Dr. Bilal Baloch - Previous co-founder of an AI startup and managing a half-billion-dollar fund - is sharing how he’s rewriting the rules of venture capital in MENA.

Breaking Down Barriers - Hosted by Ricci Putnam, Chief Growth Officer
Powered by Salt: ‪@saltdigital‬ | welovesalt.com

In this conversation, Bilal breaks down:

• How sovereign funds and government policy are rewriting the venture playbook
• Why the next global AI companies won’t all come from Silicon Valley.
• How capital, compute, talent, and geopolitics are now inseparable.
• Why the UAE, KSA, and emerging markets are no longer “followers” but shapers.
• What founders need to understand about institutions, not just models.
• The first 90 days with a portfolio company and when to double down
• Why storytelling beats data in pitches and the talent gaps slowing growth
• Where real AI value will accrue: infrastructure, models, or vertical apps
• Quick-fire insights on founders, buzzwords, and risk in today’s markets
• His vision for MENA tech in 2030

Founders, investors, and innovators - get an inside look at the strategies shaping the region’s next unicorns.

Fernando Fanton scaled Monzo to 10M users, helped Just Eat hit an $8B exit, grew Mendeley’s user base 4x, and is now shaping the future of Property Finder with AI-powered home search across the MENA region.

Hear how he breaks barriers in product, scales teams fast, and shares bold predictions for AI and MENA’s tech future.

Is trust more powerful than speed in a product? Can AI replace designers and PMs? Fernando Fanton answers these and more, sharing lessons from Monzo, Just Eat, and Property Finder to help you break barriers in product leadership.


We cover:

• How Monzo scaled to 10M users
• Why Just Eat won (and why it wasn’t luck)
• The truth about product culture, discovery & delivery
• The biggest mistakes founders make hiring CPOs
• AI’s future impact on product teams
• Why most products fail and how to fix it
• His bold predictions for MENA tech over the next 5 years

Timestamps:

00:00 - Trailer
00:18 - Who is Fernando Fanton?
02:41 - The biggest barrier he broke early in his career
06:10 - Scaling Mendeley 4x and early ML lessons
11:48 - Inside Just Eat’s $8B acquisition
17:30 - 1M orders vs 1M customers — which is harder?
21:55 - Building Monzo’s product engine to 10M users
28:44 - Why most product teams lose focus
33:12 - Discovery, experimentation & iteration: the Monzo way
39:20 - The one mistake founders make hiring product leaders
43:55 - AI’s real impact on product teams (not hype)
51:30 - How to scale product orgs without breaking culture
57:10 - The hardest decision he’s made as a leader
1:02:22 - MENA tech predictions for the next 5 years
1:07:40 - When should a founder hire their first CPO?
1:12:00 - The un-Googleable moment in Fernando’s career
1:16:02 - The next barrier Fernando wants to break
1:18:55 - Quickfire: Speed or trust? AI prototype or customer?
1:21:00 - Final message for the audience

In this episode of Breaking Down Barriers, Fernando reveals the real playbook behind hyper-growth products - the decisions, culture, philosophy, and hard barriers that most teams never talk about publicly.

Make sure to like, comment and subscribe to hear more great stories for some of the top product and tech leaders in the ecosystem.

Product Scaling in Fintech: How Sarwa Built a Multi-Product Wealth Platform with Robin Harb

Today’s guest is Robin Harb, Chief Product Officer at Sarwa, one of the Middle East’s fastest-growing fintech platforms.

Robin went from McKinsey consultant to leading Sarwa’s product team and scaling it from a single robo-advisor to a multi-product wealth platform that handles stocks, crypto, ETFs, and options and achieving over AED 15 billion in trading volume.

In this episode, Robin shares:

- How to scale fintech products fast without breaking the team

- Designing for first-time investors and building trust in wealthtech

- Lessons from a product decision that didn’t go as planned

- The future of AI in fintech and what products the MENA region still needs

- Advice for product leaders, founders, and C-suite executives

If you’re a founder, operator, or product leader in MENA fintech, this episode is packed with actionable insights you won’t want to miss.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro

1:05 – Robin’s career journey: McKinsey → CPO

4:30 – Scaling Sarwa from robo-advisor → multi-product

9:15 – Product strategy & roadmap evolution

13:50 – Regional fintech challenges in MENA

17:40 – Lessons from failed product decisions

21:30 – AI & the future of wealthtech

25:10 – Rapid fire & executive takeaways

28:00 – Closing thoughts

Like, subscribe, and hit the bell to catch more insights from MENA’s top leaders.