{"id":1340,"date":"2024-10-10T10:49:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/?page_id=1340"},"modified":"2024-10-10T10:50:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T10:50:51","slug":"saer-imad","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/saer-imad\/","title":{"rendered":"From Banking to F&#038;B Mastery: Saer Imad&#8217;s Journey to Transforming the Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; fullwidth=&#8221;on&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Hero Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/law-firm-27.jpg&#8221; parallax=&#8221;on&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-100px||-32px||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=&#8221;episode #33&#8243; subhead=&#8221;From Banking to F&#038;B Mastery: Saer Imad&#8217;s Journey to Transforming the Industry&#8221; button_one_text=&#8221; Listen to this episode now&#8221; button_one_url=&#8221;#audio&#8221; content_max_width=&#8221;900px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; title_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; title_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; title_letter_spacing=&#8221;4px&#8221; title_line_height=&#8221;1.8em&#8221; content_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; content_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; subhead_font=&#8221;recoleta-bold|700|||||||&#8221; subhead_font_size=&#8221;50px&#8221; subhead_line_height=&#8221;1.4em&#8221; background_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; background_color_gradient_start=&#8221;#090b9b&#8221; background_color_gradient_end=&#8221;rgba(166,0,237,0.72)&#8221; background_color_gradient_direction=&#8221;107deg&#8221; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Saer-Imad-banner.jpg&#8221; custom_button_one=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_one_text_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; button_one_bg_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; button_one_border_width=&#8221;12px&#8221; button_one_border_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_one_border_radius=&#8221;9px&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_one_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; button_one_icon=&#8221;&#x49;||divi||400&#8243; button_one_icon_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; button_one_icon_placement=&#8221;left&#8221; button_one_on_hover=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_custom_margin=&#8221;|||0px|false|false&#8221; custom_button_two=&#8221;on&#8221; button_two_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_two_text_color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; button_two_bg_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_two_border_width=&#8221;12px&#8221; button_two_border_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; button_two_icon=&#8221;&#x24;||divi||400&#8243; custom_margin=&#8221;||38px|||&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;230px||8vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;230px||18vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_phone=&#8221;50px||17vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; content_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; subhead_font_size_tablet=&#8221;40px&#8221; subhead_font_size_phone=&#8221;30px&#8221; subhead_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; background_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; background_image_tablet=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Saer-Imad-banner.jpg&#8221; background_image_phone=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Saer-Imad-banner-mobile.jpg&#8221; background_enable_image_tablet=&#8221;on&#8221; background_enable_image_phone=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing_hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing_hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; button_one_text_size__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_text_size__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_text_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_text_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_width__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_width__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_radius__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_radius__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing__hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=&#8221;on&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing__hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_one_bg_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_bg_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this episode, Saer Imad shares his journey from banking in Lebanon to leading successful F&amp;B brands in Dubai. He talks about his transition into the food industry, building brands like JJ Chicken and Derwendi, and the challenges of expanding internationally.<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/qc_eXWQGnZk?si=TeSpNvxTGHHPL442\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Youtube.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-355 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/38aDt2NtsUVQ4lL4QXYa8Q?si=885887deaced4f1f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Spotify-1.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-356 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/from-banking-to-f-b-mastery-saer-imads-journey-to-transforming\/id1649388502?i=1000672468488\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/apple-podcast.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-358 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/0a73fe9e-112f-4ad3-ac57-44ae7a8d46e5\/episodes\/91eed0e5-3e60-49f3-9ccf-b7c6f2d57031\/restrocast-from-banking-to-f-b-mastery-saer-imad's-journey-to-transforming-the-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Amazon-1.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-359 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Contact Form Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#f1f5f9&#8243; max_width=&#8221;96%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;center&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;80px||0vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;80px||0vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_phone=&#8221;0px||||false|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_2,1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #333333;\">ABOUT THE HOST<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; divider_weight=&#8221;3px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.2&#8243; max_width=&#8221;50px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/THE-HOST-ASHISH-TULSIAN.png&#8221; title_text=&#8221;THE-HOST-ASHISH-TULSIAN&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ashish is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the CEO &amp; <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Co- Founder of Restroworks.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He is one of the entrepreneurs who has mastered the art of bootstrapping startups to scale. Ashish is a prolific angel investor and mentors budding entrepreneurs and startups in Silicon Valley and India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #333333;\">ABOUT THE GUEST<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; divider_weight=&#8221;3px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.2&#8243; max_width=&#8221;50px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/About-Saer-Imad.png&#8221; alt=&#8221;David Bloom&#8221; title_text=&#8221;About Saer Imad&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-20px||||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px||0px||false|false&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; min_height=&#8221;105.6px&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|15px||15px|false|true&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saer Imad is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 23 years of experience in launching innovative businesses, capital raising, and strategic execution. Renowned for his turnaround strategies and corporate restructuring expertise, he focuses on driving long-term growth while maintaining high ethical standards and integrity. Saer&#8217;s diverse industry exposure and extensive network support his passion for excellence and innovation in business.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;5%|||&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;5%|||&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;18%||||false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|0px||0px|false|false&#8221; use_custom_width=&#8221;on&#8221; width_unit=&#8221;off&#8221; custom_width_percent=&#8221;100%&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.25&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|||&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; text_font=&#8221;Raleway|800|||||||&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;21vw&#8221; text_line_height=&#8221;0.8em&#8221; header_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; text_orientation=&#8221;right&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-64px||-5.5vw|||&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;||-8vw|&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; animation_style=&#8221;slide&#8221; animation_direction=&#8221;bottom&#8221; animation_intensity_slide=&#8221;10%&#8221; animation_starting_opacity=&#8221;100%&#8221; text_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; text_font_size_phone=&#8221;&#8221; text_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|tablet&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Speakers<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Information Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;right&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|0px|3px|0px|false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;||120px|&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; width_phone=&#8221;96%&#8221; width_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; link_option_url=&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=%22buzzsprout-player-12521774%22><\/div>\n<p><script src=%22https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/12521774-rise-to-the-top-the-story-of-wow-bao-s-geoff-alexander.