the results are measurable — and he has made his reputation by closing that gap for clients across the Gulf market. He is the kind of founder who knows that a great brand is not decoration; it is a business asset.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
There's something beautiful about meeting someone in business who tells you how they can help you — that's an environment you don't always find. Words on a rollup banner like "authentic" and "deep connection" are nice, but they can be exaggerated and over-promising. What I found is that these things actually happen. I'm amazed and impressed, and I see ReSET as a great place for building these relationships and reconnecting with yourself and others.
Abdulla Al-Naimi
Managing Director · Doha Business Consulting DBC
Abdulla is Managing Director of Doha Business Consulting and a former Investment Manager at Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), with a secondment at 500 Startups that gave him a rare view of venture capital from both the founder's and investor's sides. He co-founded Summits Club, has spent over a decade supporting startups and founders in Qatar, and carries an investor's instinct for what early-stage ambition actually looks like — before the metrics exist to prove it.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
The number of people here and their diversity is heartwarming. People coming from around the world to the same place, sharing the challenges and difficulties they face. It helps the entrepreneurs see things from a different perspective and helps them scale their businesses across borders. Personally, I'll be reaching out to participants to collaborate on joint projects across several countries.
Abdullah AlJurf
VP of Talent Development · MUATHIRUN
Abdullah works inside MUATHIRUN to solve one of Saudi Arabia's most consequential infrastructure challenges: how to build a generation of skilled, purpose-driven professionals fast enough to match the pace of Vision 2030\. Talent development at this scale is not an HR function — it is nation-building — and Abdullah operates at that intersection every day. He is building the human capital layer that everything else in the Kingdom's transformation depends on.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
I heard about ReSET on LinkedIn, went to the site, and signed up. Excellent experience. The group was open-minded, accepting of different ideas; every conversation was rich and every person enriched my thinking differently. It felt like people had known each other for years — like one family — even though we were meeting for the first time. There was ease from the very first moments, no pretense, no posturing. One of the most important things I'm taking back to Saudi is the relationships I built here. If you ask me "would you do it again?" I'd say yes — many times over.
Abdulrahman Joud
Co-Founder & CEO · Emtethal
Abdulrahman co-founded Emtethal in a market where the distance between a great idea and real institutional adoption can feel like a chasm — and his job is to close it. He leads with a founder's directness and a strategist's patience, building a company designed to outlast the current wave of Saudi startup enthusiasm and become something more durable. He is the kind of CEO who already knows which problems are worth solving before most people notice they exist.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
I've learned not to raise my expectations too high. Before joining I did my due diligence and spoke to people who'd been through ReSET before me, and they encouraged me to come. The decision to join was one of the fastest I've made in my life, given the transitional phase I'm in professionally. What I found exceeded my expectations — I genuinely learned something different from every person who was there. The relationships and the participants' experiences are a real treasure I came away with.
Ahmed Shoukri
CEO · Qeema
Ahmed is building Qeema in the heart of Saudi Arabia's most competitive and fastest-moving startup era — where getting a product right means navigating regulatory ambition, cultural nuance, and the rising expectations of a young, demanding market simultaneously. He brings a founder's conviction and an operator's discipline to a company that is still earning its place in a market that doesn't reward average. He is exactly the kind of CEO a cohort of serious peers helps the most.
Retreats attended
Ahmet Cumaa
Founder · DANDMO MEDYA AGENCY
Ahmet runs Dandmo Medya from Brazil, building a media agency at the intersection of creative storytelling, digital strategy, and brand presence in one of the world's most competitive and culturally layered media markets. He operates in an industry that rewards originality ruthlessly and punishes average without apology — and he has chosen to build there anyway. His work is a consistent argument that good creative work is not a cost center; it is infrastructure.
Retreats attended
Ali Nagy
Founder and CEO · Castle Eye
Ali leads Castle Eye from the UK, building a media company that operates with a global perspective on a problem that is deeply local in its impact. He is among the MENA entrepreneurs who chose to build from Europe rather than from the Gulf — not as a retreat from the region, but as a strategic positioning that gives his company access, credibility, and reach that purely regional operators struggle to replicate.
