Nihal Abughattas

Head of Marketing MEA at Temenos

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

@NihalABG | LinkedIn Profile

I am the Regional Head of Marketing for Temenos in Middle East and Africa. On the broad level, I raise the profile of Temenos in the region, positioning it as the leading provider of banking software. One of my main objectives is to build our sales pipeline through marketing and demand generation activities. I develop and orchestrate the master marketing plan for the region targeting key markets with the respective products based on the demand gap and local market trends in specific countries. I also look after the inside sales function that act as a true extension of our sales team.

I’m happy to say that working closely with my sales counterparts in order to achieve the target ROI for our marketing activities, allowed us to break the mold of marketing and sales silos. Leveraging on this synergistic relationship with the regional sales team, I aim at turning marketing into a tangible contributor to the company’s revenues, rather than being traditionally considered as a mere cost center under a company’s financial reports.

You began your career as an auditor with Unilever. What was this experience like as young women in a male dominated role?

It was indeed a challenge. Not only was I the only woman in the Control Assurance function, but I was also the youngest. Shortly after joining Unilever as an auditor and also part of Global Management Trainee Program, I was part of the team that was assigned to implement the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance project for the organization back in 2003. The hardest part was driving change; introducing the concept of key operational controls undergoing operational risk assessments and having to ask a senior leader in the male-dominant finance department to do his job differently. Here I am, 20 years old at the time, just starting my career, asking a 40 year old experienced professional to change the way he has done his job for the last 15 years. The experience I had was enormous. I was exposed to what happens behind the scenes – tons of information about the governance in an organization as big as Unilever I learned to appreciate process, the role of various functions in an organization and how they work with others; but the most important thing I learned about myself in these 2 years was that I did not want to be an auditor.

You’ve worked for several successful startups including Raya. How do you describe the difference in working for a global company such as Unilever as compared to a startup?

In Unilever, among the many things I have learned was the importance of processes, controls and procedures to ensure workflow is not disrupted. In Raya, I had the opportunity to put some of these processes in place. Being the young company it was at the time, there was a lot of room for one to create, to see their ideas flourish and being adopted by the organization and their peers. For example, a new role for in house market research and analysis was created which I was asked to take care of. I remember not knowing where and how to start – no references, no templates, and no previous practice to learn from. The approach and design I put in place back then was used and built on for years after I had moved on to different roles within the organization and outside of it. Raya helped me realize what I like to do best: start something and see it grow into its potential. Once it becomes business as usual, it almost feels like it’s time for me to move on.

Fawry was founded during the height of the global financial crash in 2008, yet you joined the company as one of its first employees. What motivated you to join the company and what was your experience like in launching a net new product?

It was the idea. My belief that it will change people’s lives is what motivated me to join Fawry only 3 months after the legal formation of the company. Fawry is the first electronic bill payment and presentment network in Egypt. In simple terms, consumers are able to pay for various services over their banking channels (ATMs, e-banking channels and over the counter in some cases) as well as through a network of retailers. The fact that one could walk into the nearest convenient store and pay for over 40 various services such as utility bills, mobile top up, airline tickets or driving fines was of massive change to the way the average consumer traditionally did things. I wanted to be part of this change.

I remember before the launch we had the challenge of signing up with commercial banks to avail the service on their banking channels as well as have service providers (billers) avail the service to their customers to pay via Fawry. We were marketing for something that did not exist yet. Our fellow architects and developers were working behind the scene. We sold on their promise to deliver what we were committing to those early adopters and believers in the country’s first electronic payment network.

My role as the marketing manager (besides building the brand at the beginning) was to drive adoption for this new concept. We were changing behaviors of the various parties in this payment ecosystem on many levels. Educating and inducing consumers to pay for their services over through our channels; convincing businesses to accept payment through the network and enable their customers to pay via Fawry; as well as growing the number of payment points nationwide. We have seen exponential growth in daily payment transactions passing through Fawry for the first 5 years. Fawry reached its tipping point within 4 years.

How important have mentors been for you in the success of your career?