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-12521774&#038;player=small%22 type=%22text\/javascript%22 charset=%22utf-8%22><\/script>&#8221; sticky_position=&#8221;top&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; link_option_url=&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=%22buzzsprout-player-12521774%22><\/div>\n<p><script src=%22https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/12521774-rise-to-the-top-the-story-of-wow-bao-s-geoff-alexander.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-12521774&#038;player=small%22 type=%22text\/javascript%22 charset=%22utf-8%22><\/script>&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; sticky_position=&#8221;top&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; sticky_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;]<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"audio\">Episode #33<\/h1>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/episodes\/15901350-from-banking-to-f-b-mastery-saer-imad-s-journey-to-transforming-the-industry.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-15901350&#038;player=small\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Information Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;right&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;14px|0px|54px|0px|false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;||120px|&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; width_phone=&#8221;96%&#8221; width_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_tabs active_tab_background_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; inactive_tab_background_color=&#8221;#B3B3B3&#8243; active_tab_text_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; tab_text_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; tab_font=&#8221;Poppins||||||||&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;0px||0px||true|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px||0px||true|false&#8221; border_width_all=&#8221;0px&#8221; border_color_all=&#8221;#D6D6D6&#8243; border_style_all=&#8221;none&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_tab title=&#8221;Description &#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; body_text_color=&#8221;#6B6B6B&#8221; body_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; body_line_height=&#8221;1.8em&#8221; tab_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; tab_line_height=&#8221;2.3em&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;40px||40px||true|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this podcast episode, Saer Imad shares his unique career journey from corporate banking in Lebanon to becoming a key figure in Dubai&#8217;s food and beverage industry. Saer discusses his early career advising entrepreneurs at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders, where he first gained insights into the F&amp;B world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He then shares how he transitioned from an advisor to a hands-on operator, building and franchising brands like JJ Chicken and Derwendi. Saer reflects on the challenges of brand building, the importance of adaptability, and the lessons learned from his experiences in expanding F&amp;B brands internationally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Find us online:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ashish Tulsian &#8211;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ashishtulsian\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saer Imad- <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/saer-imad-a749296\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_tab][et_pb_tab title=&#8221;Transcript&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; body_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;40px||40px||true|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hi, welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is Saer Imad, Group GM, Almed Retail. Saer today is building a restaurant business in Almed Retail for last seven years from scratch, brands like JJ Chicken, Darwandi, and a few good brands franchised internationally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Saer&#8217;s passion, from what I learned in the conversation, comes from working with entrepreneurs. Somebody who started his career in banking, providing loans to small businesses, to working at a private equity or rather a VC fund, and helping those entrepreneurs with venture capital, to moving to the side where he became an operator and started his own journey of building zero to one. His passion for restaurants, you know, comes from his experience with other entrepreneurs who, as a, as a private equity or a venture capital person, he helped and he saw them growing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He also helped them, worked with them in trenches, but still missed that, you know, actual operator role. Today, he&#8217;s building these brands into franchisable formats, and somebody who is now ready to explore international waters in various markets as wild and diverse as India, Saudi Arabia, and UK. Saer&#8217;s perspective in life is quite balanced and yet refreshing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I enjoyed this conversation. I&#8217;m sure you will. Welcome to Restrocast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saer, welcome to Restrocast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for having me here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a pleasure and an honor to be having this discussion with you, Ashish.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you. Thank you for accepting this. Saer, you&#8217;ve been, you know, you&#8217;ve been in Dubai and the industry for a very, very long time. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I saw your, you know, career. You have, you know, you have quite a rich, you know, career, if I may say. There&#8217;s a lot that I have a lot of questions on literally, you know, each junction. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I would like to start with, you know, where it all started for you. So if you can touch upon, like, where did you grow up all the years and, you know, in your education.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. We came from a different part of the world, but we&#8217;re ending up in Dubai, actually. So I&#8217;m originally from Lebanon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I studied there. I worked there. Actually, I started my career as a banker in the corporate credit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then I went to open the bank in Africa, Nigeria, actually. So we had a lot of clients there. And then quickly I shifted to the finance department.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I came to Dubai in 2003. This is the first time I came here. I work mainly in helping, supporting and nurturing entrepreneurs and SMEs through a government agency called Mohammed Bin Rashid, Establishment for Young Business Leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was back in 2003?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, that was in 2003. So we were supporting all kinds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We were sector agnostic. So we were supporting all businesses, F&amp;D industry, industrial, retail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what do you mean by supporting?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, supporting by giving them financial support, by giving them economic support, commercial support, all types of support. So these entrepreneurs come to us. We help them to develop their business plan, their feasibility studies, and work on their budget and cash flows, and then work on the commercial part and operational part.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we were giving them all this kind of support and helping them and assisting them until they are successful and they grow. So some of them, for example, they moved into franchising. Some of them, they went into growing and diversifying into different sectors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this was this part. So I continue with this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this was not just like a SME loan?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was hands on. And this is why I got to know more and more about the F&amp;B industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I started at that part, but I was on the other side of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you were helping them like sharpen their business plan?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everything. Shop, helping them to rent the right place, do for them location analysis. Will they get customers here?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is it fit? What are the type of customers they want to inquire at? All these details.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then even going with them through their menu, what kind of food they want to go, having a big or small menu.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That sounds like weird, but what was your training to do this? Like how did you even get to the point?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly. So we started because entrepreneurship was new to the region. So we had a lot of training in the US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we were into a lot. There was a lot of exchange programs with the US that having these kinds of businesses or these kinds of programs because it was new to the region. And this is how we started.