About me.
I worked as a cleaner at the UGB Tower in the Diplomatic Area in Bahrain. I polished the windows and made sure they were shiny. Just like my head.
I was 18 years old, cleaning offices to pay my university fees. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would later visit that same tower as a guest of our external auditors, walking through those spotless corridors as the youngest CFO of a publicly listed company in the Gulf States.
At 26.
That’s the short version. Here’s the longer one.
After university, I moved to Dubai to join Unilever as a Management Trainee. When I left, I was the Regional Finance Manager covering five multi-billion global brands across North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey. I returned to Bahrain in 2004 and joined a startup investment company as their CFO. Over 11 years, I led the company’s IPO, secured a $43 million rights issue, and managed a balance sheet exceeding $500 million. I served as a board member during my time there.
And I served on boards again, independently, across Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Australia.
By every corporate measure, I had made it.
But I had three passions that no boardroom could contain:
1) Speaking,
2) Writing,
3) And traveling.
On 4 December 2015, I walked out of a corner office for the last time. People thought I was crazy. And here’s the thing. They might have been right. But the decade that followed has been the most demanding, exhilarating, and fulfilling chapter of my life.
As a speaker, I have delivered hundreds of keynotes and workshops internationally. My proudest moment? Speaking at the Googleplex in California in October 2017. I speak on leadership, customer service, employee engagement, and career acceleration. But my signature talk comes from a very different stage.
In May 2022, I trekked to Everest Base Camp at 5,364 meters in Nepal. That expedition changed everything. It became the foundation of my Everest Leadership Speech, which I now deliver across the Gulf region and beyond. The core idea is counterintuitive: real leadership doesn’t happen at the summit. It happens at Base Camp.
As a writer, I have published 22 books. Five of them are Amazon bestsellers. My subjects range from leadership and startups to customer service and mountaineering. I publish a LinkedIn newsletter called Peak Perspectives where I share leadership wisdom drawn from the most daring mountaineering expeditions in history.
You can view it following this link:
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/peak-perspectives-7317553954773434369/
And I created the 1000 Authors Mission, a social entrepreneurship venture that has helped aspiring writers get published through collaborative books.
As a traveler, I became the first certified Tour Director from ITMI (USA) in the Middle East. I’m a Level 8 Google Local Guide with over 16 million views on Google Maps. I have visited 38 countries so far. And I’m nowhere near done.
As a researcher, I’m currently pursuing my PhD at Kathmandu University. My research investigates leadership under extreme conditions, using the 1996 Mount Everest disaster as a case study to examine decision-making, risk management, and team dynamics in life-threatening environments. The findings have direct applications for business leaders facing complex, high-stakes situations.
I also give back. I served as a Board Member for Bahrain Society for Human Capital Management. Today, I sit on the boards of both Bahrain Management Society and the Customer Experience (CX) Association. You bet I practice what I preach.
Before all of this?
I hold an MBA from the University of Hull, I passed the CPA exams from Colorado, and I’m a Fellow of both the Chartered Management Institute and the Institute of Leadership & Management in the UK.
I earned the Distinguished Toastmaster designation from Toastmasters International.
And I started as a cleaner.
This blog is where all of it lives. Leadership articles, customer service columns, mountaineering stories, speaking tips, career strategies, and governance insights.
If you’re building a career, growing a business, leading a team, or chasing something that scares you, you’re in the right place.
One last thing.
I ask every audience I speak to the same question.
And I’ll ask you:
What is your Everest?
Connect With Me
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohdisa
Instagram: