For the second year in a row, Muxlim CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry was named among the world’s “500 Most Influential Muslims” by the Royal Islamic Strategic Centre and Georgetown University. The publication is an annual series that provides a window into the movers and shakers of the Muslim world. It highlights people who are influential as Muslims, that is, people whose influence is derived from their practice of Islam or from the fact that they are Muslim. It gives valuable insight into the different ways that Muslims impact the world, and also shows the diversity of how people are living as Muslims today.

For the full list, click here.

Chief Executive Magazine has picked a dozen Global Business Leaders, based on their achievements and their potential to become world’s top business leaders in the coming years. Along with Muxlim CEO, the list includes a number of highly dynamic and influential global innovators from companies such as Intel, Procter & Gamble, UPS and Olympus.

Name & Title: Mohamed El-Fatatry, Founder and CEO

Age: 25

Country: Finland

Company & Location: Muxlim, Helsinki

Career Maker: The Egyptian born entrepreneur established what has become the largest online lifestyle hub for Muslims worldwide, already reaching a total of 10 million people a year, about one-quarter in the U.S. Content about food and finance dominate, and El-Fatatry is expanding heavily into a third major content element: fun. He’s also making English-language Muxlim the major source of Muslim- market data for marketers. And, of course, El-Fatatry is battling stereotypes. “The majority of Muslims around the world are just regular folks who have iPhones and watch America’s Got Talent,” he says.

Professional Trajectory: A technogeek who grew up in the United Arab Emirates, El-Fatatry was teaching web development to 40-year-old businesspeople when he was just 16. Then he visited Finland and, inspired by the success of Nokia, moved there.

Sage and Soothsayer: El-Fatatry learned “at a very young age the fact that technology can really empower individuals.” He did it by surfing the web at the office of his newspaper-editor father, learning the results of World Wrestling Federation matches in the U.S., and then betting his schoolmates on the matches, which were televised locally a season later.

In the Steps of the Maestro: A fan of classical music and ballet, last year El-Fatatry went to Austria to shadow Mozart. “I actually attended the concert hall where he and his father and brother spent most of their evenings.

To read the full article click here.

Muxlim CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry delivered a keynote about “Marketing Innovations in the Global Muslim Market” at the Inaugural Oxford Global Islamic and Branding Forum which was held between 25-27^th July in Oxford, UK. It’s aim was to bring Muslim and non-Muslim leaders,companies and thinkers together to develop through discussion better business relationships, to create greater understanding and to learn from each other about the nature of Muslim majority and minority markets.

Other speakers included:

The Honourable Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia;

H.E. Shaukat Aziz, former Prime Minister of Pakistan;

Lord Nazir Ahmed, Life Peer of the House of Lords of the UK Parliament;

Mr Miles Young, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide;

Rafi-uddin Shikoh, CEO, The Dinar Standard;

Tan Sri Dato’ H. Muhammad-Ali, President &

CEO, Johor Corporation and many other distinguished figures.

Here is the portion of the “Young, connected and Muslim” article :

Muslim consumers are a growing, influential and extremely loyal group, making them a desirable market for mainstream brands. But reaching them requires more than launching Sharia-compliant products. Making inroads to this sector takes deep understanding of the values of this community and building the brand from there.

Mohamed El-Fatatry, founder of integrated marketing agency Muxlim, says the Muslim consumer is predicted to account for 30% of the world’s population by 2025. As such, ensuring these consumers are spending could help nations repair some of the damage of the recent recession.

“The financial crisis has accelerated the need for finding new markets,” says El-Fatatry.

But brands can’t simply chase the Islamic pound without genuinely understanding what Muslim consumers want, he says, adding: “You have to go after people in their own language and think about that consumer’s needs.”

Continue to the article: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/cover-stories/young-connected-and-muslim/3014934.article

The first Saudi Brand and Communication Summit was held on June 5-8 in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it touched such key issues as ‘Building an Online Brand’, ‘Differentiating a Brand’, ‘Customer as Brand Advocate’ and ‘Successful Communication Channels’ among others. Other topics which were discussed at the summit were the branding in the new media world, building an online brand and the importance of social media which serves as a platform to reach different level of audiences.

