Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder and CEO of Middle East’s ride-hailing company Careem has made the The Bloomberg 50 list for 2018. Published today, The Bloomberg 50 features features people with big accomplishments during 2018. In Bloomberg’s words, the list is their look at the people in business, entertainment, finance, politics, and technology and science whose 2018 accomplishments were particularly noteworthy.
Mudassir is the first and only name from Middle East in the technology and science category, and second name overall, to make it to the in its two editions. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was the first personality from the region to be named in the list last year. He had joined the likes of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, Softbank’s founder Masayoshi Son and former U.S ambassador to United Nationas Nikki Haley.
Careem CEO this year is joined by some very big names who have made the list including China’s Vice Premier Liu He, pop star Taylor Swift, Chairman of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani who happens to be Asia’s richest man, Go-Jek’s CEO CEO Nadiem Makarim, Microsoft’s CEO Amy Hood, Spotify’s founder and CEO Daniel Ek.
Bloomberg, listing, Mudassir in the Science and Tech category of the list, notes, “Sheikha’s six-year-old company has more than 1 million drivers in the Mideast and northern Africa, allowing customers to book bikes, golf carts, rickshaws, and boats, in addition to cars. This has made Careem an attractive potential purchase for Uber Technologies Inc., which Bloomberg News reported in September is in discussions to acquire it for as much as $2.5 billion.”
“Sheikha is also using his clout to support One Million Arab Coders, an initiative that offers online courses in website and mobile-interface development, and he puts on a hackathon in Ramallah and an artificial-intelligence-oriented summer camp in the United Arab Emirates,” Bloomberg added.
