Rakan is an Entrepreneurship Development expert, and activist in Saudi Arabia since 2006. He has experiences in business developing, coaching and consulting. He recently joined 500 Startups as Venture Partner to the 500 Falcons micro fund for MENA.
Prior to that, he was the founding Managing Director of the Saudi Affiliate of Endeavor, a global nonprofit that’s leading a High-Impact Entrepreneurship movement around the world. In 3 years, Endeavor Saudi Arabia grew today to more than US$ 100M in revenue from US$ 47M when selected, and thus created more than 467 new quality jobs to the Kingdom.
Since 2013, Rakan has been heading the Investment Committee at Oqal Angel Investors Group, which attracted more than 150 deals to the group’s investors, 15 of which received investments with a total of US$ 4M. He is a board member of a government fund and has been a judge in many entrepreneurship and startup competitions, like Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, ArabNet and Startup Weekends.
Rakan holds an M.B.A. majoring in Entrepreneurship, an HRM from the University of Queensland, Australia and a BS in Industrial Systems Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia.