Meet Sameer Abdi is the Managing Director of Innovura Partners, a company formed to advise entrepreneurs and family businesses on issues related to capital decision making. These include cash flow management, balance sheet restructuring, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions and optimizing the CFO function. Prior to Innovura, Sameer was a Senior Partner at EY (Ernst & Young) specializing in corporate finance, financial restructuring and mergers & acquisitions during his 23 years at the firm. He has been an Endeavor Mentor for 1 year.
Sameer Abdi, Endeavor Mentor
What has been your most memorable Endeavor experience?
My most memorable experience with Endeavor since I joined was the ScaleUp Summit organized on September 25th, 2020. The collection of speakers and entrepreneurs was truly impressive. It was an eye-opener in terms of the quality of the network, advice and mentorship that Endeavor brings to entrepreneurs globally and made me feel proud and excited about being a part of it. Being an Endeavor Mentor is truly an honor and a privilege.
What is something you are currently working on that you are proud of?
At present, I am delivering a coaching and consulting program to help entrepreneurs develop a roadmap to raising and managing capital. I have delivered this for a number of start-up and scale-up enterprises in the US and Middle East with excellent feedback and results. My proudest moments are when I can move the mindset of an entrepreneur from doubt to absolute confidence as evidenced by their feedback.
What is the most common challenge you see the entrepreneurs facing?
I believe that entrepreneurs face two challenges: firstly, an existential one on whether to ‘pivot’ or ‘stay the course’. Second, improving their cash management to a point where they have clarity, predictability and flexibility on capital decisions. To me both can be dealt with a combination of mentorship, regular coaching and creating resilient processes to aid decision making.