Meet a dynamic leader, Idriss Al Rifai , a one-time professional basketball player, a now decorated ex-French military commando turned corporate business titan. Though intellectually grounded, our interviewee has never stopped learning and persevered in her career, aiming at strategic thinking and high quality performance. From advising the French Minister of Defence to earning an MBA from University of Chicago Booth and now as the CEO of Flow48 he has been setting the bar from what can be achieved, and creating the future of non-traditional financing solutions for SMEs across emerging markets. Now let’s take a closer look at this amazing career and the vision, which stands behind it all.
1- Idriss Al Rifai, Can you tell me a bit about how you entered the professional world and did you have any incident that shaped your choice?
I started my career as a professional basketball player at Paris where I learnt from the experiences and good discipline. Then, I joined the French Special Forces as a part of the personal staff to the French Ministry of Defense, including providing solutions to conflicts and managing operations globally. This experience clearly helped me to develop my thinking pattern and improve handling pressure. The choice of getting an MBA from the university of Chicago
—Booth— was another critical point and thereby equipped me with the business perspective and contacts ready to step into an entrepreneurial world on my own.
2- In your current job, what are the most important duties you carry out and how do these duties link up to your overall target?
As a CEO of Flow48 I spend my time defining the company’s future development, managing partnerships with major stakeholders (B2B2B), and guiding my team towards our goal. These occur by continuing to approach our technology and financial solutions in a way that answers the growth needs of SMEs, and by catering to each one of them, we have ambitions to close the capital accessibility deficiency for SMEs in emerging markets.
Essentially, these are the crucial pillars that put us directly on track towards our mission of being the go-to alternative financing partner for SMEs.
3- Which changes or novelties do you expect in your branch, and how do you intend to make use of it?
Our primary plan is to diversify our product portfolio in this space, especially where decentralised finance (DeFi) is paired with real-time data analytics. The real-time decision-making based on data can in fact transform the current status of this particular market and open the access to finance decision making for a larger number of people.
As for Flow48, we are to use these technologies in order to provide financing products that would be more efficient in terms of cost and thus help SMEs grow while providing better solutions to many of them.
4 – What is your biggest accomplishment worth remembering in regards to your work experience and what did you learn from it?
I think the thing that I am really proud of is transforming from an idea presented in powerpoint to having over 5000 people strong organisations in 6 countries and becoming the market leader for something that could have used little innovation. The experience wasn’t easy but thinking about, the chance to actually create disruption in a market was a great one.
This was also illustrated by a need to have a converged and motivated team that can effectively manage growth and other changes within the market. This made me realise that flexibility is central to every achievement of a firm on its way towards extraordinary goals.
5- Describe your vision for the future in your working, and for your business and how you intend to achieve these?
In the future, the goal is to make Flow48 the go-to partner for alternative financing for SMEs in emerging markets. For myself, I want to keep on working on the development of the fintech environment and to establish and introduce more of the financial products that will be accessible due to the technology advances. These are as follows; To achieve these, we have outlined the following strategies; increase market coverage; enhance our product portfolio; and dedicate focus on SME customer requirements.
It is a voyage of adding progressive value to the system and responding to the call to establish a unique benchmark in the financial sectors of the areas that we operate.
And it appears that the story of our interviewee is a story of eternal growth, transformation, improvement, and change-making. Starting in the court and moving to the corporate world, those have made a leader who not only spearheads change processes, but who also encourages change for the rest of the workforce. Though his journey has only begun with Flow48 and the aim to extend its horizon with the fostering of SMEs, the management’s vision is still to make a positive impact in the world. It is in this context that strategic foresight, passion for technology, and dedication to financial inclusion create the background for what will certainly turn into an extraordinary episode in the spectrum of alternative financing.
