Joining Kauffman Fellows Program

Joining Kauffman Fellows Program

My never-ending pursuit of “learning more” about the VC World, is always leading me to keep looking for good books to read, podcasts to listen to, videos to watch, and most importantly, training programs to attend.

Over the last few years, I went to several VC Forums and Conferences, I learned a lot form the international and regional VCs I met. I even approached some big names to become my VC mentors, and I was lucky enough to get Brad Feld, Managing Director of Foundry Group, and Co-founder of TechStars as my VC Mentor.

But to get more structured learning experience, I went to Harvard Executive Education Program last year, and attended their Private Equity and Venture Capital Program. The program was amazing, I enjoyed each minute of it. However, it was too short, only one week! So you don’t really get to learn by doing.

Now, Thank God, I’m super happy to tell that I was accepted to join Kaufman Fellows Program, a two-year training program for Global VCs. It’s not an academic degree, it’s just a long-term workshop, but the best practical workshop a VC can ever get. It does not require staying in USA for the 2 years, however, I have to travel to Palo Alto for a week every 3 months.

To be honest, it was not easy to get in, the application questions were tough, and took me long time to answer them. Next there was a long interview with the President and CEO of the Center for Venture Education.

The acceptance letter starts by:

Thanks you for your interest in pursuing a Kauffman Fellowship. We have been impressed with your accomplishments, your motivations, and with your colleagues who stepped forward to vouch for your talent and potential. On behalf of Kauffman Fellows Board of Directors, we are therefore pleasure to formally invite you to become a member of the seventeenth class of Kauffman Fellows. The Kauffman Fellowship is considered an honor and is a public recognition of your leadership and promise.

Kauffman Fellows is also a Private VC Network. I am joining Class 17, so there were 16 previous Classes over the past decade. If you look at the Fellows List you can see that the majority of the participating VCs are from Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, with some others from the East Cost, and few international ones as well. Joining such a network comes in a perfect timing while starting Sinbad Ventures, which is focusing on investing in Global startups coming up from Arabia, and helping them get next rounds from US investors. From the Arab World, there are only 6 people in the list, and I am joining as the seventh!

I would like to thank my VC mentor Brad Feld, my official Class mentor, Rashid AlBallaa, and both Dr. Wissam Rabadi and Rami Al-Karmi for the reference letters.