In an era where the traditional corporate structure is evolving and the rise of AI presents both opportunities and challenges, the concept of a “humane future of work” has never been more critical. This post delves into a fascinating discussion with Khadija Khartit, founder of Sohaara, a platform dedicated to upskilling, tooling, and networking for individuals across all career stages.

Join us as we explore Khadija’s vision for a purpose-driven, individual-centric approach to work, the surprising global job trends she anticipates, and her unique journey as a female CEO in Saudi Arabia. Discover how Sohaara is stitching the holes in the current professional landscape and empowering individuals to own their lives and find fulfillment in their careers.

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Building The Humane Future Of Work With Khadija Khartit

Founder Of Sohaara

I’m J.R. Lowry. This is Career Sessions, Career Lessons, which is brought to you by PathWise.io. If you’re ready to take control of your career, join the PathWise community. Basic membership is free. My guest is Khadija Kartit. She is currently the founder of Sohaara. Her background spans 27 years in strategy and investments with organizations such as Shell and UBS, plus a stint as the first woman CEO of an investment bank in Saudi Arabia. In our discussion, we’re going to be talking about her company, Sohaara, its mission, global job trends, upskilling, and connecting talent to impactful work. Let’s dive in.

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Khadija, welcome. Thanks for being on the show with me.

Thank you, J.R. Thank you for the opportunity.

Give us the quick background on you before we dive into Sohaara and some of the other things that you’re involved in.

Khadijah Cartier’s Background & Career Path

My name is Khadija Kartit. I am a Moroccan living in the US. I came to the US as a Fulbright scholar, did some studies, worked in the power industry, then moved from an MBA and corporate to investment banking through a Master’s in Finance, CFA track. I ended up being an expat in Saudi Arabia. By luck or by work, I became the first woman CEO of an investment bank. In Riyadh, I closed a duo $245 million deal, which was something in 2012, in the HVAC industry. I moved back to Boston from Riyadh for a health reason in my family. My son is autistic.

Since 2014, I have been in Boston. I’ve been a strategy advisor to a tech startup focused on fintech because of my background. I taught at Cornell. I became the Chair of the fintech program at Brandeis. I taught at Chicago, their fintech program, and at Cornell, Women Entrepreneurship. Through that was the culmination of Sohaara. We’ll get to talk about that.

I have worked in financial services for probably twenty years. I spent most of that working in Boston. I was involved in the Fintech Sandbox, which is an accelerator in Boston. You and I have never crossed paths before. It just goes to show that the world is small, but not always as small as you might think.

We’re always moving and navigating. Great day to meet you.

You as well. Tell us about the firm that you started.

Sohaara started with the name Fujn, which is fusing a lot of things in one platform. Think of it as an ecosystem. I thought about it through my living in many countries and working in different environments, coming from Morocco, Africa, as a woman, being a professional in the US, doing a lot of studies, going to Riyadh, and working in investment banking as a woman. I’m scanning and learning. All of a sudden, I am falling into a health situation with my son. I had to reimagine my work and step out of investment banking because of the number of hours and commitments. I had to reinvent my work as an advisor and guide to other founders because of all the knowledge that I had accumulated.

Passing that knowledge to Ivy League schools to talent that needs that type of guidance made me think about women, because I had to slow down to take care of my kids. I was like, “I’m type A. I am a Fulbright scholar. I am the African woman who came to the US and did all this. Now, I have to slow down.” There’s the pressure of how to imagine income and also fulfillment, because I’m the type who looks for fulfillment. I’m like, “This is type A, trying to figure it out. What happens to type B, C, D, and the woman who did not get any chance to even think? How can we help all these members of the population?”

I came up with this idea of a platform that guides women and brings them in whenever they’re kicked out, either because of kids or because of culture. There are a lot of reasons for women to get out of the productive system in the world, in all countries. I can talk about it. You can flat. Even in America, the funding for women is 2% from VC money. We can spend some time figuring it out. I spent two years working on Fujn as a women’s platform. The market pushed back. We had to open up for everybody. It’s not a pivot. It’s a bilateral pivot. It is the same concept, but it’s now catering to everybody.

Humane Future Of Work: I asked myself, how can we support so many women pushed out of the workforce—whether by culture, children, or circumstance? That’s why I built a platform to guide and bring them back in.