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then we start to get a lot of pioneers in this sector to help these people and assist them kind of a mentorship program. So to give them the best practice in the market. But we were operating their businesses, but we were not owning the business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So there is always this slight difference where the KPIs and the performance will always be the responsibility of the owner, of the entrepreneur. But you are kind of an advisor and it makes a lot of difference. So we continued doing this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I continued doing this business. I moved to Abu Dhabi, same Khalifa fund. They have a bigger fund.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was three billion dirhams at that time. And they were focusing mainly on F&amp;B also. So this is also we get a lot of exposure until I shifted to Almed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we shifted to Almed and this is where my full focus on F&amp;B started.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almed is where you are today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly where we are today, where we wanted to have. It&#8217;s a kind of a boutique F&amp;B operator where we own, operate and manage different brands. And this is where I was in the other part of the game now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I&#8217;m responsible of the performance of the achievements of the KPI.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why did you take that jump?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I took this jump because I want to be more focused. I like the industry, so I wanted to experience it from a different perspective. There was always something that needed to be done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you give advice, you know what should be done, but it&#8217;s not done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ll, you know, Before we dive into that, at Khalifa fund you said for how many years were you investing the part of that three billion?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For five years and a half.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Five years and a half. And what part of your investment or portfolio was F&amp;B?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About 40 to 50 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow, that&#8217;s a big one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, because at that time the F&amp;B becomes the trend. So all the entrepreneurs thought that it&#8217;s an easy industry or it&#8217;s quick money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They still do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They still do actually. Yes, you&#8217;re totally right. And they still do, unfortunately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am a product of that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12-13 years back, I was running a telecom company, a tech company in India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interesting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, you know, one day a random conversation with a friend who was continuously exploring, you know, a KFC franchise or a Subway franchise. He used to keep reading these prospectus documents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He used to keep discussing with me. And I said, well, why don&#8217;t you open your own brand? How hard can it be?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he said, will you invest? So, of course, this is my idea. How can I say no to my own idea?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s do that. And I jumped into it headfirst and got screwed so bad. You know, it was not only a financial loss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was an ego loss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, it was like, oh, wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I thought that I was so smart. And like entering a restaurant, it was like you&#8217;re not. Like, I mean, everybody was ready to take you for a ride.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, yeah, it&#8217;s a trap.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because it has a lot of details that you don&#8217;t see it until you are into it. And at that time, people want the cash business. So what happened that a lot of people, even not in the F&amp;B industry, wanted to jump into this sector because here mainly the main money was coming from the contracting business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then suddenly contracting slowed down. And when you go into the contracting, you know, most of the money is stuck somewhere until you see it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So they wanted this cash business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And F&amp;B is the best outfit where we can get your cash. So everybody started going to this industry and becoming very popular and becoming very famous. So that&#8217;s why 50% of our portfolio was going towards these F&amp;B concepts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And at that time, there was a lot of trends. So now is the trend of shawarma or the trends of burger or the trends of pizza. So you can see all the concepts are going to the same product, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they become more specialized. So before, if you look to the F&amp;B industry here, especially in UAE, it went to different stages. So before, you don&#8217;t see a specialized restaurant where it offers a single product.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it used to be a whole big menu where it has a variety of everything. Then this trend started that, oh no, let&#8217;s focus on shawarma, let&#8217;s focus on burger, let&#8217;s focus on brisket. And this is how the trend started.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And now it continues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So at Khalifa, what was you, when you say that you are investing a part of this 3 billion dirham corpus, were you investing in the restaurant?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, investing in the restaurant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Investing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So the entrepreneur, you know<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like a private equity?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, kind of a VC. Because, you know, being an entrepreneur coming, there is no bank that is willing to give you money.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">umm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So because you&#8217;re high risk,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it&#8217;s a new business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It could succeed, could not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Higher chances that it will not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, exactly. So usually in the States, for example, 9 out of 10, they fail. Startups.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here it is a little bit more because we give them a lot of support, we open up for them a lot of doors. So the success rate was 6 out of 10, for example.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wow<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly. So we used to give them loans with very low interest. We take the full risk and we give them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They used to have to contribute about 10 to 20% of the total investment required. So a restaurant that costs 5 million, they have to come up with at least 1 million. We put 4 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we manage the disbursement of the fund and how it has to be disbursed. Buying equipment that much, rent, kitchen equipment, all these kinds of things. And move ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Employees, what type of workers do you need to have? So we enter into all the details. But as I told you before, it also missed the point that we kind of advisor, mentor, but not hands on the operation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we don&#8217;t take decisions. Because if you take a decision, then you are responsible for the loss and the profit. So they have to take decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I give them advice, they have to take decisions. And this was part of the problem maybe. So then when I shift to Almed, I am in the decision making seat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I have to put the plan and I have to execute the plan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How different it turned out to be from your perception?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Huge difference. Huge difference. Because we always thought that we&#8217;re giving the right advice and this should be enough to make it a success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which it&#8217;s not. The variables of the market, it&#8217;s so much that it overcome, overruled all these kinds of things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you, did you, When you came to, and we&#8217;ll dive into this deeper. When you came to Almed and you became the person responsible to execute directly now. Did you look back and saw some of your advice that was not cool?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, of course. Definitely. Definitely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the opposite. So one time I had, I&#8217;ll tell you this story. This is one of the lessons I learned in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So one time there was a lady that came to us. She was not well educated. She was divorced, had four kids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And she wants to do any business. She wanted to do henna.