INSEAD Emerging Markets Podcast

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In 2009, in the middle of the financial crisis, Victor Barrero took a summer internship at an airline in Riyadh over a consulting offer in Dubai. Everyone at INSEAD asked him why. Seventeen years later, he has built and scaled businesses across Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada, Mexico and Singapore, returned to launch one of the largest residential platforms for international professionals in the Kingdom, and now runs his own company in Riyadh helping executives and businesses relocate to Saudi Arabia. Learn more at https://manara.sa

In this conversation, Victor explains what he saw in Saudi Arabia before Vision 2030 existed, what has actually changed since, and why most foreigners misread the market. He covers what it's really like moving to Riyadh, the mistake he made on his own return in 2024, why you should multiply your timelines by three, and the trap that catches almost every newcomer: confusing Saudi hospitality with commercial traction.

Whether you're an expat considering relocating to Riyadh, an executive weighing a move to the Gulf, or a company entering the Saudi market, this is a conversation about emerging markets, relationships, patience and building a life in a place most people never considered.

Connect with Victor Barrero:
Website: https://victorbarrero.com
Manara: https://manara.sa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorbarrero
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorinriyadh
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@victorinriyadh

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Ope Sonusi is the founder of Bluum Finance, a platform building the infrastructure layer that allows fintechs to offer investing and wealth management products across Africa and its global diaspora. 

In this conversation, Ope shares how his own experience as an immigrant led him to a missing piece in fintech: the ability to build wealth across borders. We also explore why investing infrastructure in emerging markets is so complex, and what it will take to unlock capital flows at scale. 

In this episode we cover: 

•  (00:01:02) Ope’s background in fintech infrastructure and how his experience as an immigrant led him to build Bluum 
•  (00:04:22) Why investing infrastructure in emerging markets is far more complex than payments or lending 
•  (00:11:37) What Bluum actually does and how it enables fintechs to launch investing products through a single API 
•  (00:15:36) Why access to African markets is still limited today and how Bluum changes that for the diaspora 
•  (00:20:27) The scale of remittance flows and the opportunity to redirect capital into local markets 
•  (00:29:56) The long-term impact of unlocking retail liquidity for African capital markets and enabling local IPOs 
•  (00:36:21) Why now is the right time, driven by stablecoins, AI, and regulatory shifts 

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Mohamed Al Zaabi is the Group CEO of Miral Group, the force behind one of the world’s most dramatic tourism transformations - turning an artificial island in Abu Dhabi into a global destination drawing tens of millions of visitors. 

Under his leadership since the mid-2010s, Miral has overseen the creation, operation and evolution of immersive attractions, resorts, sports venues and digital experiences that have re-imagined what a destination can be in the 21st century.

Al Zaabi shares how he shaped strategy, consumer insight, global partnerships and execution to convert a “blank canvas” into a thriving tourism ecosystem, with plans that stretch well into the next decade.

In this episode we cover:

• Vision and context — How Al Zaabi scoped out the opportunity in the UAE’s tourism sector, adopting a customer-centric strategy that matched global leisure trends with diverse visitor needs and expectations.
• From concept to creation — The tactical challenges in developing Yas Island from nearly nothing into an entertainment and hospitality hub featuring marquee attractions like Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi and more, designed to appeal to families and travellers from emerging and developed markets alike.
• Customer-led innovation — Why listening to real customer feedback (including early lessons from international market visits) drove Miral to build customizable online ticketing systems and create dedicated marketing/sales companies to better serve global travelers.
• Future growth and global partnerships — Al Zaabi details major upcoming initiatives, including expansions of existing parks (e.g., waterpark capacity increases), immersive experiences like TeamLab Phenomena, and landmark collaborations with global brands such as The Walt Disney Company to create a Disney theme park destination on Yas Island. 
• Sustainability and legacy — How Miral is aligning with the UAE’s net-zero ambitions through renewable energy adoption, plastic reduction, and eco-friendly hospitality — and why the legacy Al Zaabi wants to leave is people-centred (leaders, teams, communities) rather than just built environments.
• Driving record visitation — Yas Island has emerged as a world-class tourism magnet with over 38 million visits in 2024, underscoring Miral’s impact on Abu Dhabi’s global leisure appeal.

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Nick Rohatyn is the founder and CEO of The Rohatyn Group, and one of the architects of emerging markets as a modern asset class. Having built JP Morgan’s emerging markets business from an eight-person desk into a 600-person global platform, Nick has spent more than four decades investing across cycles, crises, and continents. In this return episode, he reflects on why emerging markets may finally be entering a new phase after more than a decade of underperformance, and why dispersion, not beta, will define returns going forward.

In this episode we cover:

• (00:00:00) Nick’s journey into emerging markets
   From JP Morgan’s early derivatives desks and a formative stint in Tokyo to discovering emerging markets through Mexico’s debt restructuring and the Brady Plan, and why solving large systemic problems can be both profitable and meaningful.
• (00:08:40) The three phases of emerging markets as an asset class
   Strong outperformance from 2002–2011, a brutal 13-year underperformance driven by US exceptionalism, and why 2025 may mark the start of a new cycle as capital slowly diversifies away from the US.
• (00:14:59) Push and pull factors reshaping global capital flows
   How US political uncertainty, dollar dynamics, and eroding assumptions about American exceptionalism are pushing allocators outward, while policy shifts, trade realignment, and regional themes are beginning to pull capital into select emerging markets.
• (00:21:49) Why benchmarks fail and why multi-asset EM investing matters
   How MSCI and debt benchmarks distort exposure, why single-asset mandates perform poorly in emerging markets, and why the future lies in flexible, multi-asset strategies that move across equities, debt, currencies, and private markets.
• (00:34:48) Extreme dispersion as the defining opportunity
   Why countries like Korea and Turkey can diverge wildly in the same year, how geopolitics, interest rates, and underinvestment amplify volatility, and why skilled active managers can thrive in this environment.
• (00:25:32) Private credit, local capital, and development
   Why underpenetrated credit markets in Latin America and parts of Africa offer compelling opportunities, how domestic pension systems are becoming critical sources of capital, and why local-currency investing changes the game.
• (00:43:01) Doing well by doing good at scale
   Rohatyn Group’s work in sustainable forestry and agriculture, why real assets matter for climate and food security, and Nick’s advice to young professionals seeking careers that combine finance, impact, and global relevance.

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Bruce Talley is an American entrepreneur and frontier market strategist who has spent decades operating in opaque, rapidly changing environments from Russia’s Black Sea coast to Brazil and now Ukraine. He built the largest destination services company at the Sochi Olympics, navigated direct FSB scrutiny, and today is helping global investors access deeply discounted Ukrainian residential markets through the Ukraine Prime Property Fund. In this episode, Bruce shares hard earned lessons on operating in post Soviet systems, spotting opportunity in chaos, and why he believes Ukraine is one of the most compelling markets of the next decade.

In this episode we cover:

• (00:00:00) Bruce’s path from US capital markets to frontier markets
• (00:10:40) Life under the FSB and the moment he knew he had to leave Russia
• (00:22:48) Building Destination Sochi from zero to the largest Olympic services provider
• (00:26:52) Why he reoriented to Ukraine and the thesis behind the Ukraine Prime Property Fund
• (00:40:29) Kyiv as the next great European city and advice for young MBAs

Link to Ukraine Property Fund:  www.ukraine-capital.com

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Victor Abou Rahal is a veteran digital transformation and tech leader in the GCC, with more than 25 years helping traditional industries go digital. He is now CEO of Narovate, a Saudi based startup focused on digital water solutions, after leading Boxit For Me through a successful exit and building the digital arm at ADNOC Distribution. In this conversation, Victor shares what he has learned about leadership, exits, and entrepreneurship across oil and gas, logistics, and now water in one of the fastest changing regions in the world.

In this episode we cover:

(00:01:59) How Victor went from computer science student and a night support at an Internet Service Provider to launching his first web development company baddak.com, inheriting 80 clients overnight, then moving to Dubai to lead regional digital transformation projects

(00:03:36) The Boxit4Me journey, using the people, process, platform framework to stabilise a COVID boosted logistics startup, clean up operations, and successfully prepare it for a strategic exit

(00:06:47) Why being a startup CEO felt like a second MBA, constantly switching hats between HR, operations, finance, legal, shareholders, and M&A, and what he now tells first time CEOs about the reality of the role

(00:11:10) How his leadership style evolved through INSEAD’s Global Executive MBA, two decades in the Boy Scouts, and hard lessons about empathy and communication in the tough leadership culture of parts of the Arab world

(00:16:38) The most common founder blind spots he sees when mentoring startups, from hiding in their comfort zone and over focusing on product to underestimating market fit, scalability, competition, mental health, and the choice between lifestyle business and scale up

(00:21:28) His advice for moving from corporate to entrepreneurship in the GCC, why investors prefer 2 or 3 complementary cofounders, how to test yourself as an intrapreneur first, and why resilience and health are non-negotiable

(00:29:16) Why he chose to lead Nerovate in Saudi, how Vision 2030 is reshaping the startup ecosystem, and his belief that sustainability and profitability can reinforce each other when you build the right digital water solutions for the region

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Kevin Carter is the founder of EMQQ Global and a leading voice in emerging markets investing. In his first appearance, he broke down the investment case for digital consumption in emerging markets. In this follow-up episode, Kevin returns fresh from a month-long trip to India, where he went beyond the usual business hubs to explore tier 2 and tier 3 cities, the infrastructure transformation, and why India might be the most compelling EM story of the next two decades.

In this episode we cover:

• (00:01:30) What Kevin saw firsthand in Uttar Pradesh and Ahmedabad that made him more bullish on India’s tier 2 and 3 cities
• (00:06:52) The rise of entrepreneurship in smaller cities and why the next unicorns may come from beyond IITs and IIMs
• (00:12:41) How India Stack digitized over a billion lives and added trillions in hidden infrastructure value
• (00:24:42) The explosion of quick commerce in India and why it may disrupt not only kirana stores but also Flipkart and Amazon
• (00:36:46) Why Mumbai’s infrastructure boom rivals what Kevin saw in China 20 years ago
• (00:41:59) Why you need to visit India to understand its transformation and how old stereotypes are holding back global perception

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Djasur Djumaev, Founder and CEO, and Nikolay Seleznev, Co-founder and Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer of Uzum, Uzbekistan’s first tech unicorn, joined us for this episode. Uzum became a unicorn in just two years, and now serves as the country’s leading e-commerce and fintech ecosystem. In this episode, they share how they built a household name in a largely offline market, their strategy for leapfrogging infrastructure gaps, and why Uzbekistan is one of the most exciting frontier markets today.

In this episode we cover:

• (00:01:11) Why Uzbekistan had almost no e-commerce before Uzum, and how they built everything from scratch, including last-mile logistics
• (00:07:50) How they scaled to 12,000 employees in under two years and blended expat and local talent to build a winning culture
• (00:10:33) The macro case for Uzbekistan: 6.5% GDP growth, 99% literacy, 87% smartphone penetration forecast by 2027
• (00:15:27) How 50% of adults were unbanked just four years ago — and how Uzum onboarded millions to financial services
• (00:22:57) Jasur’s fundraising journey: starting with his own capital, then attracting top U.S. and MENA investors despite skepticism about Uzbekistan
• (00:28:20) Where they plan to IPO, and what’s next for Uzum as they prepare for a dual listing and regional expansion

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Jan Riehle is the CEO of B4A, a leading Brazilian beauty marketplace with over 700,000 active users. An INSEAD ’09D, Jan began his career in M&A and private equity in Switzerland before joining Springstar, a German-Swiss venture builder, to manage their Brazil operations.

In this episode we cover: 

• How he acquired and merged two struggling beauty companies (Glambox and Men’s Market) into what is now B4A (00:00:24; 00:05:28) 
• His approach to restructuring and achieving breakeven in just four months by integrating company cultures and cutting fixed costs (00:11:39; 00:12:21) 
• How B4A grew 10x in size and revenue, leveraging subscriptions, micro-influencers, and B2B services (00:19:41; 00:28:02) 
• His thoughts on AI’s impact on labor, business efficiency, and why every employee at B4A is expected to use AI tools (00:28:02) 
• His long-term vision for B4A, including potential international expansion, IPO, or SPAC exit (00:36:18)

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In this episode, I speak with Amr Habis, a transformational leader with expertise in engineering, project management, and business strategy, who has played a key role in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. With experience spanning organizations like Aramco, OEM Group, and the Saudi National Guard, Amr provides deep insights into Saudi’s economic shift, infrastructure boom, and cultural transformation.

We discuss:

• Amr’s career journey – from engineering and construction to oil & gas and eventually entrepreneurship, and how he finds fulfillment in constant learning and transformation.
• Saudi’s Vision 2030 at two levels – the "hardware" changes (megaprojects like NEOM and Riyadh Metro) and "software" changes (cultural and societal shifts).
• The cultural evolution – how Saudis are embracing uncertainty, breaking from traditional career paths, and seeking more personal fulfillment.
• The “New Unknowns” – how the younger generation is redefining ambition, financial stability, and career choices in response to the rapid changes in Saudi Arabia.
• Challenges for business owners – how SMEs and long-established companies are adapting to regulatory overhauls and a fast-changing market.
• Why Saudi shouldn’t be judged by global benchmarks – how cultural uniqueness shapes policy, business, and urban development differently than in the West.
• The rise of the Saudi entrepreneurial ecosystem – why businesses in Saudi are creating their own "Blue Ocean" strategies to differentiate and innovate.
• Leadership and mindset transformation – the most critical factor in successfully navigating change, both for individuals and companies.
• His passion for Arabic calligraphy – preserving and modernizing Saudi culture through an upcoming podcast dedicated to this historic art form.

A fascinating conversation for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented transformation under Vision 2030.

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