Sohaara’s Mission: Ecosystem For Upskilling, Tooling, & Networking

I’m happy because we have spent a lot of deep thinking into how to guide, how to advise, and how to merge a lot of resources so that the path to income, to skills, and to work is more friendly to users. Men and women can use our platform for that purpose. Sohaara is a women-friendly platform, but it’s for everybody. It’s an ecosystem that combines upskilling, tooling, and networking. What I noticed throughout my life is that skilling alone does not cut it. Tooling alone makes you technical, but not a visionary.

Networking alone makes you a sleazy person talking, but you don’t have the tools and the skills to enrich that presence. All three of them make you a whole person with conceptual thinking, your beliefs, and your tools to go fast and to do things with your know-how. You connect with people so that your like-minded people will make you go faster, go better, go happier, and do better things because you’re doing it with other people. It’s teamwork. It makes me happier. This is how I thought about it. It’s like, “Give them this and keep guiding them. Do this with this one. Here is the tool. You can do this faster.” They can elaborate on examples, how I see it, and how we did it if we have done it before.

At what stage in their careers are you looking to intercept people? Is this meant more for younger people, or is it open to more experienced people and targeted to more experienced people as well?

It’s a spectrum. We take users from a graduate school or a college level, who are looking for guidance for a career path. We can help those. We can help professionals who have started and want to accelerate their path in their careers. We can take career people who are senior and look to transition or change direction because people’s minds change through life. They need to have a new chance or a second chance. I love chances because they keep life dynamic, joyful, and optimistic. Tomorrow is a better day. I love that statement.

We have to impact it and make it palpable and workable. Those are professionals, but we also work with entrepreneurs. The economy is getting wider and wider with the gig economy, with the startups, with the entrepreneurs, and with the small businesses. Everything is getting bigger. We take them and subdivide them into categories that I said, such as startup founders, solopreneurs, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. We cater to each category with the right resources, the right skills, and the right networking.

Who do you see as your competitors? What do you do that’s different from what they’re doing?

We have a lot of competitors in many verticals because we are an ecosystem. It means that we work and operate in a lot of verticals. I would start with upskilling. That’s e-learning. We do the basic upskilling. We fill the gaps. We are a gap-focused platform. We are a purpose-focused platform. We are a project-based platform. We don’t do things just because we like to do them. We look at the endgame. What do you want to accomplish? Let’s work back and get you there.

We don’t just upskill to make people smart. We upskill to make people achieve the job that they want, that entrepreneurship type, or that industry. Those are the things that we do. We complete. If you ask me about our competitors, we have competitors in every single vertical. In e-learning, we look at LinkedIn Learning, Udacity, Udemy, and Sesame. We look at every platform that does learning, even universities, but we are complementary. We’re not competitors. We’re complete in the gaps that are not there.

That’s why we partner with a lot of ed techs because they don’t do what we do. A lot of collaboration is going on inside the e-learning. Another vertical is the startup ecosystem. We are looking at AngelList, OpenVC, PitchBook, and Crunchbase, all of which are some bi-combinator startup school. All of those are equivalent, but we are very tiny. We look at them. Whatever is not there, we want to add. We are like a type of boutique, but we’re not a boutique. We have a lot of depth in expertise about these things, given my background. Whatever is not available everywhere, we give, such as the categorization of subtypes of entrepreneurs. Not a lot of platforms are dealing with that. They go large, “This is knowledge. You take that and adapt it to your case.”

What I noticed throughout my travels and conferences around the world is that people need help. By the way, J.R., I want to tell you something. It’s a little bit controversial. Abundance in my eyes is not positive. It’s good, yes, but it’s overwhelming. You need to curate. I hear a lot of people say, “You go to the internet. You get that.” Yes, but where? ChatGPT can tell you anything, but do you have the right question to get what you want? No, it’s hidden. It’s in the box. Google is there, and Google AI is there, but do you know what to ask?

If you come to a community that guides you, it lightens up those parks to ask the right questions that are good for you because it’s your life project. They care about the individual. It’s not about the career. It’s about you. How do you feel now? How would you feel in five years? How would you feel in ten years? Are you on the path to comfort? We evolve, but you always navigate, go back, and find your comfort. We’re going to talk about organizations versus people. I have my philosophy around that as well.

What does your community look like in terms of size, geographic breadth, and things like that?

