SophiaAlj

Sophia Alj was a consultant with McKinsey for four years before taking the plunge in 2019 to co-found Chari with her husband, Ismael Belkhayat, who is also a former management consultant. In just three years, Chari, a business-to-business e-commerce platform that helps small retailers digitize their services, has become one of North Africa’s leading startups and is widely tipped to be Morocco’s first unicorn. Alj told Rest of World last October that the startup is trying to establish a “completely new way of thinking” about retail in the region. “They don’t have to move, but we are bringing them everything they ordered to them.” Alj and Belkhayat have set their sights on opening up in neighboring countries as well as French-speaking countries in West Africa, through organic expansion or via mergers and acquisitions activity.