Harvard Business Review Interview: How does CE Creates build companies ready to compete from day one?

CE Creates, Crescent Enterprises’ venture studio, is the company’s dedicated venture-building arm, focused on building globally competitive ventures from the United Arab Emirates.

In this interview with Harvard Business Review (HBR), Rakhil Fernando (RF), Head of CE Creates, discussed the studio’s strategy, his management philosophy and his vision for sustainable success. He also spoke about balancing growth with operational efficiency, as well as the key lessons and challenges CE Creates has encountered in building an integrated venture ecosystem.

HBR: Tell us about CE Creates. What are its vision and objectives?

RF: CE Creates aims to identify large structural problems in the markets it serves, build companies from the ground up to solve those problems and support their entrepreneurs with the capital and operating expertise to grow. The studio focuses on mobility, food, logistics, fintech, health and emerging technologies.

Crescent Enterprises itself has been operating for two decades. Headquartered in the UAE, it has a global presence across 24 countries, 57 subsidiaries and more than 1,600 employees. It has been an active investor, partner, and operator of some of the region’s greatest success stories across sectors and growth stages. Crescent Enterprises has recently committed $68 million to scale CE Creates given the compelling alignment of strategic positioning and market opportunity. With several ventures under development, including AI systems for pet care and smart logistics tools, the studio currently has four flagship ventures:

• ION, an EV charging infrastructure joint venture with BEEAH Group.
• Kava & Chai, our speciality coffee chain joint venture with Kitopi, currently undergoing a flagship relaunch at Mall of the Emirates.
• BreakBread, a curated dining experiences platform.
• HasanaH, a Shari’ah-compliant global giving platform operating across more than 150 countries.

Alongside these operating ventures, two further ventures are moving through launch and validation this year:

• CAMI, an AI operating system for pet care businesses, soon to go live.
• Freightly, an AI platform for freight forwarders, currently open for early sign-ups and in validation with Momentum Logistics as design partner.

How does the CE Creates model differ from traditional incubators?
CE Creates differs from traditional incubators, which focus on training, mentorship and limited funding, by offering a complete company building model that includes capital, operating support, partnerships, talent acquisition and go-to-market acceleration.

CE Creates builds each venture with a trusted founder-CEO, based on prior research and validated market needs, while providing long-term investment and support beyond the early stages. This makes it a true co-founder. Its model also combines building companies with backing them, enabling ventures to benefit from both expertise and innovation.

What is your management philosophy? What strategy does it rest on? To what extent has operational agility become a core factor in your decisions?
My management philosophy is centred on an operator-first principle. Each venture is led by a founder with direct experience in the target sector, based on the belief that operator depth is one of the most important drivers of start-up success. This philosophy is also rooted in my own operating experience. I led Daraz Sri Lanka’s 22-fold growth, founded Koko BNPL across South Asia within the Alibaba ecosystem and served as CEO of Yabi.

CE Creates makes a limited number of carefully considered investments in sectors where it has a competitive advantage through Crescent Enterprises’ presence, network and specialised expertise.

The studio also places operational agility, speed of adaptation to the market and responsiveness to customers at the heart of its investment decisions, treating them as key indicators of sustainable success.

Tell us how you apply your ‘Build and Back’ philosophy. What are the main examples that reflect the success of this approach?

We originate venture concepts in-house, based on structural problems we observe across Crescent’s operating footprint and the wider economy. We then recruit a founder-CEO, fund the build, and co-build the early team. This can mean highly prioritizing the recruitment phase – for example, for CAMI, the AI operating system for pet care businesses we are building, we have recruited as founder-CEO the former Fresha General Manager who scaled that platform to record monetisation in our region. Equally, identifying structural problems leads to tightly focused solutions solutions. By example, Freightly, the AI platform for freight forwarders, we are developing is built around the validated thesis that in this region 60 percent of participants in this particular niche sector still are overly reliant on Excel and WhatsApp, yet underserved by appropriate tools.