I have to tell you that we have spent two years in development because our infrastructure is complex. When you are a purpose-driven platform, you’re not clear in the eyes of venture capitalists, or it’s not a linear path. You are a matrix. You’re trying to solve complex, intricate human problems. It’s not linear. It’s not one plus one equals two. It’s different, but you have to invest that depth, that expertise, and that life into finding the right solutions that are malleable and flexible so that they can mold around people’s lives in a way that’s friendly and humane.

Let me tell you about our user base. We started with women. We had a lot of engagement with women. Our YouTube channel has 110,000 subscribers. Our Instagram page has 70,000 subscribers. We are still rethinking our DNA. There’s a balance between profitability, purpose, mission, and philosophy. We try to stay true to our mission. We want the before and after of our users to be impactful. That is what I care about.

A word that I will say over and over is truth. I want to be true about our limitations. I asked very deep questions about how universities, governments, and companies can cater to the learners and give a positive experience in learning. Be true about what they want and what you’re giving them. If you have any limitations, say it and go look for the compliment. It’s fine. We have to be true in our conversation around upskilling and the results after upskilling.

Is it a better income? Is it securing some jobs? Is it finding opportunities? Is it giving ideas that create opportunities? We have to solve the issue of lack of guidance, lack of purpose, speeding up, stress for the youth, the lack of income for a lot of people, and the displacement of jobs. If we are thinking deeply about solving that, we’re going to solve it as a society. If we put hand-in-hand between public, private, and educational institutions with truth, we admit the limitations and we work on them.

You’re touching on an awful lot there. One, the changing nature of work. You talked earlier about the fact that the economy is widening. I don’t know that I’ve seen data to support that one way or the other. Intuitively, it wouldn’t surprise me if the data revealed that that was the case, because it feels like the traditional corporate structure is somewhat under threat. I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe it, but certainly, maybe it is becoming a little bit anachronistic.

With more people doing gig work, side jobs, or whatever you want to call it, and all these platforms out there that allow people to match needs with services that they can deliver, it feels like more of the mechanisms are in place to unlock a different way of working than what we’re used to. That’s one thing. It’s what’s happening in terms of the changing shape of the workforce. Two, you’ve got this whole ‘AI is eating our jobs’ thing going on. I’m of the view that we need to call a spade a spade. The CEOs of the big companies are all saying that we’re going to be able to automate all of this work. There’s no way that they’re going to keep all of those people. It’s a lie.

That implies that you’re going to have a period of displacement that could be disruptive, which is where the skill-building becomes important, the upskilling, skill transfer, or whatever you want to call that part of your platform. The third piece that stood out in the things that you’ve covered is the truth. This is where my experience is. A lot of people struggle. They don’t want to put the work in. You see this. I’m in the UK. You’re in the US. We both have a part of the economy that feels left behind in terms of what has happened. At the same time, they don’t see a path, whether they are unwilling, unable, or can’t find the access. Whatever the barrier is, we’re not bridging that gap for them.

We’re about to see a new wave of it. We’ve seen it in manufacturing. We’re seeing it in the knowledge economy. I wonder how far that will go. For me, it begs a lot of questions about where all of this is going, whether we’ll absorb this shock like we absorbed the internet, social media, apps, and all of these other technology changes that have happened, or whether this one, particularly with AI, is going to feel different. I don’t know. It’s too early to tell, but I have a hard time believing that it’s not going to be significant in some way.

J.R., you have also mentioned a lot of things.

I did.

The Threat Of AI Displacement & The Importance Of Tool Literacy

You did a lot. I have some feelings and some opinions. Also, everything is new right now. Nobody is an expert in AI right now, even the doers. Sam Altman says, “No one knows what is next.” We are now uncovering it. I don’t like to be pessimistic. I like to be original. I like to be creative. I like to be a problem solver in any situation. I did it, as I mentioned, in my own life. That’s why I navigated and came to Sohaara. We started Sohaara when the future of work was not a big word. Now, it is. I have seen it.

When I was working with the students in college, I felt a lack of guidance and fear because technology was coming. I worked in fintech. I worked with finance people who were very established. All of a sudden, they see the carpet pulled out from under their feet. They have to be fintech to become fintech or get out of the industry, which is not good. For me, one blanket lesson, every one of us should become comfortable to learn every day, as a workout or as a habit in any industry we are in.