I’m not sure if this was mere coincidence but all my mentors have been women since the beginning of my career. It was always women who spotted me amongst many and were reasons behind my career moves. I consider myself lucky to have seen so many powerful women in my path and must admit that everything I know I have learnt from them. The opportunities they presented me with allowed me to grow both as person as well as a marketing professional. I saw how they managed their personal lives as great wives and mothers while maintaining leadership roles in their organizations. I realized that it does not always have to be a trade-off especially if you are blessed with a good support system in your life.

Do you believe FinTech can bring about real social change?

Definitely. I saw this first hand with Fawry. We managed to change behaviors of people when it comes to their everyday payments. Fawry was used by banks to drive adoption to their alternative banking channels (ATMs, mobile and internet banking). Paying one’s bills over the ATM for instance was a massive selling point in trying to tackle the underbanked segment in Egypt (at least 70% of the population).

In addition to payment via banking channels, people could pay for their bills and services easily through a huge network of retailers close to their home or work. Being a country with a massive traffic problem, we gave people more time to spend time with their families and take care of the more important things in their lives rather than visiting various service providers’ branches to make their payments. I recall that one of the studies we did was on the time Egyptians took to pay their monthly bills – it turned out that an Egyptian household spent 120 hours a year in running payment errands in a cash dominant society (credit card penetration in Egypt is approximately at 10%). We multiplied the average number of bills per month per family, their frequency based on the billing cycle and the time it would take them to go to the alternative payment channel such as the branch. Fawry has gone mainstream for a reason – it was the convenience that people looked for.

Who(m) do you believe has had the most influencing with respect to influencing your own career?

My husband and mother have everything to do with where I am today. My husband is also my mentor in so many ways. He is in a tech career himself and always pushed me to reach new limits with every move. We are each other’s support system. For instance, my current role involves travel; with my 4 year old son, it would not have been possible to accept this new if my husband had not encouraged me to do so. His words were: go ahead and I’ll take care of it. He made it possible for me to do what I do today.

My mom is one of the strongest women I have known – being a single parent raising me in a foreign country all by herself. She taught me the meaning of making things happen. If it wasn’t for her perseverance and determination, I find it hard to believe I would be where I am in my life today. She once said I am her investment in life; she is one of the main reasons I just keep going.

Who do you consider to be strong women leaders in the FinTech space?

Going through the FemTechLeaders’ site made me realize there are so many women who are making a massive difference and standing their grounds in this male dominant industry. This is very motivating and I must thank you for making them known to us. When it comes to tech though, I must say that Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandberg are remarkable women in their space and I speak for many when I say they are indeed strong women who are inspiring many others.

What do you see as the 3 leading future trends for FinTech?

• Internet of things being applied to financial services
• Internet incumbents becoming banks; retailers of banking products
• Payments will continue to pave the way for non-banks into the financial industry

About Temenos:

Temenos is a leading banking software company providing front to back mission critical solutions, in areas such as core banking and e-banking channels, to financial institutions across the globe. Our software is used by more than 2,000 financial institutions and it is used to process the daily transactions of more than 500 million banking customers. Temenos spends on average 20% of its sales revenues on R&D – twice as much as its peer group, which has helped us to deliver a proud track record on innovation with many pioneering industry ‘firsts’, such as the first company to put core banking in the cloud, the first company to remove batch transaction processing.

What makes Temenos unique, however, is that we work with everybody – incumbent banks, challenger banks, Fintech start-ups and non-banks. As an example, we partnered with a local venture capital company to form Fusion, Switzerland’s Fintech Accelerator Program. 10 Fintech startups each year from all over the world are selected for its 12-months acceleration program. Temenos executives also formed a Temenos Innovation Board to manage these initiatives. We have also developed what we call the Temenos Marketplace, an app store for applications and widgets developed by our partners, including many Fintech start-ups, on the Temenos platform. Working with all of the players in the financial services ecosystem puts us right at the heart of this changing competitive landscape. And it also gives us a unique perspective on how the industry is changing – the strengths and weakness of the different players and business models – and the part we can play in improving and transforming banking.