{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"FWDstart","title":"Djamel Mohand (Governata) on The Rocket Internet Baptism of Fire, Scaling Foodics to 30K Restaurants & Why Your Data Isn't AI-Ready","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3426,"description":"Today's guest is Djamel Mohand, a Rocket Internet alumnus who landed in Saudi Arabia over a decade ago, back when relocating to the Kingdom for tech was rather less fashionable than it is today. What was supposed to be a six-month stint turned into ten years of building businesses across the region, most notably as COO at Foodics, where he helped scale the restaurant management platform to over 30,000 restaurants across 25 countries.\nEarlier this year he stepped away to start something new: Governata, a Saudi-based data governance platform that just raised a $4 million seed round from investors including Joa Capital, Sanabil Accelerator by 500 Global, and Plug and Play. Data governance is not exactly the sexiest pitch in the world, and Djamel will be the first to admit it. But his thesis is essentially this: everyone is talking about AI adoption, but very few organisations have their data house in order to actually make it work. Governata is positioning itself as that foundational layer, the Arabic-first, Saudi-built platform designed to get enterprises AI-ready rather than just AI-curious. \nWe get into the Rocket Internet origin story, what he learned scaling Foodics, and why the gap between having a data policy and actually implementing one is where the real opportunity lies.\n-----------------------------------------------\nTimestamps:\n00:00 - Introduction03:00 - From France to Saudi: Djamel's Origin Story05:30 - Rocket Internet Baptism of Fire08:00 - The Culture of Extreme Fairness10:30 - The First Ride Hailing Wars15:00 - Pricing Agility as a Competitive Weapon17:30 - Kitopi: 400 Employees in Nine Months21:00 - How Saudi's Regulatory Approach Actually Works25:00 - Discovering the Data Governance Problem32:00 - Leaving Foodics to Start Governata43:30 - The Enterprise Sales Playbook53:00 - Arabic-First and Global Ambitions\n-----------------------------------------------\nThank you to the partners who make this possible:\n• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/rw5tuXzSlVVTIYGhONUr8fUF7P47ZEBy7HgU8S4OYCc/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iY2M5/ZDg1NjgwNzY2YzM0/ODcxOTc5MGEzOWMw/Mzk0OS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}