Retreats attended
On camera
Amr Aboushady
Co-Founder & CEO · Qsalary
Amr is co-founder of Qsalary with over 13 years of business development experience, building a Shariah-compliant fintech platform that enables employees to access a portion of their salaries without interest — easing financial pressure on workers and reducing administrative burdens on companies. He has expanded Qsalary into Egypt and is pursuing further growth across GCC and Turkey — with the conviction that financial wellness for employees is not a nice-to-have but a direct driver of business performance. He is building the financial infrastructure that millions of Gulf workers have needed for a long time.
Retreats attended
On camera
Amr Nazeem
Angel Investor
Amr invests in the earliest, riskiest, and most consequential phase of company building — before the product is proven, before the team is complete, and before the market has confirmed the thesis. His work as an angel investor in Saudi Arabia means he is simultaneously shaping the next generation of Gulf founders and betting his own capital on which ideas deserve to exist. Every serious founder eventually needs someone like Amr in their corner at the exact right moment.
Retreats attended
Emad Saif
Founder and CEO · Playtactic
Emad specializes in entrepreneurship education and spent over 11 years as a lecturer and coordinator at Qatar University's College of Business and Economics. He is the founder of PlayTactic and PlayMeetup, and has trained entrepreneurs at institutions spanning Qatar Foundation, Oxford's Bioescalator, and the Arab Innovation Network across Jordan, Morocco, and beyond. He is the rare kind of person who has lived on both sides of the classroom — building companies and teaching others how to do the same.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
The experience exceeded my expectations because of the caliber of people being selected — this isn't open to just anyone. Your perspective expands not only in business but in your personal life too. I saw different patterns from people's experiences with real depth. Every person was thinking about how to learn from the others, and how to help and support them. One of the things I came away with is the importance of building a supportive community I can turn to safely when I face any challenge. I encourage people to join this experience.
Eslam Anbar
Founder and CEO · PhiWallet
Eslam is leading Phi Wallet — a licensed Portuguese gold dealer guiding a mobile app that enables users to buy, sell, and transfer investment-grade gold bars worldwide. He co-founded Ibn Khaldon — the first home schooling services provider in the MENA region — and has built technology ventures across Europe, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey. He is building an ethical financial alternative for the era of inflation, currency instability, and eroding trust in conventional banking — and doing it with a quiet, compounding intensity that tends to outlast louder ventures.
Retreats attended
On camera
Gamal Arafa
Senior Management Consultant
Gamal works at the level where strategy meets institutional reality — helping large organizations in Saudi Arabia navigate transformation, complexity, and the gap between ambitious plans and operational execution. Senior management consultants with real depth are among the most underappreciated people in any cohort; they have seen more organizational failure modes up close than most founders will ever encounter, and they carry that hard knowledge into every engagement. He is the kind of professional who makes any cohort smarter.
Retreats attended
Husam Shebib
Founder · MenaReach
Husam built MenaReach from Turkey — a deliberate position at the geographic and cultural bridge between the MENA region and Europe — connecting businesses to audiences, markets, and opportunities across one of the most complex multi-market landscapes in the world. He understands that reaching the MENA market is not a translation problem; it is a trust and context problem. And he has spent years building the infrastructure to solve it.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
I travel from country to country just to meet exceptional people in their fields — strong, trustworthy people, because they're a rare currency these days. What I found here is real treasure, like gold — exceptional people, each in a different field. The experience was distinctive on multiple levels: professional, psychological, cultural, personal, physical. I was fully present in the experience — living every moment, fully and intentionally and aware. I learned a lot about myself and gained clarity on many decisions. The experience exceeded my expectations in depth and impact.
