Dear Readers,

I am Sherif Benhawy. Professionally, I am a veteran marketer, market researcher, data scientist and business strategy consultant with more than twenty-eight years of experience across regional and multinational fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies and markets, including Heineken International, Almarai, Mondelez, Savola Foods and YouGov. Throughout my career, I have worked extensively on business strategy, consumer insights, marketing strategy, business analytics, AI transformation and data-driven decision-making across Saudi Arabia, the GCC, the Levant, North Africa, Central Asia and Turkey.

I hold two MBA qualifications: a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Roehampton, London, and a Micro-MBA in Business Fundamentals from McKinsey & Company. I am also certified in Data Science and Business Analytics by the McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, and hold the Market Research Society (MRS) certificate.

Beyond the corporate world, I serve as a university guest speaker for MBA and senior undergraduate marketing students, lecturing on marketing, market research, consumer behaviour and business strategy. I also serve as an advisory board member in academic and professional capacities, and I teach Market Intelligence for Growth, a practical course for commercial, brand and insights professionals.

On the literary side, I am a published author with three books to date. Two of them are research-based works on marketing, social media and consumer behaviour. My latest, Minds in Battle, is a novel-based self-help story that blends fiction with personal development. I am also an Academia.edu member and have contributed several academic papers on marketing and brand management, which have been cited in other academic publications.

Writing has been a lifelong passion of mine, alongside travel, music, reading and tennis. My first encounter with writing came at school, through French poetry. It began in French classes and gradually followed me into every subject: ideas arrived as scenes and images during lessons, and I wrote them down in notebooks once I got home.

My connection with the French language is deeply personal. I graduated from a French college in Cairo, Egypt, where the entire curriculum was taught in French, and I have admired the language and its literary elegance ever since. I now write mostly in English, but I still enjoy reading, and occasionally writing, in French. I don’t want to lose the French!

I believe words have the power not only to change the world, but to transform people’s lives. When words resonate with the human mind and reflect real, lived experience, readers often discover deeper truths about themselves.

I invite you to explore my poems, essays and books, and to leave a comment if you wish.