Overview

Gender

female

Investor Type

Investment Partner

Noor Sweid leads investments at The Dubai Future Foundation, focusing on technology and innovation. Prior to this position, Noor was a Managing Partner at Leap Ventures, a growth-stage venture capital firm based out of Dubai and Beirut. With experience as a biotechnology and pharmaceutical strategy consultant in the US, and moving back to the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region in 2005, Noor joined her family business, Depa. Implementing best-practice corporate governance and enabling the scaling of the business tenfold in three years, Noor then led the IPO for the company in 2008 on the NASDAQ Dubai and the London Stock Exchange. In her eight year tenure at Depa, Noor’s involvement ranged from the strategic and growth planning and implementation, to application of corporate governance, the execution of a private placement and an IPO, cross-border acquisitions, regulatory compliance, and investor relations.

During this time, Noor also founded ZenYoga, the first yoga and pilates studio in MENA. ZenYoga grew to become the largest chain of wellness studios in the Middle East, providing space and instruction for over a thousand students to practice yoga weekly, as well as facilities providing international teacher training and qualification leading to improved health and wellness in the region. Noor exited ZenYoga in early 2014 through sale to a private equity firm.

These combined experiences have led Noor to focus in spaces of corporate governance and entrepreneurship. She is a Director-in-Residence for the Corporate Governance department at INSEAD where she teaches in the Value Creation for Owners and Directors program. She also serves as a Director for Endeavor UAE, Collegiate American School in Dubai, Sisters Lounges, Ellevate, the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan-Arab, and Nabbesh.

Noor has been named in the Arabian Business 100 Most Powerful Arab Women list three times and has been profiled on the covers of Forbes Middle East, Entrepreneur Middle East, and Arabian Business magazines. Noor holds bachelors’ degrees in Finance and Economics from Boston College as well as an MBA from MIT Sloan.