Lawyers are threatened by AI because the AI spits out the answers. They give the templates. Doctors are now called to know a lot about AI because their job will change. It’s not going to go away. It’s going to change. When it changes, do you know the new change? Do you know what to do? Let’s say somebody does finance but does not know Excel. How could that person work right now? This is the simple analogy.

That’s why in Sohaara, tooling is very important because you know the concept of being that professional, but do you know the tools? I wanted to tell you some examples of tools. Slack is now mandatory. Canva is a must for design or Figma because you can’t not do it, whatever you are. Writing is a must. Everybody is a journalist or a lawyer right now. Everybody is writing on LinkedIn to build personal branding.

All of us are called to do those, either average, super, or lower. We are called to know it, like communication. There are a lot of types of literacy, such as digital literacy and financial literacy. Before, literacy was a word sent. You read. You do the math. Now, it’s many types. Communication will become key to the survival of humans at work because of AI. The communication should not be parroted because the parroted is here. It’s AI. You have to come up with your own deep thinking so that people know that you are talking, not ChatGPT. The recruits in interviews have a higher bar because the recruiter is comparing them to what is written in the cover letter.

Are you speaking that, or did somebody else write it for you? You have to be better because the expectations have gotten higher. This is not to scare your audience. I am about inclusion. There will always be spectrum. Not every human being has the same abilities. We will have type A and the geniuses. They will be trillionaires, maybe. You heard the story of the trillion. They could be. We can’t stop that. One thing that I like in my society, my vision of the future, is that everybody feels good about themselves. I’m big on that. If you choose to be a small business, be a happy small business owner.

That will guide me to one literacy that we need to do. Ask the youth and professionals to introspect. Look inside you. Define you. I was looking for an analogy to talk with you. It is with the patient and the doctor. If the patient does not communicate the pain, how could the doctor know how to solve it? You have to be able to voice what you want and know what you want. Voice what you want, so that hopefully, we have leaders and institutions who care, can respond, and can give what you need, so that between the individual and the institutions, some positive relationship happens. When that happens, then societies become better.

One thing that I wanted to tell you, I don’t want employers to see people as discardable. I don’t want that. That is a big HR policy in my mind that should be fixed because in the last years, we feel like people are like, “Get in. Get out. Get in. Get out.” Why? Recycle them. They are smart. They can go with you, or at least have some plans with them so that they don’t know that you don’t care. One keyword is the attractiveness of employers for impact people. Show them genuine care. Show them in policies. Show them by listening to them, their personal lives, or their family lives. Try to work around that.

We understand that organizations have stakeholders and shareholders. They need to deliver that. We know that. We are compassionate with the CEO, but we want the CEO to be better than that, thinking also about his people or her people when they’ve set policies, bring his team, and say, “Let’s think harder. Let’s meet EPS, earnings per share, but let’s also meet some KPIs in our human care of our workforce.” That needs double work. We need to do that double work.

I don’t feel that’s the way it’s going, though. If anything, we’re going in the opposite direction. I have talked with others on the show and outside the show about the fact that my generation in the US grew up watching our parents get laid off. My parents are probably at the tail end of an era where you would potentially work your entire career with one company. In my parents’ case, neither of them did. We’ve had 40 years of layoffs. That started in the ’70s during the economic crisis that we had in the US in the ’70s. It’s become commonplace. As a result, the workers are saying, “You’re not loyal to me. I’m not going to be loyal to you.” The companies are going, “Wait a minute. How come you’re not loyal anymore?”

I feel like we’re in the middle of this big disloyalty battle. Workers are like, “I’m going to come. You’re going to promote me right away. I’m only going to stay a couple of years. I’m going to go do what I want to do for a little while, and then I’ll go back into the workforce.” I’m generalizing significantly here, but it feels like the workplace is getting less humane. I know you had the word humane in your banner for Sohaara. It’s talking about the humane workplace. We’re going in the other direction. I’m not sure I see that turning around anytime soon.

The Disloyalty Battle: Organizations Vs. The Individual’s Life Plan

I also have my other angles. When we say humane, we include the freelance economy. We include the entrepreneurial economy, the small business, because people have more options than before.

It is a good thing.

