Episode 6 Mohannad El- Khairy, Partner E-11 Capital Talks About Gender Equality

The Other Half : Conversations With Men on Gender Equality

In this episode we interview Mohannad El Khairy, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, founder of E-11 Capital. Mo tells us about why he supports feminism today, and why he uses his flexibility to support his wife’s corporate career and care for his children, which has earned him the title “modern man,” when it should just be normal. He tells us about how it is important to raise children with perspective and awareness and about how inspired he was by his own mother, a bold Palestinian artist. Mo delves into how his own background growing up in many countries, including as a Palestinian immigrant in Canada, taught him the value of inclusion.

He tells us about why the culture of Silicon Valley needs to profoundly change to catch up with the future, to become more inclusive and impact oriented rather than simply growth focused. We talk about building entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Middle East and why there are more female entrepreneurs percentage wise than in the Silicon Valley. We talk about Mo’s experience building the Bloomberg of the Middle East, the fact that 80% of his staff in Beirut was female, and selling the company to Thomson Reuters and moving to Silicon Valley and why Silicon Valley is in need of a deep culture change.