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sorry?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She wants to do the henna tattoo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Henna, okay. Yeah.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I said, this business will never make a profit. So she keep insisting, insisting, insisting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She just wanted 250,000 dirham. She just wanted to make a tent in the hotels and do for the tourists. She said, please, in every corner there is a beauty salon who does the henna.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why? Why they will come to you? What&#8217;s different?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But actually, this lady, at some point of time she had 60 locations. She franchised the business to different countries, and she was making a net profit of approximately half a million dirham per month. What she did,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wow<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">we always talk about innovation, but what she did is she didn&#8217;t create something new about the henna, but she repositioned the henna.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That I&#8217;m offering a temporary tattoo of over two weeks for tourist people who are willing to spend and pay double the amount that normal people pay in the beauty salon because they are coming for fun. They don&#8217;t mind to pay instead of 50, 100 dirham for tattoo. It&#8217;s something traditional, nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that&#8217;s why she was successful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I learned a huge lesson from it, that innovation doesn&#8217;t necessarily have to come from something totally new, creating a totally new product. Innovation can be by positioning the same service or product to a different type of customers in a different location.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, this, in the 90s, I grew up in India in the 90s, and I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve heard of these. I don&#8217;t know if these were global or not. It used to be called tele-brands, like the tele-TV shopping ads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, yes, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I remember that, you know, I was growing up, I was, I think, eight years or nine years. So this ad came on tele-shopping, you know, during the lunchtime. We just came back from school and, you know, having lunch and watching these daily soaps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that ad said, you know, it was a device called Clear Tone. And it basically said, you put it here, and then you adjust the volume from here. And now, these guys were showing what all this can do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it basically showed a scene where a dad is watching, you know, a game and a kid is studying, and the kid is, you know, really getting, you know, pissed. So, you know, dad, what he did is now, he just put the volume of the TV to the lowest, increase the volume, you know, of the device here, and everybody&#8217;s happy. Then it also said, if you increase the sensitivity of the device, you can also listen over here, eavesdrop, you know, on conversations of others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it gave random 20 very cool use cases. As a kid, I was tempted to buy that. Of course, my mom didn&#8217;t allow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it stayed with me. I never realized what that machine was until I came to college. And my then girlfriend and my wife, her family is in hearing aids business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I had never seen a hearing aid before. And I mean, because after that, being a kid, it never, I never saw that device again. So it never occurred to me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember one day, you know, she brought a hearing aid. And I was like, clear tone. And like, oh, shit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So basically, somebody thought that I&#8217;m going to sell hearing aid to people who don&#8217;t have a hearing loss. By telling them, you know, how can you manipulate this? You know, somebody reimagined the same product.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And those guys, I&#8217;m not kidding, sold 100,000 pieces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In India, a hearing loss product for people who can hear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this repositioning is possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly, exactly, exactly. So yeah, so when I came to Almed, I had a mission to create a company with different brands.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we have different options. Either we have to buy ready-made brands and grow it. Or to come up with a totally new brand that we own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this was the mix. And that&#8217;s what really happened. So we acquired a small business that exists here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we worked on the development of everything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What was it called?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">JJ Chicken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this was the start. We bought out, we acquired 100% share of JJ Chicken. We worked on development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We changed the menu. We did rebranding, the logo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it was, can you talk about JJ Chicken? Like, was it an existing brand?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah, it was an existing brand. It was an existing brand with two shops. A small entrepreneur started the business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And was, he doesn&#8217;t know what to do about it after this. He has either to inject a lot of money that he doesn&#8217;t have. Or he has to sell it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So he has these options. So we took over the business. We did complete rebranding with complete redevelopment of the brand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We opened about 10 shops in two years&#8217; time. Transferred the business into a total franchising model. Signed an agreement with Franchise India or Frank Global India to develop the business in India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Participated in a few exhibitions there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, you guys are in India as well?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, yeah. Actually, we had a deal on the table and then COVID hit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Got it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And changed everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we had the complete franchising model of the business. And then we started developing the business because it was only chicken. Then we said, okay, we need to cater to the market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We need to adapt to the market. So we said, let&#8217;s have an Indian range, for example, because most of the communities here are Indian. Then we said, we have to do and add some meat products because no matter how much you like and you love chicken, you will not eat chicken every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So if you think of eating meat, for example, immediately the option of J.J. Chicken will be out of your mind<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Correct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So why would I want to lose this type of customer? So that&#8217;s why we added meat and we did some testing and stuff like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the brand is still called J.J. Chicken?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, because 90% of the or more, 95% of the menu is chicken, but there is 5-10% which is a small part. And then we acquired another franchise from Paris. It&#8217;s called Andy Mochapedi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Andy Mochapedi is casual to find dining. The business exists in Paris, Saint-Germain. It&#8217;s nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have very nice pastry. The food is very chic, elegant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We developed the business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we opened also two shops, one in Blue Water, dubai, next to Dubai Eye,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">another one in Dubai Hills. Also, it is totally different because J.J. Chicken is a fast casual concept. Here we shifted into the casual to find dining.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it&#8217;s a different customer expectation, different type of food, different capex, if you want. Even the shop of Andy Mochapedi is something like 500-700 square meters, while the shop of J.J. could be 60-200 square meters. So totally different dynamics, totally different game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And totally different customer base. Because your average ticket is different. So, And then we said, now it&#8217;s time to create our own brand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we went and created our own brand. It&#8217;s called Derwendi. It&#8217;s purely Lebanese restaurant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it took a lot of time because we worked on the logo, on the menu, on the recipes, on the look and feel of the shop, interior, cutleries, tableware, you just name it. So this took a lot of time with us. So we opened our first branch in Abu Dhabi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And our second branch was is in Dubai, opening hopefully next month. Then we acquired another business that was doing well called Solidair. It&#8217;s a Mediterranean concept.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we are now having these four businesses, each one in a different sector, different cuisine, and catering different customer base. But you learn a lot of experience because each one is different. So the marketing that you do for Andy Mochapedi is different than what you do for J.J.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is what enriched my experience, to be frank with you. And when it comes to decision-making in this complexity of the market, it makes a lot of sense. Then COVID came.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, you had done all these brands before COVID?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">J.J. before and Andy Mochapedi before, Solidair before, Derwendi was after COVID. So three brands before and one after. But COVID changed everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So people sitting at home, you&#8217;re not allowed to go to the street, you are obliged, forced to order online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yup<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And this was the killer of the market. So then aggregators like Deliveroo and Talabat took great advantage of this scenario.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And people get used, unfortunately, to this. So people started first saying not to use your app. Why would I want to have 20, 30 apps on my phone?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">exactly<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just two apps and enough. So then apps went out. Then because everybody got used to these aggregators, started charging a lot of commission, which started taking from your profitability, unfortunately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the same time, the market, because of cloud and dark kitchen, came to the picture. So a lot of people wake up in the morning, okay, I don&#8217;t have anything to do, I have 100,000 dirhams, let&#8217;s do a chicken concert or a burger concert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But you know what? Hasn&#8217;t a lot of that expansion into cloud kitchen, where everybody in the street was having an idea,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah , yeah, yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and having a brand, right? Hasn&#8217;t that already gone?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that market has gotten corrected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Actually, what&#8217;s happening, these businesses, their lifespan is six months to one year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But unfortunately, you have 10 dying and 10 living. 10 coming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So they keep swallowing the market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a lot of people keep trying their luck. There is a lot of people keep trying their luck. Then what happened that this has created a huge competition, which start eating from your market share.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then brands like. existing brands like us having shops, start looking that they need to maximize their efficiency, especially production efficiency. So they said, why leaving and keeping these people trying new brands in dark kitchen? Let me try myself in our kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So a lot of brands start, existing brands with physical shops, brick and mortar, start launching their own brands. Their dark, as a dark brand. So from their own kitchen, so I have JJ Chicken, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, you come and see. But at the backside, I&#8217;m having three other brands called XYZ. Because you need to be innovative and you need to adapt to the change that&#8217;s happening and not keep fighting competition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s just keeping playing the same game. It won&#8217;t happen. So this also fueled the competition further and further.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Saer, as somebody who built this business, and it&#8217;s been seven years at Almed, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you&#8217;ve been on all the three sides from, you know, on the bank side, which was developing and, you know, giving debt to equity side, investing, taking that bet, supporting them and then being, if I could say, an entrepreneur in residence, you know, for Almed, you know, Almed retail, I think. What do you think that you have learned today from a KPIs perspective? What are some of the things that you know today that, okay, you know, these KPIs, these metrics mean the business is doing great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And these metrics mean it&#8217;s not doing great, no matter what subjective explanation of that is. How do you value restaurant business today and what KPIs? What restaurant business you will say, you know what, this is not going to work?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, there is, there was a very common mistake. Most of the entrepreneurs falls in that. They use not to differentiate between P and L in the cash flow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that&#8217;s a major problem. You know, you could have, you could be profitable, but you don&#8217;t have enough cash to pay your bills. So this was a major problem people face.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But one of the major KPIs in the F&amp;B industry, especially restaurant, one is your cost of goods. That&#8217;s very important. So if you are not managing this pretty well, regardless what you will do, you will never make money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for me, three KPIs are very important. Your cost of goods, your salaries, your employees cost, and your rent. Especially here in Dubai, because rent could be a, make it or break it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is because the rents here are very expensive. So this could take a lot of chunk of your profits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What&#8217;s your, in your formula, what is the percentage of rent? What rent should form what percentage of the revenue of a store at a store level?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Dubai, the rent should be between 15 to 18%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, that&#8217;s high.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Dubai. I started my sense in Dubai. Because this is the trend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Staff, like 20%. When I say staff, that&#8217;s C2C.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, it goes to company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because here you know, it&#8217;s not only the salary. It is the salary, it is the residency, the legal documents and papers that you pay the government. It&#8217;s the air ticket to a country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the medical insurance that you pay. It&#8217;s the end of service indemnity. It&#8217;s all these costs embedded under staff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">20%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so it&#8217;s not only salary. So when we say employee cost, it&#8217;s all these costs together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So is it safe to say that like of 20%, 10% is the actual salary to the employee and 10% is the rest of the, like what&#8217;s the share of?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, it is like 15% is the actual cost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15%<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. You add always 10 to 25, 20 to 25% on your salary. Your salary is 10,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your cost would be about 2,500.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So 20% should be salary, rent should be 15 to 18. And what should be the cost of goods?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maximum, maximum 30%. Maximum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What&#8217;s a good cost? 15?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15 you will never make.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, it&#8217;s difficult. No, not now, not in Dubai.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So the spectrum is 20 to 30?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, a good one that you&#8217;re doing well, it will be something in the range of 22, 23, 24. 22 to 24% is an achievable target and a healthy one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what you&#8217;re saying is that, you know, every percentage point between 22 and 30 is going to be make and break.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, it&#8217;s taking from your bottom line, it&#8217;s taking from your EBITDA Profit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How many restauranteurs I, you know, and I&#8217;m in this business, you know, I see this every day. Cost of goods, as you said, is a very underrated KPI, though it shouldn&#8217;t be. Theoretically it&#8217;s a&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Should be the most important.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, theoretically people understand as well, but most of the restauranteurs that I meet, rarely I meet people who have like absolute understanding of their cogs all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I believe I have a competitive advantage here, because I come from a finance background, so you look more into numbers and don&#8217;t look only to operation. The problem is the cost of goods sold, and this problem across all restaurants, people who work in restaurants, that they miscalculate this cost of goods sold. That&#8217;s the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, either they have a problem with the recipe, and the ingredients is not calculated properly, or they miss something between the whole value, or between the whole supply chain and the production. So, from when it started from supplier to the end product.