With the winners AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards due to be announced on 7 February 2020, we’re featuring profiles of the MBA students and graduates who have been shortlisted for the coveted awards.
Today we catch up with Hany Soliman, Founder and Managing Director Engineering Group for Innovation LLC (EGI) who has been shortlisted in the category of MBA Entrepreneurial Venture (Private Sector).
Hani Soliman holds a BSc in electrical engineering from Ain Shams University and an MBA from the School of Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC).
Hany began his professional career in 2005 as a Technical Design Engineer with Schneider Electric Egypt and North East Africa, and soon became the youngest Technical Team leader in the history of Schneider Electric Egypt and North East Africa.
His eagerness for a new challenge derived him to accept a new Sales & Marketing Manager position in 2010 at a starting local company that had just acquired an exclusive manufacturing licence from General Electric in Egypt and the Middle East Region. In 2016 he was appointed VP for Electrical Switchgear and Renewables Projects with Ever Green Energy and the launch was extremely successful.
During the same year, Hany joined the MBA programme at the AUC School of Business and, in the autumn of 2016, he founded and became Managing Director of the Engineering Group for Innovation L.L.C. (EGI).
Over the past three years, Hany has been successfully leading EGI in taking major strides for becoming an established venture and in achieving its designed business goals.
In line with his responsible management education, in 2018, Hany signed a protocol between EGI and his alma mater the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University, to provide students with technical training and summer internships, and has also initiated a monthly fund for students who cannot afford tuition. During the same year, Hany was also nominated to the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) for the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University.
Have you always aspired to be an entrepreneur?
Yes, even throughout my high-school and college years I would dream and plan about having my own venture. However, I was only confident enough to take that step when I joined the MBA program at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Entrepreneurship is one of the School of Business three pillars, and it took me only one semester to realize that I will be getting the proper education and support to go on that journey.
If you were to win this award, how would that make a difference to you and your organisation?
I think every entrepreneur at one point or another doubts what he/she is doing, and whether or not they chose the right path. The decision to leave my secure job three years ago as VP of a successful company, and go against the odds, was not easy. I am a loving husband and proud father of four children, and I am expected to provide for my family. To me this award would be a major milestone in my journey, as it comes at the right time to authenticate my past three years’ efforts and give me the right push (and courage) to follow through with my future expansion plans.
I think this award also clearly signifies to my organizational team the importance of management education. I have been discussing with my colleagues for a while now the need to obtain proper management studies to complement their technical backgrounds. They have already witnessed first-hand how my MBA at the AUC School of Business has helped build the company and benefited the group. Even now, just working on the submission application for AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards got them excited and allowed us to reflect collectively on our success. I am lucky to have such a highly motivated team that appreciates the moral value of such an Award. We also discussed beginning a newsletter and a marketing campaign, and we would be using the award to demonstrate our success.
Moreover, our country Egypt is undergoing now a very promising economic reform, so if our organization honoured by winning this trophy that would encourage a lot of people who are thinking of entrepreneurial activities to move on and start their own businesses, and that would increase the number of the small and medium enterprises resulting in helping our economic reform program as the SMEs are one of the main pillars of this economic reform.
