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Fadi Ghandour
Jordan, logistics. Ghandour co-founded Aramex in Amman in 1982, initially to deliver parcels into the Middle East for American courier firms that had no network there. It grew into the region's leading courier and logistics company and in 1997 became the first Arab-based company listed on Nasdaq. After stepping back from running it, he became one of the region's most active backers of start-ups.
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Samih Darwazah
Jordan, pharmaceuticals. Darwazah, a pharmacist, founded Hikma in Amman in 1978 to make affordable generic medicines for Arab markets that relied on expensive imports. Winning approval from the US regulator early gave Hikma credibility across the region, and it expanded into Europe and the United States, listing in London in 2005. He died in 2015.
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Ronaldo Mouchawar
Syria and the UAE, e-commerce. Mouchawar, born in Aleppo, founded Souq.com in Dubai in 2005 when few Arab shoppers trusted online payment. Cash on delivery, its own couriers and Arabic-language service made it the region's largest online shop, and Amazon bought it in 2017 as its entry into the Gulf. It showed that a regional internet company could be built to a scale global buyers wanted.
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Huda Kattan
Born
UAE, beauty. Kattan, an American of Iraqi parentage, started a make-up blog in Dubai in 2010, then launched false eyelashes in 2013 with money borrowed from her sister. Huda Beauty grew from her social media audience into a global cosmetics brand designed with Middle Eastern customers in mind. In 2025 she bought back the stake held by an American investment firm, making it fully independent again.
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Sunny Varkey
Born
UAE, education. Varkey took over the small Dubai school his parents ran for Indian expatriate families and built GEMS Education, a network of private schools offering different curricula at fee levels from budget to premium. In Gulf states where most residents are foreign workers and state schools largely serve citizens, that filled a large gap. His foundation also created the Global Teacher Prize.
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Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi
Saudi Arabia, banking. Al Rajhi began as a porter and money changer and, with his brothers, built a currency exchange and remittance business that became Al Rajhi Bank, one of the world's largest Islamic banks. Serving the millions of foreign workers sending wages home was central to its growth. He later gave most of his fortune to a charitable endowment.
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Lubna Olayan
Born
Saudi Arabia, distribution and investment. Olayan joined the Olayan Group, founded by her father as a trading and distribution company representing foreign consumer and industrial brands in the kingdom, and led its investment arm for decades. She became one of the first women to run a major Saudi business, and later chaired the Saudi British Bank, at a time when women in the kingdom faced heavy restrictions on work.
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Vehbi Koç
Born
Turkey, manufacturing. Koç opened a small grocery shop in Ankara in 1917 and, as the new republic built its capital, moved into building supplies and the import of cars and appliances. In 1963 he formed Koç Holding, Turkey's first holding company, which made refrigerators, cars and trucks at home under brands such as Arçelik and Ford Otosan. He died in 1996.
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Sakıp Sabancı
Born
Turkey, industry and banking. Sabancı grew up in his family's cotton business in Adana and, as head of the family firm from 1967, turned it into Sabancı Holding, spanning textiles, tyres, cement, food and Akbank. Its roots in southern Turkish agriculture gave it a different base from the Istanbul trading houses. He was known for his informal manner and philanthropy, including Sabancı University. He died in 2004.
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Gil Shwed
Israel, cybersecurity. Shwed co-founded Check Point in 1993 after military service in an intelligence technology unit, and its FireWall-1 product commercialised stateful inspection, a way of filtering network traffic that became standard. He ran the company for three decades, turning it into one of Israel's largest technology firms, and became executive chairman in December 2024.
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Dov Moran
Born
Israel, hardware. Moran founded M-Systems in 1989 to make flash-memory storage, and its DiskOnKey of 2000, among the first USB flash drives, replaced the floppy disk for millions of people. M-Systems sold to SanDisk in 2006. It is a reminder that Israeli technology also built physical products that sat in ordinary pockets.
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Amnon Shashua
Born
Israel, automotive technology. Shashua, a computer vision professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, co-founded Mobileye in 1999 on the idea that a single cheap camera and software could warn drivers of collisions. Its chips went into driver-assistance systems at many carmakers, Intel bought it in 2017, and he also co-founded OrCam, which makes reading devices for blind and partially sighted people.
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Avishai Abrahami
Born
Israel, software. Abrahami co-founded Wix in Tel Aviv in 2006 to let small businesses and individuals build websites by dragging and dropping, without hiring a developer. Selling cheap subscriptions to millions of small customers worldwide, rather than large contracts to corporations, set it apart from much of Israel's enterprise-focused technology sector.
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