In this episode of Confessions of a Successful Leader, Andrew Tallents sits down with Mohamed Samir, CEO of Halwani Brothers, a leading Saudi food business, and a thirty year veteran of Procter & Gamble.

Mohamed reflects on a childhood spent travelling the world from just forty days old, the handwritten vision he wrote for himself in 1991 and still keeps today, and the principles that carried him from his first country manager role at twenty nine through to the top of a multinational career.

He talks candidly about the tension between financial freedom and career progression, the moment a boss chose to protect him over a wrong number in a room full of senior leaders, and why he believes the real test of leadership is what people say about you when you are not in the room.

This is a conversation about vision, principle and the quiet decisions that shape a career across four decades, from a leader who still asks himself one simple question every morning: do I look forward to going to work?

Guest bio

Mohamed Samir spent almost three decades with Procter & Gamble across multiple international markets before moving into regional FMCG leadership and a period of board and advisory work. He is now CEO of Halwani Company, a food business based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is married with three sons.

What we cover

1. Growing up across Libya, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and what a childhood of travel teaches about leadership
2. His father's advice to become a manager, not an engineer, and how it shaped his path into marketing and FMCG
3. Writing a handwritten personal vision in 1991, covering family, giving back and financial freedom, and revisiting it ever since
4. The Corporate Athlete training moment that changed how he thinks about self reflection
5. Learning to compete fairly and never criticise decisions made before his time
6. Balancing family and an accelerating career in his thirties, and the regret of late night emails
7. The two things he focused on as a leader in his forties: long term decision making and looking after his people
8. The dilemma of staying inside a multinational versus building his own business, and how he defines financial freedom
9. Why reputation, in his words, "what people say about you when you are not in the room", matters more than position
10. What is exciting him now as CEO of Halwani Company, and why he believes the world is better than it was thirty years ago

Notable quotes

"People will say good things about you when you're in a big position. But the test is when you're not around, what are they going to say?"

"Everyone wants to talk to you. Then you discover after you leave that everyone wanted to talk to the position. Only a few wanted to talk to the person."

Connect with Mohamed Samir: available on LinkedIn.

Chapters

00:39 Introduction to Leadership Journey

02:07 Early Influences and Family Background

04:59 The Impact of Travel on Leadership

07:36 Formulating a Vision for Success

11:47 Navigating Challenges in Early Career

14:30 Balancing Family and Career

18:08 Transitioning from Learning to Giving Back

20:05 Financial Freedom vs. Career Advancement

22:45 Leadership Evolution in the 40s

28:40 The Dilemma of Entrepreneurship

32:23 Reflections on Current Leadership Role

Alexandra Hussenot is Managing Director Europe for Alchemy, one of the fastest-growing circular tech businesses, buying and selling secondhand devices across the continent. Before that, she spent nearly two decades moving through nine countries and building a career across telecoms, insurance and consumer electronics — before founding her own metaverse startup from scratch, growing it into a company that attracted acquisition interest, and eventually selling it.

In this conversation with Andrew Tallents, Alexandra talks candidly about growing up in an entrepreneurial French household that later went bankrupt, becoming independent at 16, the corporate glass ceiling that pushed her toward entrepreneurship, a close friend's stage four cancer diagnosis that finally gave her the courage to start her own business, betting everything on 5G and Huawei only to lose it overnight when COVID and geopolitics collided, and the acquisition offer she turned down — a decision she now views very differently.

Topics covered: an entrepreneurial but financially precarious childhood, moving to Spain and Sweden to build independence, climbing the corporate ladder at Ericsson and Allianz, the catalyst that finally pushed her into entrepreneurship, building and losing funding for a metaverse startup, winning Saudi Arabia's NEOM giga-city project, an acquisition offer and the ego lesson that followed, burnout, exit, and starting again at Alchemy.

Confessions of a Successful Leader is hosted by Andrew Tallents, the self-coaching expert. New episodes every week.

00:00 Introduction 02:07 An entrepreneurial French childhood 04:44 Her parents' business — hardware, software and service 07:29 The bankruptcy that changed everything 09:44 Moving to Spain alone and rebuilding from scratch 13:12 A turning point: kicked out by her grandmother 15:07 Moving to Sweden and her first internship at Ericsson 16:00 The corporate dream: climbing the ladder 17:32 Learning finance after the dot-com crash 18:54 Moving into sales and finding mentors 21:59 General management at Allianz 23:22 The "marathon not sprint" leadership lesson 25:25 The glass ceiling and the catalyst to leave corporate life 27:45 A friend's cancer diagnosis — the real catalyst to start her business 28:13 Starting with a blank page 32:27 Betting on 5G and Huawei — and losing it overnight 33:24 The call from Ericsson's CEO that saved the business 34:49 Winning NEOM in Saudi Arabia 36:15 Turning down an acquisition — an ego lesson 39:05 Burnout and the decision to sell 40:29 Exiting the business 41:16 Joining Alchemy as Managing Director Europe 43:28 What's next — life "post-entrepreneur"

Sarat Pediredla is the co-founder of Level5, a five-week-old AR-native digital product studio, and the former co-founder and CEO of Hedgehog Lab, which he built from two people into a 150+ person consultancy over two decades and two private equity journeys.

In this conversation with Andrew Tallents, Sarat talks candidly about swapping a childhood ambition to become a doctor for computer programming at 16, his first business failing at university, running Hedgehog Lab through a stage 3 bowel cancer diagnosis at 29, an "accidental" private equity deal, losing 70% of revenue during COVID, and the 2023 realisation that his identity had become entirely fused with his business.

He explains how that led him to build a succession plan, exit fully at the end of 2025, and start again — this time, he says, as a much more whole and integrated version of himself.

Topics covered: childhood in India and boarding school, choosing software engineering over medicine, founding Hedgehog Lab, the Northern Rock pivot, cancer and recovery, private equity lessons, COVID and burnout, therapy and self-coaching, succession planning, and why Sarat calls this chapter of his life a "midlife renaissance."

Confessions of a Successful Leader is hosted by Andrew Tallents, the self-coaching expert. New episodes every week.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction 01:41 Hobbies and life outside a 20-year career 03:14 Book recommendation: Good to Great by Jim Collins 03:55 Childhood in India and boarding school 07:04 Choosing computer engineering over medicine at 16 09:41 Teaching himself to code 11:07 Studying software engineering in the UK 13:58 University, independence and the entrepreneurial bug 16:22 First business fails — and an Innovator's Visa 18:04 The dream of building a software business 19:17 How Hedgehog Lab began 21:55 Founding Hedgehog Lab and the pivot after Northern Rock 24:19 Dividing roles with his co-founder 26:18 The financial crisis and a cancer diagnosis at 29 29:05 The accidental private equity deal 32:06 COVID, losing 70% of revenue, and therapy 35:37 2023: separating identity from the business 38:03 Exiting Hedgehog Lab and starting Level5 41:04 The 15 commitments of conscious leadership 42:17 Closing thoughts