Mohamad Ballout

Mohamad Ballout is a Lebanese entrepreneur and one of the most influential figures in the Middle East's food-tech and F&B landscape. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Kitopi, he has built one of the region's most prominent unicorns — a multi-brand restaurant platform that today operates over 100 brands across five markets.

Born and raised in Dubai as a third-culture kid, Ballout's entrepreneurial journey began early, influenced by his family's background in the food and trading industry. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Warwick and a Master of Science in Management from Imperial College London.

His first major venture came in 2007. Before his venture into the food-tech industry, Ballout co-founded the BMB Group in 2007, a confectionery and healthy snacks manufacturer. Under his leadership, BMB Group grew significantly, scaling across over 30 international markets and establishing one of the first fully automated ethnic sweets manufacturing units in the region. He successfully exited the business in 2016 after selling his shares to a private equity group. During this period, he and his BMB co-founders were also selected by Endeavor in 2016, a recognition reserved for high-impact entrepreneurs.

In January 2018, Ballout co-founded Kitopi alongside Saman Darkan, Bader Ataya, and Andy Arenas. The company was established to address inefficiencies in the food and beverage delivery market by providing a tech-enabled, multi-brand restaurant ecosystem. Under Ballout's direction, Kitopi experienced exponential growth, evolving from a cloud kitchen startup into a global food-tech conglomerate with an engineering hub in Poland, a robotics hub in Denmark, and operations across the Middle East. A defining milestone in his leadership occurred in 2021, when he spearheaded a $415 million Series C funding round led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, propelling Kitopi to unicorn status.

Under his leadership, Kitopi has executed an aggressive M&A strategy. One of its most notable achievements was the acquisition of AWJ, a prominent F&B group behind some of the Middle East's most popular dine-in brands, including Operation Falafel, Catch 22, Awani, and SushiDo. This acquisition, one of the largest in the region's F&B sector, is part of a series of 18 acquisitions that Kitopi has executed in recent years.

The company now operates over 100 brands with a workforce of more than 5,000 employees across 200 locations in five markets: KSA, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Additionally, Kitopi boasts an engineering hub in Krakow, Poland, a global customer experience center in Dubai, and a robotics hub in Odense, Denmark.

Ballout is widely respected for his leadership philosophy centered on agency, accountability, and inclusive culture-building — frequently citing Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech as a guiding principle. He is a regular speaker at regional business forums and a recognized voice on technology-enabled F&B transformation.