Co-investing in ventures led by exceptional founders who are solving problems we also have conviction on finds real success where our operating support, regional network, and patient capital can materially accelerate their prospects. Kava & Chai, our specialty coffee chain joint venture with Kitopi, is currently undergoing a flagship relaunch at Mall of the Emirates, reflecting how we are optimising both of our platform strengths to drive sector cut through. ION, our EV charging joint venture with BEEAH Group, launched the region’s first unified EV charging platform and digital ecosystem and its accelerating rollout has been boosted by strategic partnership agreements with regional transport authorities.

What criteria do you use when selecting the markets you expand into? Do you believe AI will change the way business is conducted?

We select markets based on the presence of a real problem worth solving, a competitive advantage, a path to sustainable commercial scale and the potential to expand regionally and globally. We also place importance on having a founder or CEO with experience in the target sector. We see significant opportunity in fragmented sectors with low or slow technology adoption.

As for AI, it will fundamentally transform the business environment by automating the operating processes of services businesses, such as pricing, scheduling, invoicing and customer service. AI will also enable the emergence of new business categories that were previously not economically viable, such as dynamic insurance, personalised services, intelligent SME financing and logistics management.

Which sectors do you believe will lead future growth? How important is investment in green infrastructure and sustainable mobility?

There are 5 key sectors that will lead growth over the next decade:

1. AI-enabled services and operations infrastructure for SMEs.
2. Mobility and clean energy infrastructure.
3. Health products.
4. Islamic fintech and Shari’ah-compliant giving platforms.
5. Logistics and trade automation.

Green infrastructure has become one of the broadest areas of economic value creation, driven by regulatory direction, including the UAE’s commitment to climate neutrality, and the continuous improvement of its economic viability.

In sustainable mobility, EV adoption in the UAE is accelerating faster than other comparable markets. Growth opportunities also extend to areas including carbon emissions management infrastructure, sustainable agriculture technologies and sustainable food and beverage.

What were the main challenges the company faces, and how do you overcome them?

The biggest challenge is balancing the speed of company building with the need to maintain quality. We therefore adopt a rigorous validation mechanism to assess venture viability before committing significant investment.

We also face difficulty attracting deep expertise in target sectors. In response, we expanded our recruiting networks regionally and globally, and allocated sufficient time to the selection process to ensure we found the right talent.

Another challenge is achieving capital efficiency amid rising talent acquisition costs. We address this through a lean operating model, by leveraging Crescent Enterprises’ infrastructure and expertise, and by focusing on strong sectors.

Building credibility is also an important challenge for a relatively young studio. We overcome this by anchoring every venture in clear strategic partnerships, joint ventures with recognised entities, and executive leaders with deep experience and a strong reputation in the market.

Tell us about responsible investment, and how does it influence the way you assess investment opportunities?

Responsible investment answers 3 essential questions:

1. Does this company solve a real and important problem in the markets we serve?
2. Does the business model align the interests of founders, operators, customers and society?
3. Are we building a venture that we will be proud to scale and grow 10 years from now?

Responsible investment also extends to governance and company management, including regular independent reviews of impact indicators and achieved outcomes, as well as external advisory input.

In my view, responsibility is a driver of stronger and more sustainable business models, and contributes to improving long-term economic viability.

ION launched its EV infrastructure business before the current global boom. What gave you the conviction that this field would become central?

ION launched in 2018, and our conviction was based on 3 main factors:

1. Our conviction that essential infrastructure must precede mass adoption of technology.
2. The second factor was the operating model itself. ION combined Crescent Enterprises’ operational and commercial capabilities with BEEAH Group’s deep expertise in sustainability and environmental infrastructure, creating a joint venture capable of moving at a faster pace.
3. The third was our view of the convergence point between infrastructure and technology. EV charging ventures at the time focused either on infrastructure or on software alone, but we believed the most successful model would be one that combined both.

What advice would you give business leaders on building companies capable of enduring over the long term and achieving sustainable growth?

I would advise them to build companies focused on endurance. Specialised operating expertise within the management team is the most important factor in achieving this, and priority should be given to recruiting experienced leaders.

Early financial discipline is also fundamental to growth, as strong economic models are more capable of enduring. It is also important to build strong institutional partnerships with regulators and major companies, because these relationships support expansion.

Finally, companies must take responsibility for their economic and social impact. The trust a venture earns gives it a greater ability to withstand challenges. Ultimately, a strong reputation and accumulated trust remain among the most important assets that ensure a company’s continuity.