Speakers were both local and international: Vahid Mehrinfar, Patrick Jephson, former private secretary, HRH Diana, Princess of Wales and our own CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry, among many others participated in the summit.

”Building solid relationships and engagement with customers using tools such as new media is becoming increasingly important. The global financial crisis has brought analytics and data into the spotlight, which is now deemed as critical components of branding campaigns. However, a wholesome integrated strategy is necessary to build brand awareness on all fronts,” said Mohamed in an interview for TradeArabia News Service regarding to the summit in Riyadh.

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/newsdetails.asp?Sn=MEDIA&artid=180859

Muxlim CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry participates in the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington D.C. during April 26-28. The aim of the Summit is to bring together successful business and social entrepreneurs from different countries, venture capitalists, development bankers and other business experts to discuss ideas and share experiences with a view toward creating support networks that will help promote development in the Muslim world.

The President of the Republic of Finland, Tarja Halonen, presented the 2009 Internationalization Awards to the Muxlim community. The objective of the Internationalization Awards is to encourage businesses to operate in an international environment and to boost their ability to develop and adopt new operating models. The 2009 Internationalization Awards were presented today in Helsinki.

http://presidentti.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=185462&nodeid=41412&culture=fi-FI

TechCrunch, the top global tech blog recently interviewed Muxlim CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry.

Robin Wauters from TechCrunch writes: Having spent the past couple of days in Finland visiting some of the country’s most interesting startups, the omnipresent Nokia and attending the great MindTrek conference, I’m starting to get some insight in the Finnish tech scene. In short: it’s relatively tiny but surprisingly fascinating.

Muxlim, a media company that is all about ‘enhancing the Muslim lifestyle’. Based out of Helsinki, Muxlim operates a network of websites and services geared towards Muslims from across the globe, a seriously underrated and underserved audience. If you consider the fact that there are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims on the planet, of which nearly 150 million can be found online, it amazes me that there aren’t more companies who target this vast amount of eyeballs (and wallets) whether it’s from a publisher or an advertisers’ perspective. No wonder Muxlim, being laser-focused on becoming the number one destination for Muslims to gather and share information, multimedia and more, is growing…

Read more:

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/10/02/a-conversation-with-muxlim-ceo-mohamed-el-fatatry-video/

Social Media Marketing ME interviewed Mohamed El-Fatatry about Social Media Marketing and the story of Muxlim. Here is the interview:

By Guest Blogger Rafi-uddin Shikoh from Dinar Standard
Posted October 6th, 2009

A while ago, as I was going through my subscribed Time magazine, I was reminded of marketing sophistication in action. I noticed that the Ford Taurus advertisement on the back of my copy was different from another copy of Time magazine (same Edition) that was subscribed by a female colleague. Hers had a female in the ad (mine had no person) and the car was of a different color. Ford obviously was trying to appeal to us differently. Ford does more than customize its marketing communications as it also develops its products for various segments (rugged trucks, Mustang sports car, family mini-vans etc.)

America has indeed been the world’s most sophisticated consumer market and so no wonder its marketers are the most innovative. From major brands such as Ford, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Disney, Apple, Citibank to smaller emerging brands, the level of market segmentation and target marketing in this vast/ diverse market is incredible. Customers are communicated and products customized based on needs that are categorized by demographic (gender, age, income, education, life-stage, ethnicity), psychographic (values, personality, lifestyles, hobbies), and behavioral (readiness, attitude, usage patterns, etc.) segmentations.

Faith-based marketing precedents

Among the various segmentations, faith-based marketing in the US has undoubtedly been another way to better reach and standout with large segments of audiences. Christian magazines today reach over 100 million Christian readers throughout the US every day (National Mail Order Association, 2008). Marketers from all categories of products and services advertise here and find this an effective way to build brand loyalty. A point to note here is that these publications do make exceptions not allowing advertising for sex, gambling, alcoholic beverages, or tobacco products. In addition to marketing messaging to reach this segment, there’s also an over $4.2 billion market (EPM Communication, 2004) of products specifically geared to the Christian market (books, gift items, music, school curricula, etc.)

Similarly, the market for ‘kosher’ food products in the US is estimated at more than $9 billion catering to Jewish faith based needs.

