#555 From Silicon Valley to MENA Scale: Khaled Nazif on Loyalty, Leadership, and Building DSquares

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, I sit down with Khaled Nazif, COO of DSquares, one of the most influential yet quietly powerful enterprise loyalty platforms in the MENA region. Khaled shares his journey from Stanford and Silicon Valley back to the region, where he helped scale DSquares into a 150M+ end-user platform serving banks, telcos, governments, and large enterprises across 16 countries. We go deep into what loyalty really means today, why most companies still misunderstand it, how culture breaks at scale if you are not intentional, and what founders in emerging markets can learn from Silicon Valley without copying it blindly. This is a conversation about scale, systems, leadership, and long-term thinking. ⸻ 👤 About the Guest Khaled Nazif is the Chief Operating Officer at DSquares, a leading white-labeled loyalty and engagement platform powering some of the largest enterprises and government programs across MENA and Africa. Before returning to the region, Khaled spent nearly a decade in Silicon Valley, earning his MBA from Stanford, founding a B2B SaaS startup, and later working at Zendesk. He brings a rare blend of operator discipline, startup grit, and enterprise execution to scaling regional platforms. https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalednazif/ ⸻ 🧠 Key Takeaways • Why loyalty is misunderstood and often wrongly treated as a cost center • How DSquares scaled without VC hype and stayed bootstrapped for 13 years • What it really means to move from a “pirate” startup culture to a “navy” scale-up • Why government loyalty programs are not an oxymoron • The importance of productization when scaling enterprise platforms • How culture breaks after ~150 people and what leaders must do proactively • What MENA founders can learn from Silicon Valley and what they should ignore • Why failure must be normalized for ecosystems to truly mature ⸻ 🎯 What You Will Learn • How to scale enterprise platforms across multiple countries and cultures • How loyalty, data, and behavior change intersect at scale • Why leadership transitions matter more than founder heroics • How to think long-term when building in emerging markets • Why execution discipline beats hype cycles every time ⸻ ⏱ Episode Highlights & Timestamps 00:00 – Welcome and introduction 02:00 – Khaled’s journey from Stanford to Silicon Valley 05:30 – What DSquares really does and why most people don’t know it 09:00 – Scaling loyalty across banks, telcos, and governments 13:30 – Loyalty vs transactions: what most companies get wrong 18:00 – Using data and gamification to influence behavior 23:00 – Loyalty as a revenue driver, not a cost center 27:30 – Bootstrapping DSquares and resisting VC pressure 33:00 – Replacing a founder and scaling leadership responsibly 38:30 – The 150-employee culture breaking point 45:00 – Pirate vs Navy mindset and operational maturity 51:00 – Silicon Valley lessons that actually work in MENA 57:00 – Failure, risk-taking, and ecosystem maturity 01:03:00 – Advice for founders building in emerging markets 01:08:00 – Closing thoughts and where to connect with Khaled ⸻ 🔗 Resources & Mentions • DSquares – Enterprise Loyalty & Engagement Platform : https://dsquares.com/ • Book referenced: Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman