Earlier this summer, Fadi Malas surprised the industry when he stepped down as CEO of popular UAE food retailer Just Falafel. Having helped quickly grow the brand from inception to a successful global franchise, Malas admits he was tired and was looking for a new challenge.
“I used to feel guilty if I left the office at 7pm because there was still too much to do, from the first till the last day,” he told Arabian Business StartUp.
“I was very dedicated, I loved the brand, I loved the team, and I loved a lot of things about it. It was the right energy.
“But it also caught up with me. It was very tiring. You know for three and a half years I had been doing that nonstop, and I needed a break.”
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The entrepreneur left Just Falafel in August this year, leaving the company to pursue new business incubation opportunities in the SME sector, while remaining a shareholder.
Malas joined Just Falafel in 2011, four years after founder and MD Mohamad Bitar launched the brand in Abu Dhabi. Prior to his appointment four more stores had opened in the UAE, but in the three following years, Just Falafel opened 52 chains in 18 different countries.
A deal was also signed to open another 57 in the Benelux region of Europe, as well as plans to launch in Canada and the US.
When Malas stepped down, the UAE food retailer also signed memorandums of understanding in Mauritius and Madagascar, and planned to open its first store in in Bangalore, India.
Stating that Just Falafel now “doesn’t need disruptive thinking anymore but people to grow it,” he added that the change “didn’t happen overnight” and that “they had always talked about it.”
Malas has not kicked up his feet and reported that he is heavily involved in new projects. “I didn’t go from Just Falafel to a golf course. I’m actually more involved with SMEs now which is my passion,” he said on the sidelines of an entrepreneurial event hosted by Fit For Business, during which he introduced his protege Hiba Kosta, a partner at Japanese food concept Chez Sushi.
“Work for me is my hobby, it’s not my routine. Really I don’t have other hobbies than my passion to create success stories and that’s what I want to pursue.
“I took up Chez as a challenge because I think [that] sushi as a category is already mainstream but we still don’t have a global brand that will be the number one.”
Talking to the audience, Kosta said that she opened the first Chez Sushi branch at Al Wasl Road, Dubai, in 2013. It provided 100 percent ROI (return on investment) in just 12 months, allowing her to open the second branch in Dubai Marina.
Her current plans include the opening of the third branch in Dubai very soon, as well as stores in Oman and Bahrain.
“We’ve set up on our own but our plan from the beginning has been to open in Dubai and then franchise around the world,” she explained.
“We are not very good at selling ourselves, and we need somebody who can take us a little bit further in a reasonable amount of time.”
Malas added: “It’s important for me to do extremely well because I’m benchmarking against my own performance in another brand. I want to break my own record.
“I don’t sit there and advise people what to do. I like to think of myself as a CEO on rent. I like to go in there and push people to make decisions.”
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