I have seen reinvention from three sides: as an investor, an operator and a person who had to do it herself.
I began my private equity career during the global financial crisis. Over the next decade, I evaluated hundreds of companies and worked alongside leadership teams navigating market cycles, industry shifts and changing sources of growth.
I saw that disruption rarely arrives all at once. The signals often appear much earlier. Customer needs begin to shift. A proven growth model starts losing momentum. New technologies change what is possible. Expertise that once created an advantage can make it harder to question the assumptions behind yesterday’s success.
I later joined Apple during COVID, as store closures, supply constraints and rapidly changing customer behaviors were reshaping how technology was bought, sold and used. At the same time, Apple was beginning one of the most consequential reinventions in the history of the Mac: the transition to Apple silicon.
Leading worldwide sales strategy and business planning for Mac and iPad during this period taught me what strategic reinvention requires from the inside. Leaders must make decisions with incomplete information, protect the strength of the core business and create new possibilities at the same time.
The first time, crisis forced me to reinvent. The second time, I did it before it had to.
Applying the Lesson to My Own Career
For years, I understood these principles professionally without applying them personally.
By 30, I had become a Director at one of Europe’s largest private equity firms, helped build its New York office and created the career I had worked toward for a decade. Then several foundations of that life collapsed at once. My first reinvention was not a bold, proactive choice. Crisis finally made continuing impossible.
That reinvention took me to Stanford Graduate School of Business and then to Apple. But several years later, I recognized a quieter signal. Nothing was dramatically wrong. I was successful, supported and still learning. Yet I could no longer assume that the path that had brought me there was the right one for what I wanted to build next.
This time, I did not wait for another breakdown to give me permission. While still at Apple, I tested new possibilities through teaching, coaching, workshops and speaking. I gathered evidence, developed a transition plan and built a bridge into my next chapter.
That contrast became the foundation of my work today. Strategic reinvention is not about reacting faster once a crisis arrives. It is the ability to recognize change early, question a playbook that may still be producing results and make deliberate, evidence-based moves while change is still a choice.
It also shaped the Inside-Out Model®, my approach to helping people and organizations build the individual judgment, behaviors and actions that make reinvention possible.
More about me
What you may find on LinkedIn :
I was born and raised in Casablanca and left Morocco at 17 to study in Paris. I earned two master’s degrees in finance from Paris Dauphine University and began my career in private equity.
I spent eight years in Ardian’s Paris office before moving to New York to help expand the firm’s US investment activity. After a decade in private equity, I earned my Masters from Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Robert Joss Scholar and joined Apple, where I led worldwide sales strategy and business planning for Mac and iPad.
Today, I advise, educate and speak on strategic reinvention. I have trained more than 10,000 leaders across technology, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, education and other industries. I also guest lecture at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford d.school.
In 2025, I was named a Silicon Valley Woman of Influence. In 2024, I received the Women in Tech Network Speaker of the Year award and was recognized by Morocco’s 40 Under 40 and the Arab America Foundation’s 40 Under 40.
What you may not find on LinkedIn :
I have lived and worked across three continents, from Africa to Europe and the United States, and built chapters of my life in five very different cities and ecosystems. Speaking four languages has taught me that there is rarely only one way to understand a problem, communicate an idea or create change.
I started dancing at four and have practiced for more than 20 years. I never imagined those years of performance would prepare me for the work I do today. Now, I am on stage almost every month, from intimate executive sessions to conferences of more than 2,000 people. Dance taught me how to read a room, communicate beyond words and combine discipline with presence.
My TEDx talk, What Your Body Knows and Mind Ignores, explores a related lesson: the body does not replace logic or evidence, but it can reveal information our analytical minds overlook.
After 15 years in male-dominated fields, advancing women’s leadership and economic empowerment has become central to my work. As Treasurer and Board Member of Resonate Workshops, I support programs equipping women and girls in East Africa to lead change in their communities.
Reinvention taught me that we do not lose what we have built. Our experiences become assets for the next chapter, sometimes in ways we could never have predicted.
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