That’s why I say I care about the individual, because at the end of the day, when that individual knows what he or she is doing, their story will be good. Let’s look at 80 years of their life. It’s going to be good because they never gave their life to an organization. It’s not okay to give your life to an organization because an organization is going to be there. Whether you are in or out, they are okay, but you matter. That’s why I love that people own their lives and have a plan. That plan, a segment of it, will be that journey with that organization. When it’s not working, I have plan B. I can go. I can be okay.

Humane Future Of Work: It’s not okay to give your whole life to an organization. The organization will be fine with or without you—but you matter.

It’s a mindset shift, though, for a lot of people. Some people choose to participate in the gig economy to take contract roles as opposed to full-time employment because that’s the life they want. They deliberately choose. I’ve hired a lot of contractors during my work time. Some of them are doing it because they can’t find a full-time job. Some of them are doing it because that’s what they want. You’ve got both those groups. The people who are in the gig economy are doing these different ways of working because that is their choice. They’re deliberate about it. They understand the consequences of it.

They work through all of the nuances, like how to get health insurance and things like that. You get the people who are in a form of underemployment. “I’m on one of these platforms like Upwork or Fiverr because I can’t find a full-time job right now. I’d rather have ten hours of work a week than sit and do nothing. If I find a full-time job, I’m getting off that platform right away.” To me, those are very different situations with these alternate types of work. There are the people who are choosing it and the people who are pushed into it.

Gig Economy Nuances & The Need For Niche/Micro Skilling

That’s the recurring topic about agency and non-agency. The gig economy is not always positive. Some people knew how to make it work for their lives. Some are living it because they have to. The gig economy emerged. No university teaches you how to be successful in the gig economy. There’s none. There are MBAs that show you how to become a senior corporate decision maker. That was institutionalized and officialized. These are the niche upskilling that don’t exist. Even entrepreneurship, now you can see platforms like YC or others that are teaching some.

It’s only now that universities start to teach entrepreneurship at a very high level. It is not practical. As I told you, it’s not by type. It’s not the tools. It’s more of the concepts because universities move slowly, and also, they have a reputation to manage. They will not venture like platforms. Platforms will take risks. If it works, it works. People like me take the initiative. That’s why we are all useful in this landscape. The universities will give the established, the proven. Entrepreneurs like us will be experimental until it works, and then the model will be replicated somewhere else.

At the end of the day, people should benefit and get skilled and guided. Why? Life is short. If you’re taking ten years to teach them, then it’s too late. Lives happen, and you don’t want lives to be lost and wasted. That’s why we talk on the platform about dignity and fulfillment. There are two meanings. Dignity is income because I see a lot of poverty when I travel, a lack of income, and people with skills, but they don’t monetize the skills. They don’t know how.

Fulfillment is for ambitious people. They need to get the opportunity. There are a lot of entrepreneurs around the world who need guidance so that they can create very innovative solutions within their countries and serve their people. That’s what I want. When I think about fulfillment, these talented and ambitious individuals should have a chance wherever they are. The earth should give chances. It’s good for the planet because if we are entrepreneurs everywhere, problems will be solved everywhere. One country should not go to another country to solve. They can be self-sufficient if they can. This is idealistic, but we could get closer and closer.

A lot of people believe that the establishment of a middle class in a country’s economy is a breakthrough moment when you reach the point of having that group in the middle. They may not be at the top of the economic food chain, but they’re also not at the bottom anymore. The more that you can get people above that poverty line and into the middle class in any given economy, the less likely you are to have a whole bunch of social problems. As I’ve gotten older and hopefully a little bit wiser, having grown up in a country that is so strongly capitalistic in the United States, there are limits.

I don’t want to disavow people who’ve had fantastic success of the right to that fantastic success. At the same time, you need a floor. You’ve got to get people above the floor. If you can do that, and as we talked about earlier, we’re going to have an increasing need for this, given some of the changes that are going on in the world. Particularly technologically, you’ve got to keep doing that. Otherwise, you’d start a cycle that can be quite negative. The work you’re doing is important. For Sohaara, what are you aiming for? What do the next few years look like for you? What would you like to see in terms of your own success metrics?

We want to be a global platform. If you look at LinkedIn or AngelList, it’s emanating from the US, from Silicon Valley culture. Sohaara was born in Boston. It came from a diverse group, primarily women. My CTO and I are women. We’re bringing that vision of the world from the women’s perspective, from the immigrant perspective, and from the Type A woman’s perspective. We also have youth, so Gen Z is very much represented in the way we design the products. We are keen on the tech stack.

