Rachid Mohamed Rachid

Rachid Mohamed Rachid was born on 2 February 1955 in Alexandria, Egypt. He received his B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from the Faculty of Engineering at Alexandria University in 1978. He has attended a number of management programs in the United States, including the Management Development Program at Stanford University in 1983, the Strategic Management Program at MIT in 1993, and the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1996.[8] Rachid is married and has 3 daughters.[7]

Rachid started his career in the 80s with his first venture as the bottler of Coca Cola in Egypt.[9] Later in the early nineties he grew the family business of Fine Foods, one of the first local manufacturers of frozen foods. In 1991, Unilever, the leading global consumer goods company acquired shares in the company and named Rachid chairman of Unilever Egypt, which also made him responsible for business development in the Middle East. He was later appointed as President of Unilever's Middle East, North Africa and Turkey business based out of London.[10] In 2004 Rachid left the management of the company as he was asked by the then Prime Minister of Egypt Mohamed Nazif to join the cabinet where he remained until the 2011 Revolution in Egypt after which he restarted his business career.[11]

As CEO of Mayhoola, a Qatari royal family fund, Rachid led the fund’s acquisition of the Italian fashion icon Valentino in July 2012 for a reported figure of EUR 700 million.[12] Rachid was appointed Chairman of Valentino and oversaw the turn around of the business by changing key managerial positions,[13][14]and putting a new strategy to establish the brand as a maison de couture. These changes led to the quadrupling of Valentino’s revenue by 2023 to EUR 1.2bn.[15] In July 2023 Mayhoola sold 30% of Valentino to fashion giant Kering Group for a reported figure of EUR 1.87 billion in cash.[16] It was reported that this transaction is part of a broader relationship between Mayhoola and Kering which might lead in Mayhoola owning shares in Kering.[17] In June 2016 Mayhoola acquired the Paris based fashion house Balmain for a reported figure of EUR 485 million[18] and Rachid was appointed as Chairman and also oversaw the transformation of the business and the tripling of its revenue to EUR 300m by 2023.[19]

Post the 2011 revolution and his exit from political life Rachid wanted to go back into business and having sold his remaining 40% of the Unilever joint venture which at the time boasted a capitalization of USD 2bn, he decided to focus on Luxury[20].In 2017 Rachid established Alsara Investment Group to become an international private investment company focused on the luxury and well-being sector. Alsara has over USD 2bn in assets under management and focuses primarily on markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.[21] Alsara owns brands such as Akoni, a Swiss based eyewear company it launched in 2019,[22] Khrisjoy an Italian outerwear company it acquired in 2021[23] and in 2023 it acquired the IP and Archive of the 1970 fashion label Walter Albini with the reported aim of relaunching the brand.[24] Alsara also founded Bidayat a company which invests in and nurtures creative local and regional brands with the aim of growing them internationally. In 2021 and 2022 respectively it invested in Okhtein[25] and Azza Fahmy[26] two Middle Eastern brands founded and led by women entrepreneurs. In 2021 Bidayat also signed an MoU with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt to study the transformation of the historic area of Bab El Azab in the heart of historic Cairo into the first integrated creativity zone in the Middle East and Africa.[27]