Ibrahim Ajami, who was selected by Mubadala in 2017 to open an office in San Francisco and lead the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund’s technology investments, adopted a regimen that included organic green tea, almonds and magnesium citrate.
In a profile on the Lebanese born, UAE raised financier, describes how Ajami’s jet lag treatment helped him deal with the grueling commutes to the Gulf.
Ajami, who is now 49 years old, has become the head of Mubadala’s venture capital division. He has managed investments in emerging companies such as SpaceX, Brex Klarna, and Waymo. He has worked to dispel the myth that sovereign funds are bureaucratic and slow, and shaped Mubadala so it can compete with Silicon Valley’s top VC firms.
Ajami stated in an interview that “the way founders talk about Sequoia, why won’t they be speaking the same way about Mubadala 20 years from now?”
Kate Clark writes about Ajami’s next move in the Information. Mubadala, on the other hand, is increasingly using its power to encourage Western investors and companies to deepen their connections to the UAE’s technology ecosystem. This is part of the country’s broader effort to diversify its economic base away from oil.
Ajami said, “It is increasingly becoming a place that you are not just flying into and presenting to large sovereign wealth funds.” “You’re wondering, ‘What market opportunities are there for me here?'” What are the business opportunities here?