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, this is it. There is a lot they miss the yield, for example. So, you bring, I don&#8217;t know, 100 kg of something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This will never give you 100 kg. So, there is a certain yield, and this should be tracked over a period of time to check how much is the average. So, all this will give you a miscalculation of the cost of goods sold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, you think that you are doing well, but then you are not. That&#8217;s why you see most, if not all, the restaurants have a variance between something called theoretical cost and the actual cost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">right<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, my theoretical cost is 23%, but I&#8217;m paying what is equivalent to 28%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, this 5% is going somewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And this 5% is actually, was supposed to be your margin?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, it&#8217;s supposed to be part of your profit. So, this is the problem people are facing now. so,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as a, and what were the areas where, you know, you feel that, you know, if you had not had your investing experience, or even after having that investing experience, building a business, building a brand, building a new concept, running it in the market is still tough. It doesn&#8217;t matter what you know, you know.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Definitely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, what do you still feel are challenges that you face every day, in your life, as somebody who is responsible for building these brands, even after knowing what all you know?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, there is always challenges, I mean, today, one of the most challenges we are facing is inflation, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, I&#8217;ll say the challenge that you have. I mean, I&#8217;m talking about your own challenge, like what is still in your mind is like, oh man, it&#8217;s still a battle and I&#8217;m not very sure about the answers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, a challenge that I will always face managing an F&amp;B business is just how you will be able, always, to maintain consistency of your product and have this offer to your customers. This is something very difficult, because regardless of what you do, you will always have this problem. For me, I believe I will not be able to get a solution for it, because consistency is very important in the type of restaurants that we have, because it&#8217;s not like, I don&#8217;t know, McDonald&#8217;s, for example, you have everything ready made and stuff like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, for example, take JJ Chicken, we do chicken on charcoal. So, how difficult it is to control charcoal and have it well cooked, half cooked, all the charcoal. So, the consistency in these kinds of products that we offer is very difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consistency even of the raw material that we receive, especially in the previous couple of years and during the COVID and after COVID. So, all this is creating a problem in enabling us to have this kind of consistency in the product. So, this is a major challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second one is that we always keep facing is that how to keep your employees and your staff on the ground, people, especially in the kitchen, motivated. And this is something very difficult. Maybe people who are in the front of house, it&#8217;ll be easier for them to help them get motivated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As people are in the back of house, they are not interacting with people, they are always in a closed environment. So, these people are very important to your operation and you need to keep them always motivated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you say it&#8217;s a challenge to keep them motivated, what&#8217;s going on in your head? Is it retention or is it just general well-being?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both, especially in a market such like in Dubai.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, you know, how do you, like somebody and I&#8217;m just being&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, you don&#8217;t want only to retain them because they can be there but not at the same level of enthusiasm and motivation you need to give what you need them to give.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I&#8217;ll be a little bit of a, I don&#8217;t know, devil&#8217;s advocate or pragmatic? I&#8217;ll pick pragmatic. Somebody who chose to work in the kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chose to work in the kitchen. So, don&#8217;t you think they should find their own motivation anyway?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They should, but you don&#8217;t have to forget the environment they live where. So, take for example, because we have a great experience in UAE. Let&#8217;s talk about UAE.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because there is a lot of restaurants opening every day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pace is fast. So, people want to be, they will always look for better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, that&#8217;s something very normal. But, they will be tempted with the situation that is there. So, they can get a better salary, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can get a better position. So, they are always moving with this fast pace and you cannot keep having people coming and going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, retention is definitely at the center, right? Now, what do you do for retention?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We try to, besides the financial part, because at a certain point you reach a ceiling with the financial part.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">correct<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You cannot always come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And also, everybody&#8217;s paying salary. So, there&#8217;s nothing different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so paying salary, that&#8217;s taken for granted. So, we work with the tips, we work with the bonus scheme, we work with these kind of things. Also, at some point of time, it reached a certain point where you cannot financially keep giving.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, we are trying always to be close to them, give them training most of the time. If they have any problem, even if this person tried to solve it, being flexible. So, these kind of things, especially that most of these people are expatriates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, they are alone here without their families and there is always this kind of problem. So, the operation manager on the ground has to play a major role to be very close to them and try to empathize with them, understand the situation. So, these kind of things is really playing to our favor and because they know at a certain point of time, you can be in a very bad environment, for example, and getting money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, also this is bad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With your experience and the capital available, why build your own brands? Why not be the carrier of most successful brands in the world and use your advantage in the region?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A very good question. Actually, we experienced both options. So, what we did, we had Derwendi, we created the brand as it is and we were tempted by the idea of being the owner of a franchise and just growing this franchise across the world and having multiple tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, we were tempted with this and we went into this option with Derwendi. We created the brand, we own it, we registered the franchise in the UK and now it&#8217;s registered worldwide. And at the same time, we got the franchise from France, from Paris. Andy Mochapedi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a totally different approach and model, actually. When it comes to franchising, at the beginning, you don&#8217;t put much effort and maybe you can make more profit. When you have your own brand, you have to put a lot of effort at the beginning and lose at the beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But in the long term, you definitely make much more money than handling or being a carrier of a bigger brand. So, this is one. Don&#8217;t forget one thing also.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you are the master franchisee of a bigger brand, you sign a contract for what, five years, ten years? So, you have a huge risk after ten years just not to renew the contract. This is one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two, some franchises, they are not willing to adapt to the market or make the right changes to make you successful. So, maybe this brand is very successful in the UK or the US or France, but not necessarily to be successful in the UAE because it has different taste, different culture. So, it&#8217;s not always like being big outside that gives you success here in Dubai or UAE or wherever you are going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, each one has its pros and cons, actually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I see so many, you know, American brands that are infiltrating the market and across Middle East, right? I mean, in fact, recently there&#8217;s a new brand in the US, fairly new, six years old brand, kind of started franchising two years back for the first time and I saw one of their branch here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What&#8217;s the name?