Strategist · Researcher · Author
Turning insights and market data into business strategy and growth decisions.
I’m Sherif Benhawy. For 28+ years I have led business strategy, market research, consumer insights, and revenue growth for FMCG leaders across Saudi Arabia, GCC, MENA, Levant, Iran, Turkey, and beyond. I also write: three books so far, and poems in English and French.
Connecting the Dots
28+ years of experience with
Heineken International · Almarai · Mondelez · Savola Foods · YouGov
Heineken International · Almarai · Mondelez · Savola Foods · YouGov · Heineken International · Almarai · Mondelez · Savola Foods · YouGov ·
University guest speaker · Advisory board member · Course certificate assessed by McGraw Hill
28+ years
in FMCG strategy, research and analytics
MBA + Micro-MBA
plus data science and MRS certifications
3 books
on consumers, markets and the choices we make
KSA to Central Asia
GCC, Levant, North Africa and Turkey
What I do
Business strategy & RGM
Growth strategy, portfolio management, PPA, pricing and promotion elasticity, and revenue growth management that shows up in the P&L.
Market research & insights
Retail audit, brand health tracking and consumer insights, connected into one clear view of where the growth is.
Data science & business analytics
Marketing mix modelling, predictive analytics and AI applications that turn data into decisions, not debates.
Teaching
Market Intelligence for Growth
A six-week online course that teaches brand, sales, insights and commercial finance professionals to connect sales, retail audit, brand health and financial data into business strategy and growth decisions. Six modules, from commercial analytics to decision making, built on a full FMCG case study, with a certificate of achievement assessed by McGraw Hill.
Books
Minds in Battle
A novel-based self-help story about love, choice and the biases that shape our decisions.
Minds in Battle
The Kingdom of Social Arabia
How Saudi consumers are leading the Kingdom’s digital shift, and what marketers should do about it.
The Kingdom of Social Arabia
Creating a Deal-Prone Consumer
How discounting and private labels reshape low-risk categories and squeeze brand equity.
Creating a Deal-Prone Consumer
Words: poems & essays
Reading and writing have been with me since my school days in a French college in Cairo, where I first wrote poetry. Here I share poems in English and French, alongside credited favourites from the great French poets, and short essays on the human side of business and life.
Travel changed me in ways I scarcely noticed at the time. It left its marks upon me, quietly yet permanently. In return, however, it gifted me memories that I will carry both with me and within me for a lifetime. Words, too, offer another, perhaps even deeper, form of travel. They are a never-ending journey through the human mind: that most mysterious of realms, where anything imaginable may come to life.
Sherif Benhawy
The Luck Manual
Luck isn’t random. It’s the by-product of how we behave.
Famous! What Then?
Why fame lives in other people’s heads, and what that costs us.
The Tightrope Walker
On balance, extremes, and the exhaustion of always staying in the middle.
Stay in the loop
New essays, poems, book news and market insights, straight to your inbox.
Let’s talk
Advisory work, training, speaking invitations, or just a conversation about books. Scan to chat with me live on WhatsApp.
