About Sari Awwad
A business coach built for this market.
Not imported from the West. Built from twenty years inside it.
The Beginning
I started where you are.
I was twenty years old with very little money, no experience, and no roadmap. What I had was a refusal — my grandmother's words ringing in my head, pushing me away from the ordinary path and toward something I couldn't yet name.
In Sydney Australia I built my first business from scratch and then 9 years later making an exit — selling it for a large amount of money. Then a second one across two countries, two cultures, and two completely different markets. Sydney, Australia. Then Amman, Jordan. Each one taught me something the previous one didn't. Each failure installed a principle I now use with every client I work with.
What I know about business I did not learn in a classroom. I learned it by getting it wrong, fixing it, and getting it right. Twenty years of that process is what sits across the table from you when we work together.
Institutional Credibility
Entrepreneur in Residence — Princess Sumaya University for Technology
In addition to my private coaching practice, I serve as Entrepreneur in Residence at Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan — one of the most respected technology universities in the Arab world.
In this role I mentor student entrepreneurs from early-stage idea through to commercialisation. I work with young founders on business models, brand development, systems, and go-to-market strategy — the same framework I apply to established businesses.
This dual role gives me something rare: I understand both where entrepreneurs start and where they get stuck after years of operating. Most coaches know one or the other. I work across the full arc.
The Result That Matters Most
From idea to acquisition.
After nearly three years of mentoring through the EIR programme at PSUT, my mentee's mobile app platform — No Nerds — was acquired by Jo Academy.
He came in with an idea and no structure. We built everything together — the business model, the brand, the operations, the go-to-market approach. Layer by layer, in the right order.
The acquisition wasn't luck. It was the result of building deliberately, with the end in mind from the beginning.
This is what I mean when I say Build to Sell. And this is why I apply that principle to every business I touch — whether or not the owner ever intends to sell.
Built for This Region
I understand this market differently.
Business coaching was largely developed in the West — for Western markets, Western ownership structures, and Western attitudes toward delegation, succession, and stepping back.
MENA is not the West.
I know family expectations. I know the weight of a business that carries your father's name. I know why Arab entrepreneurs resist delegating — and what it actually takes to reframe that resistance into a structural decision rather than a personal one.
I know the stigma of stepping back. I know the silence around business valuation as a personal wealth goal. And I know how to have those conversations in a way that lands — because I have been having them in this region for twenty years.
My coaching is not adapted for MENA. It is designed for it.
How I Work
I am not a motivational coach.
I don't run sessions on mindset, energy, or vision boards. I don't tell you what you want to hear. I don't celebrate effort that isn't producing outcomes.
What I do is sit across from you — or your leadership team — and diagnose what is actually happening in your business. Then we build the structure, the systems, and the decision frameworks that fix it.
Every session ends with clear priorities, clear decisions, and clear next steps. If you leave a session confused, I have failed at my job.
“You are not hiring me to feel good about your business. You are hiring me to build something solid.”
In Brief
20+
Years
Entrepreneurial experience across two countries
EIR
Role
Entrepreneur in Residence · PSUT Jordan
3
Businesses
Built from scratch across two countries
2
Exits
Successful business exits
Author
My Grandmother's Words Changed My Life · 2024