It is a social problem that we are tackling and the human development, but we are very much aware that the tech stack is a big enabler. We are using it internally. We are also building the culture to raise awareness about the tools. You get your ideas. It could be old school, could be new school, or could be anything, but you need the tools so that you can bring it to life. You can go with the fast speed that the AI era requires. With AI, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad. Good is access. A lot of people will access more knowledge, but the bad is that speed. A lot of people will be replaceable easily with all the answers we get from AI.

Let’s shift gears a little bit. I know you wanted to talk about the future of work and global job trends. Let’s talk a little bit more about what you see out there. We’ve talked about some of this already, but I’m curious to get your thoughts on other things that you see that are going to be big forces in the world of work over the next 5 to 10 years, maybe in developed markets and in emerging markets.

Key Global Job Trends & Economic Inclusion

Globally, I see something that will never go away with humanity, which is age and health. The healthcare industry will become more needed over time. Healthcare providers, any doctors, nurses, and admin in healthcare, will be needed a lot. The care economy, which is caring for the elderly and caring for the disabled, or both of them, the demographics are widening. AI cannot do that job. There should be some humans in some way in the value chain that will be enabling the services. The caregivers will be needed. The third one that I see, which is with all that’s happening in the race for AI, the power sector will become huge.

A lot of jobs are embedded in that industry. There will be a lot of need for operations people, finance people, designer people, and all around this power. Power sounds old, but now, it’s new. I come from the power industry. Data will be across the verticals needed. Data people will be needed as we go, and marketing. One skill that I want to highlight and stress is communication. Everyone in the workforce should be able to communicate their needs, their skills, and what they can contribute to the world. If they do that, they’re going to have a place in the workforce.

Social skills are going to become communication, collaboration, empathy, and emotional intelligence.

Sohaara started with those. People say, “Why are you fintech and you’re doing English and soft skills?” It is because they’re more needed than fintech. Another thing that I want to highlight, which brought me to Sohaara, is that I see financial inclusion, but it’s not economic inclusion. I spent ten years in fintech. Everybody is saying, “Inclusion and bank,” but bank what? You have $2 in the balance? That’s not financial inclusion. Yes, they have a bank account, but it doesn’t have money. How about we can help them to skill up so that they can become economically included? That’s what I call financial inclusion. It’s the one that brings with it economic inclusion. They need to make money so that they can put it in the wallet of their phone.

On paper, there’s more to spirit financial inclusion. It is truly about giving them access to the things that they need to manage their lives, not just having a bank account with $2 in it.

That led me to income. How do we create income in a wide spectrum, not just the talented and the techie? Let’s look at everybody. A lot of needs are there. We can help people around the world by skilling in all industries. By the way, my first project with the government was for women in Morocco who do hammam. Hammam is the spa. They train them on soft skills, digital skills, how to use their phone for work, and spa skills. Some of them have become entrepreneurs and have their own hammam. This is a very niche, but it’s wellness. That’s not replaceable with robots.

You’re also hitting on microfinance. It has certainly been a big focus of trying to create financial inclusion by having these small loans that people can use to start small businesses, hence the word micro. They then become a springboard for them to turn it into something more. Especially in the developing world, it has the potential to make a huge difference, particularly for women.

Microfinance calls for micro-skilling because when you give them the money, they need to know how to do it. They would love to grow and succeed in the startup or the venture, but they need the skills. They don’t know digital marketing. They don’t know financial management. They don’t know how to hire, so you need to give them those tools and skills so that the money is not put to waste.

How have you found being an entrepreneur? This is your first deep dive into this space of running your own business, right?

I started as an investor, but also a contributor, an active investor in oil and agriculture. I did that many years ago. It’s still going. I call it the classic economy. This is my first technology. It is high-stakes, high-aim, impact, and global. It aims at the human. Human development excites me a lot because when you tackle the human element, everything follows if you do it the right way. For me, capital is linked to GDP directly.

How has your experience been running the business? What has been easy for you? What has been hard for you?