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dave&#8217;s Hot Chicken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, Dave&#8217;s Hot Chicken recently came, but yeah, it&#8217;s difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s gonna be difficult. I&#8217;m just surprised that they&#8217;re here because, you know, I can clearly see that they don&#8217;t have a recall yet, right? Because the brand is very, very fresh in the US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The owner of Dave&#8217;s Chicken, actually, they experienced the same what you experienced. So, they have Bar Bar, which is franchised from Lebanon, which is doing much better than Dave&#8217;s Chicken. They have Joe and the Juice, also.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, Joe the Juicer?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, Joe and the Juice. So, it&#8217;s the same company. They have Bar Bar, they have Joe and the Juice and they have Dave&#8217;s Chicken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think they have five guys as well, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, not for them. So, this is the group that have these businesses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, but I think the point I was making was that, you know, when I saw Dave&#8217;s Chicken here, like my actual point is when I saw Dave&#8217;s Chicken here, my like immediate reaction was that, hey, wow, like, you know, this is a brand which started franchising in the US in 2021. You know, you know the legendary story? Dave&#8217;s Hot Chicken started in 2017 in a parking lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally, by two guys, three guys in a parking lot. And in 2020, it got kind of, it got private equity investment, it got it got this group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Jan of 21, they had two stores. In November of 23, they have 172. And what surprised me was that that stat itself was quite crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the US. Finding it here just blew my head because I was like, guys, you, you&#8217;re not done with the US yet. Like, this is amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My own, the point I&#8217;m making is that when I saw that, I was like, wow, if, if this is, if this is how it, I mean, this, it felt like this is how it should be. Though I know, having said that, that the journey, whoever brought Dave&#8217;s here, the journey for them is long. I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;re taking a like really, really long bet on this, because they&#8217;re not gonna make money easily.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There&#8217;s no recall. But, but isn&#8217;t this, isn&#8217;t this something which like, isn&#8217;t this like investing in like McDonald&#8217;s of tomorrow or KFC of tomorrow if, you know?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And for me, I don&#8217;t think Dave&#8217;s Hot Chicken, they did the right step in franchising that fast and that early. Because if you take, if you see what&#8217;s happening here, because you need to build on the brand awareness of the brand itself before franchising. Because if you franchise and it&#8217;s not successful, then it will, the impact is very bad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sure<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On growing the business outside. And maybe this is what we&#8217;re seeing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, take Joe and the Juice. Joe and the Juice, they started in 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Correct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They franchised here, what, last year, two years back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I didn&#8217;t know they were here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But see how successful they are here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They took their time, they built the brand awareness, they had now it&#8217;s brand equity. So when they came here, everybody just ran to see Joe and the Juice and eat there. They didn&#8217;t have to do any marketing, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I think, I think I disagree there a little. I&#8217;ll tell you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is where you see the difference between two, two brands coming from outside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, but I think, I think Joe &amp; the Juice, I think the kind of community building they did globally on the internet, and how they took it like deep during COVID, is I believe the resultant success of Joe the Juice everywhere in the world is probably that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perhaps. But I mean, when I come to marketing, when I say marketing expenses they put, I mean here what they did. Here they didn&#8217;t spend much marketing, or they did much marketing activities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So the brand by itself is attracting people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what kind of leader are you? And how has it changed over the last 20 years of your work?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because, because as I told you, I came, I used to work on the advisory part or the mentorship part and then jump to the operation. So this teach me one lesson that to understand better people, and this is one. Two, delegating tasks, that&#8217;s very important, but then not go and micromanage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So just, you have to trust people. You have to trust their judgment. Definitely you will watch and verify and check.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is how I manage the business. This is one. Two, when I want to assign or ask tasks from people, I have to make sure that they have this level of responsibility or this level of, they are able to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then go and ask for accountability. So this is very important. And because now I&#8217;m more into operations, so it&#8217;s very important to understand the whole, if you want, the whole spectrum of the operation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this will give more respect and trust for your employees because they know that you know everything. So this kind of cooperation will be more smooth. And they will ask you and you will ask them the right things that need to be asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you agree with, or like, what&#8217;s your opinion on people complaining about micromanagement?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I totally agree with them. Because micromanaging people is simply having whatever potential these people they have locked. You are not getting the benefit out of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You&#8217;re not using them, actually. So if you want to bring somebody and you micromanaging, micromanaging that means you&#8217;re forcing all your decisions, your inputs, whatever. So you&#8217;re not leaving in for any out-of-the-box thinking, you&#8217;re not leaving any innovation to come with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He just, at some point of time, surrenders and just waiting for your direction to adjust to do it. Which you don&#8217;t want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But in a repeatable operation process, in a repeatable process, you really don&#8217;t want people to think out of the box? I mean, it takes enough effort to just keep them in the box.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Believe me, when it comes to operation, no, you will always need them. Because things are not always smooth and there is no variables. I&#8217;m telling you, just imagine, go to the smallest thing, a waiter, a cook, a commis, these things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So definitely, definitely, definitely, every day is not like the other. And definitely, there will be always some challenges facing them. I don&#8217;t know, a customer that is difficult to convince, a customer that he saw something that is different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So definitely, things are not always the same. I don&#8217;t think there is something repetitive, unless you are in a factory, but we are not. So I don&#8217;t know, cooking, the cooking line, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You will have always some problems, you have always some things that happens. And\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how do you empower them to think out of the box?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like, what&#8217;s your way of telling them that, hey, if you think out of the box and do something, and it can bomb, but I&#8217;m with you. What&#8217;s your way of communicating that to your team?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, how things are done, when you say out of the box, is to give them the courage or to give them the delegation to take action. Because at this type of operation, if they want to go back and you want to micromanage, that&#8217;s impossible. You cannot do it all, you are not there all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is, we help them through training, we help them through different, we give them scenario analysis that if something will happen, this will happen. So you try to help them with these different scenarios that could happen, that give them the solution for it. So mainly, this is how it is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I believe micromanagement is, it hurts the business, doesn&#8217;t help at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a leader today, what has changed? Can you cite two changes that have happened you, that you felt, you know, evolved inside you over the last decade?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lot of changes changed. So first, your perspective to people. So how I see people, how&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Give me a, give me an anecdote on how you used to think and what is not true today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Actually, the way of how you manage people, this is how it is, it&#8217;s changed. So now I&#8217;m more a strong believer of delegating, of giving the chance to people, of putting them on the responsibility. They can show you that they can give you more than what they are supposed to give.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this takes me a lot of time to believe that employees usually have the capabilities of doing these kind of things, but you need to give them the chance and give them the right tools. So, yeah, so this is, this is taking quite a bit of time to&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you mean earlier, earlier you were&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, earlier, yeah, I was more hands-on. I call it hands-on, so I&#8217;m not saying micromanaging. So I used to be more hands-on, following up more, not leave, trying to be, because I&#8217;m a bit skeptical, so trying to not leave any room for mistakes, and I have to do this, so you will not leave us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unfortunately, I discovered that it hurts somewhere. So this took quite a good time to start moving to this kind of leadership that you are now, delegating people, give them the right training and tools and leave them. Just give them the chance to show what they have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And anyway, nobody, everybody do mistakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As long as it is uncontrollable and as long as you are mitigating your risk, it&#8217;s fine. So this is a major change happened to me in the way of management.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What&#8217;s your, what&#8217;s been your experience with, like what&#8217;s your relationship to technology in your business in general? Like how you perceive, it&#8217;s important, the current world knows that, but how do you perceive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s not an option anymore. You like it, you don&#8217;t like it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But on what side are you? I know it&#8217;s a necessary one now, but how do you perceive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, you cannot. We all know that technology is a major, major, major part of any industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But are you reactive or are you a proactive leader on tech? How do you look at tech?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To be frank with you, now, no, we are, we are very active on this part. At least in the last, after COVID, we became very active. Maybe before we were a bit proactive, to be frank with you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after COVID, we became very active. Especially now with the artificial intelligence that is coming, we&#8217;re trying to get and benefit from it as much as we can. The issues of delivery also, when it came to the picture, especially in one of our branches, JJ Chicken, so forced us also to be very active when it comes to technology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because now you don&#8217;t interact directly with your customer. It&#8217;s all mainly through delivery. So you need to have all the right tools to help you understand and serve your customers better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So technology is a major part of the business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do you want to see this? What do you think is going to be the success of, let&#8217;s say, JJ Chicken and all the brands that you&#8217;re using? What&#8217;s your next?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you look at that success?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a very promising and aggressive expansion plan for the brands, especially JJ Chicken and Derwendi. So we hired a special company in UK to do the studies for us, for UK to expand there. And it was very promising.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And this is our next. So we have three markets that we really were eager to expand there for JJ, which is Saudi Arabia, UK and India. And for Derwendi, Saudi Arabia and UK.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We did a lot of studies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are you in Saudi Arabia already or not?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, going soon for both brands. So we&#8217;re on the final stage. So, yeah, so I would be very excited and happy if I can see these two brands in these three countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because these three countries, they have huge potential. Each for a different reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a very interesting mix. India, UK and Saudi Arabia. These are three different types of worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly. JJ Chicken for Saudi Arabia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why Saudi Arabia for JJ Chicken? Because they are the number one consumer of chicken in the world. And we are talking per capita.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is one. Why UK? Because if you go to UK and you see the fast casual restaurants, you have burgers, pizzas, fish and chips and that&#8217;s it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UK is number one maybe in the world when it comes to casual and fine dining restaurants. When you come to fast food and fast casual, you don&#8217;t have much. There is not much competitors also in UK.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we had this study. I called you. We have it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And why India? Because it&#8217;s a very big market. It is dissected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We did the study. We dissected India into 12 districts. Some people, they don&#8217;t eat chicken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people are vegetarian. But still you will have at least a market of 200 to 300 million that eat chicken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has a large chicken eating population for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, exactly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is not a meat eating country as much. I mean, not across the population. Of course, there are sectors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we did a lot of study with franchise India and Frank Global India. They know very well the market.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They took a few brands from here and they did very well there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So also we are very optimistic about it. So that&#8217;s why in each country there is a different reason why we want to expand. The Derwendi definitely because it fits Saudi Arabia and it fits UK.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It doesn&#8217;t fit India.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I would be happy to see these two brands there. We&#8217;re putting a lot of efforts actually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And hopefully 2024 will be the title of 2024 is going out. That&#8217;s for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Awesome. That was a great conversation, Saer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you. Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was quite a view into your life at Almed and also in your mind. Congratulations on the success so far. And I really wish you all the best for the year of going out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saer Imad:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thanks again. Thank you. And it was really a pleasure to have this discussion with you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the best. Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_tab][\/et_pb_tabs][et_pb_code _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_code][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; admin_label=&#8221;Blog&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_enable_color=&#8221;off&#8221; use_background_color_gradient=&#8221;on&#8221; background_color_gradient_start=&#8221;#6b00b2&#8243; background_color_gradient_end=&#8221;#001e54&#8243; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;right&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;23px||0px||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;50px||50px||true|false&#8221; top_divider_style=&#8221;mountains2&#8243; top_divider_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; top_divider_height=&#8221;153px&#8221; top_divider_repeat=&#8221;2x&#8221; top_divider_height_tablet=&#8221;153px&#8221; 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He talks about his transition into the food industry, building brands like JJ Chicken and Derwendi, and the challenges of expanding internationally. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ABOUT THE HOSTAshish is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1350,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1340","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Insight into How Saer Imad Built a Legacy in the F&amp;B Industry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explore how Saer Imad transformed his career from banking to creating and growing top F&amp;B brands in Dubai.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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