Khaled Al-Adba
Founder & CEO · Rowwad Advisory
Khaled is Managing Director of Rowwad Advisory & Business Solutions, a Qatar-based firm that has supported initiatives including the ReSET Retreat, and recognized as a leading voice in Qatar's entrepreneurship ecosystem — speaking at events including Web Summit Qatar on how the country is engineering a knowledge-driven economy. He works at the intersection of technology, engineering, and digitalization, and is among the Qataris quietly building the infrastructure for a generation of founders the region hasn't yet met.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
The idea is beautiful, and what makes it special is bringing business leaders from different parts of the Arab world and different sectors into one place to share both their ambitions and their challenges. I laughed when I realized the struggles we face as entrepreneurs are shared challenges across all of us. Seeking advice and perspective from each other despite our different backgrounds is one of the most important things you come away with.
Lorenzo Palombi
CEO · TOTALE
Lorenzo leads TOTALE from Italy — a founder navigating one of Europe's most complex and under-celebrated startup environments, where bureaucratic friction is high, ambition is abundant, and the businesses that survive are genuinely resilient. His presence among Gulf and MENA operators brings a European operator's perspective on building with discipline in constrained environments — a perspective that has more in common with the MENA experience than most would expect. He is building something that doesn't ask for easy conditions.
Retreats attended
Mohamed Ashour
Digital Transformation Strategist · SDAIA
Mohamed works at SDAIA — the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority — which means his daily work is not a company's transformation but an entire nation's. He operates at the policy and implementation layer of Saudi Arabia's most ambitious digital agenda, translating Vision 2030's AI and data objectives into frameworks, programs, and decisions that shape how 35 million people interact with technology. Few people in this network are building at that scale.
Retreats attended
Mohamed Hebala
CEO · Mandisa
Mohamed runs Mandisa from South Korea — a deliberate and unusual strategic choice that places him at the forefront of a growing trend: Arab entrepreneur, manufacturer in Egypt building globally competitive companies from non-traditional bases, accessing Asia's market with innovation and distribution networks while serving markets back home. He is a long-term thinker in an industry that rewards patience, and his geographic positioning is itself a thesis about where the next decade of Arab business value will be created.
Retreats attended
Mohamed Nabil
Founder and CEO · WideBot AI
Mohamed co-founded WideBot in Cairo in 2016, building it into an Arabic artificial intelligence company serving over 350 enterprise and government clients across 12 countries, including the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah and the Egyptian Tax Authority. He recently secured $3M in Pre-Series A funding to develop AQL Mind — the first Arabic large language model hosted on Saudi cloud servers — with a mission to build AI that embodies Arab culture and identity, originating from Riyadh and extending to the entire Arab world. He is building the linguistic infrastructure the Arab digital economy has been waiting for.
Retreats attended
On camera
In their words
A really excellent experience — I met outstanding people from every sector and nationality. Experiences like this are very important for entrepreneurs: networking, sharing different expertise. You can rely on experiences like this to grow your company maybe 30% faster, because you meet specialists and investors through them. The real gain here is the expertise and the relationships you build quickly.
Omar Sakr
Founder and CEO · Griffin Art House
Omar works at the intersection of new media, creative production, and management. He builds and leads ventures focused on shaping modern media expression and creative execution. His work combines entrepreneurial leadership with media production and organizational management, operating within the evolving landscape of digital storytelling and creative industries.
Retreats attended
Yahya Zakaria
Managing Director · Nasj Ventures
He built M3mal, one of Egypt’s first coworking spaces, which grew into a community of entrepreneurs and creatives — and that early experiment in purposeful business community became the blueprint for everything that followed. After 15+ years across four countries as a founder and venture builder, he launched Nasj Ventures — an ecosystem connecting purpose-driven business leaders across the Arab world and beyond. It began with ReSET (invite-only experiences, spanning 7+ countries) and is evolving into a global Nafa-driven business community — focused on aligning business success with meaningful human value.
Retreats attended
Yossef Mahdy
CEO · MAHD group
Yossef leads MAHD Group, a business group operating in Oman — building commercial enterprises in one of the Gulf's most strategically positioned and under-explored economies. He is the kind of founder who bets on a market before the crowd arrives and builds the infrastructure that later makes it obvious why he was right. His work is a live demonstration that serious business building in the Arab world doesn't require a Dubai or Cairo address.
Retreats attended