There are an estimated 5-6 million Americans of Jewish faith. According to the US Bureau of Census (2005), 40% of US grocery sales were certified kosher.  Also, the average number of kosher products in American supermarkets is 17,000 and 40% of the retail food products sold in the US today bear some type of kosher certification. Today, the kosher market has a much wider appeal than just for American Jews and is not limited to food products only. According to data compiled by Integrated Marketing Communications, consumers spent approximately $165 billion for kosher products in 2003.

American Muslim consumers: the un-tapped potential

Today there is a large and growing population of American Muslims who also provide marketers – mainstream and niche – tremendous opportunities. Opportunities that are, 1) related to better accessing them through right media, custom messaging and services, and 2) delivering products and services unique to their needs.

Estimates of the American Muslim population vary widely from 2 million to 7 million, with Muslims active in all walks of American society as doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, educators, athletes, and musicians. A 2007 JWT (major marketing agency) study showed that Muslim Americans spend about $170 billion on consumer products and estimated that this figure is expected to grow rapidly as the population expands and younger Muslims start working. Also, the 2007 Pew survey found that Muslim Americans generally mirror the U.S. public in education and income levels, with immigrant Muslims slightly more affluent and better educated than native-born Muslims. Given the above, it would seem logical that both mainstream and niche marketers are including the American Muslim segment in their marketing mix or business plans. Estimates of the American Muslim population vary widely from 2 million to 7 million, with Muslims active in all walks of American society as doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, educators, athletes, and musicians. A 2007 JWT (major marketing agency) study showed that Muslim Americans spend about $170 billion on consumer products and estimated that this figure is expected to grow rapidly as the population expands and younger Muslims start working. Also, the 2007 Pew survey found that Muslim Americans generally mirror the U.S. public in education and income levels, with immigrant Muslims slightly more affluent and better educated than native-born Muslims.

Given the above, it would seem logical that both mainstream and niche marketers are including the American Muslim segment in their marketing mix or business plans.

There is indeed a growing ‘Halal’ product category (similar to kosher – products in compliance with Muslim religious laws) emerging in the US covering Halal food deli’s, finance, clothing, media etc. Walk the streets of New York city (Manhattan) and you will find a Halal food stall on every other corner. ‘Halal’ mortgage offerings are now maturing. Amana Mutual Fund (managed based on Islamic rules of non-interest bearing, ethical investments) has even become a recognized quality fund amongst all US funds.

However, conspicuously missing are main-stream American consumer brands focus on this segment. No major brand has effectively targeted this segment in a consistent way. It’s surprising that the 2007 JWT study that substantiated the size and potential of this market hasn’t yet drawn any attention from major marketers. An AdvertisingAge, November 2008 article, (magazine read by major US marketers) aptly asked “It’s a $170 Billion Market, Why Aren’t You Targeting It?”

2009 American Muslim Consumer Conference – Another look

Perhaps the American Muslim market had been hard to reach (given its fragmentation and diversity), perhaps the right media channels weren’t available, perhaps the post-9/11 environment made it difficult for main-stream marketers to pursue it. Much of this however is changing – in an environment of economic crisis, the growing potential of American Muslim consumers is getting harder to ignore; a variety of media channels to access this market are maturing; and the post 9/11 environment of mass-media negative perceptions of Muslims is fading.

An upcoming conference, American Muslim Consumer Conference (AMCC), October 31st, 2009 in New Brunswick, NJ, USA is set to present this changing environment and the new market opportunity. This event is bound to provide marketers with another convincing look at this market.

The event has a great lineup of speakers of marketers, analysts, and experienced Muslim market entrepreneurs who will cover American Muslim markets scope, trends and opportunities, and ways to effectively reach them.

In an economic environment where any new idea or opportunity is worth evaluating, this market is bound to provide invaluable opportunities for both main-stream marketers and niche Halal market entrepreneurs. It’s the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’ for US marketers, one which they will increasingly run into. The question is: who are the few who will creatively and effectively ride it?

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Note: DinarStandard is a Knowledge Partner and presenter at the American Muslim Consumer Conference. DinarStandard and a Muxlim Partner (http://my.muxlim.com/DinarStandard/)  Keep up with their posts on Muxlim or visit http://www.dinarstandard.com/.

Muxlim is the exclusive headline sponsor and social media partner of the American Muslim Consumer Conference.