Entrepreneurial Journey & Philosophical Advice

You asked me a very nice question, which is like, “You are a purpose-driven platform. How did it go? How hard was it to push?” They had a lot of examples and situations. Investors will say, “This is beautiful philosophy, but how are you making money?” I’m like, “You’re going to do this.” They are never convinced. They would be like, “Yes, we love her, but we’re not going to invest.” It took me two years. I spoke with a lot of investors. Finally, we got our pre-seed, so we are super excited. I have survived because I bootstrapped for two years, and then I convinced my brother to be my first Angel.

He treated some as equity and some as convertible notes. We’re going into an impact-focused Angel group, and I am getting the pre-seed. It’s a big day. It’s a good day. 2026 will be the market launch of Sohaara. We have done 90% of the development. Now, it’s just market and the right messaging, the right targeting, and doing the work. It’s time for the work to come out.

Let’s go back a little bit. One of the other things I wanted to hear a little bit about was your experience working in Saudi Arabia. How did that opportunity unfold for you? How did you come to be working there? How did you find the experience of being in Saudi Arabia?

I was working with UBS. My husband used to work with Accenture. The crisis of 2008, 2009, and 2010 hit. My husband looked for an opportunity in Riyadh in venture capital. We moved, and they moved, as the wife of the expat. I didn’t have a permit to work, just a companion of my husband. It was 2010. Look back at Saudi Arabia at that time. I landed in Saudi Arabia. I have finished the CFA Level One and my master’s. I’m working with UBS.

I can’t give up on that because I just started an exciting chapter of my life in corporate finance. I loved that field a lot. I am in human upskilling, but at that point, I enjoyed finance. I still do. I have a baby, ten months old. I’m like, “I’m not going to stay in the house.” I started to look online when I landed in Riyadh. I found a website called ExpatWives.com. I looked at the opportunities that are listed. I would talk about the freelancers. It was a freelance project to evaluate a company.

I evaluated that company for someone in Riyadh. As soon as I finished the work and submitted it, he called me. He said, “Who are you?” I said, “I’m Khadija. I landed in Riyadh.” He said, “Send me your CV.” I sent, then he called me, “This is awesome. This is a great CV. We’re looking for these skills, this profile, in Riyadh so badly, but you are a woman. I don’t know if they’re going to hire you for investment banking roles, but let me try. It could take two weeks or two years. I’ll get back.”

I said, “Okay.” I waited. Three days later, he called me. He said, “There is an investment bank that wants to interview you.” We started. From home, I landed in Riyadh. I took the phone. There was a series of interviews. It is seven. I got the job. It was a Senior Associate in Riyadh. I started there. I started to go to conferences talking about networking. I go to Kingdom Tower and Faisaliah Tower, the two highest towers in Riyadh.

We meet with corporate finance people, investment bankers, and attorneys. They build relationships. “I’m Khadija. I came from the US. I’m here now with my husband.” I started to build those relationships. The team in Riyadh starts to say, “You should be the CEO. You are doing the deal sourcing. You should be doing execution in the back.” I say, “I enjoy that. This is a break for me.” It’s easy and very close. That allowed me to build relationships. One of those relationships clicked. I started to deal with him at an investment bank in my job. He then offered me a partnership in the next one.

We moved to the next one. I was pregnant, CFA Level Two, and a lot of things. It’s exciting. It’s not easy, but it’s exciting. Life is about excitement, not ease. In any case, when I go back, it’s good memories in the middle of a lot of things. I became a partner in that investment bank. I built a relationship with the shareholders and the board of that bank. The CEO left. They didn’t ask for the CEO job. They asked me, “Do you want to be?” Yes.

They made the meeting. They looked at my CV and came with me, my personality, my love for the work, my love for the team, and a lot of passion and energy. I started. The CMA, the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia, called me, saying, “Congratulations, you are the first woman to be approved for this role.” I’m like, “Thank you. This is the Saudi dream.” People talk a lot about the American dream, but this is the Saudi dream. I did not plan it. That’s why I will ask everybody in your audience, please be open to life.

Please don’t make it scripted. Don’t make it hard. Flow with the move. I went there for my husband’s job. I became the CEO. I didn’t plan it. Get your positive energy out there to the world. The world will give you back. This is philosophical, but I want to pass it to our youth. I want to pass it to people in transition, in pivoting, and to entrepreneurs who are struggling to raise funding. Please believe and go. Do your part.

Do the homework. Love the other people. Give them real advice. Give them genuine help. Even the funding that we got now came to me several years ago. I was contributing to my daughter’s school. I was in the parent committee. They did a very good job on a project. The person was watching me. I came back to him to help me with fundraising. He was, “Yes, I do it for you. I saw how you work and your love.” It’s like an athlete. Take your job as an athlete and love it. You’re going to do it well.

It is that point you raised about this person coming back to you and being willing to help support you in your current business. Don’t burn bridges because you never know when somebody is going to come back into your life. I’ve certainly had that happen on multiple occasions. People I’ve worked with many years ago come back in. It speaks to the importance of maintaining good relationships and maintaining relationships, period, as opposed to letting them wither.

It’s LinkedIn. We talked about LinkedIn on a few occasions. It makes it so much easier. I think about my first job search. LinkedIn was in its infancy when I was leaving consulting and going into the corporate world. It was who do I know, making lists, and keeping things in spreadsheets. LinkedIn makes it so much easier to maintain those connections that you’ve built with people over the years.

You gave me an opportunity on LinkedIn because we are somewhat peers. What we want to do at Sohaara is be intent-focused on LinkedIn. It’s Zoom, more LinkedIn, but with more intention and more purpose in the whole experience. That’s what we are trying to do. We are stitching the holes. On LinkedIn, you swim alone and you figure it out. In Sohaara, you have an escort that will guide you in that navigation. I’m glad to hear that LinkedIn has been useful for you. We hope that Sohaara will be more useful for other people to come.

Last question, anything remaining that you want to leave our audience with about how to think about their lives, careers, and the future of work?

I want to highlight hard that you matter. The employee matters. Your life matters. Put that life as the bigger circle. Put work inside it, but anchor it. Work needs skills. That’s why you upskill all the time. You learn all the time, but for a project, don’t just skill up because you want to be smart. It’s good to be smart, but always have an end game for anything. That is the why. That is the purpose. Don’t just go without a direction. Put that North Star, and it will move.

It’s not going to be rigid because our lives move and we change as people, but always have that guidance around you because it’s going to make you happy, fulfilled, and full. You don’t feel like it’s grinding. A lot of people say, “I’m going to work because of the paycheck.” Some companies say, “Get S done.” I don’t like that. When you go to work, you get the compensation, but also get the fun of it, either growth, meaning, or impact. Always, when you don’t find joy in that work, go to the end of it. Like a power utility, think about how we’re going to be without lights.

You’re going to be happy. You are an engineer or in aviation. Think about the world without airplanes and be happy. Finance, banker, always numbers, it gets dry. Think about an entrepreneur without money and without a bank, and how their life will be. Think about developing nations without a strong banking system. How many missed opportunities are there because the banking system is not strong? Think about that.

Go to the end and find the meaningful impact in the company you work for or your work, and how it facilitates a bigger impact. That will give you some good feelings inside you. Keep always moving forward. Enjoy this. As you do that, you’re not going to fall into all the negative words that we hear, depression, meaningless, all that. You’re going to feel good. That is the end of it. You feel good that you’re doing a job that’s useful.

Best of luck to you and your launch that is coming with Sohaara.

Thank you very much, J.R. Thank you for the opportunity and for passing these messages. I hope that some people who need them hear them.

Me, too. Take care.

Thank you. Take care.

—

Thanks to Khadija for joining me to discuss her company, Sohaara, her thoughts on the future of work, her experiences as a leader and entrepreneur, and her time working in Saudi Arabia. As a reminder, our show is brought to you by PathWise.io. If you’re ready to take control of your career, join the PathWise community. Basic membership is free. You can also sign up on the website for our newsletter. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Thanks. Have a great day.

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About Khadija Khartit

Khadija Khartit has had a steady focus on enabling professionals and entrepreneurs with access to jobs, upskilling in high-demand fields, and providing practical tools to drive real growth – efforts that directly impact both dignity and fulfillment in people’s work lives.

Currently the founder of Sohaara, her background spans 27 years in strategy and investments with organizations such as Shell and UBS, plus a stint as the first woman CEO of an investment bank in Saudi Arabia. These experiences, combined with her work at the intersection of technology, human development, and global employment, have given her a perspective on not just what makes careers flourish, but also how workplace solutions can unlock opportunity for everyone.