What Angel Investing Taught Me About the Fellow Human

I love learning. In fact, I strive to learn something new every day, ideally while nestled in the comfort of my library with a good book ??. However, some of life's most valuable lessons come not from reading but from spending money, time, or effort—or, in extreme cases, losing money. My experience with angel investing has been one such learning journey, offering insights that no book could have provided.

Having worked for 15 to 16 years in large corporations, I became accustomed to the idea that success is often tied to the brand's power. In these environments, you have KPIs, measurements, and processes that create the illusion of uniformity—almost as if every Uber ride, for example, should be identical in quality. But anyone who's taken multiple Uber rides knows this isn’t the case; the experience can vary greatly depending on the driver. It wasn't until I began investing in early-stage startups that I truly understood the profound impact of the individual behind the wheel.

Investing in startups is essentially investing in people. You place your faith in an entrepreneur's vision and integrity. If they promise something and fail to deliver, it raises serious concerns about their reliability. This realization made me reflect on my own career journey: Has the "who" mattered more than the "what"? The answer, surprisingly, was yes. Let me share three stories where the person came before the job.

1) On the kindness of my first manager.

The first story is from the early days of my career when I worked in a call center at General Electric Health Care doing back-office work to support a service sales organization. At the time, I knew very little about how business actually worked. The head of the unit, a finance expert, took the time out of his busy schedule to teach us how a company makes money. It was my first introduction to concepts like profit and loss, and the different revenue streams of various businesses. Today, that same finance manager Asif Ullah is one of my closest friends, and I still seek his advice.

2) On Having a great Female Mentor

The second story is from my time working in the Future of Work office at SAP, where I was part of a global team which meant sometimes i had to present our company’s vision on the future of work around the world. On one particular event in Riyadh & After submitting my first draft to the chief marketing officer, I received a lot of comments. Normally, such feedback would make me want to retreat, but something told me this person could be a great mentor. I continued working with her, drawn to her knowledge, kindness and expertise. A year later, I left my job to start Turwa By Fadwa , but it was Elaine Murphy belief in me that gave me the confidence to pursue business storytelling as a career.

3) On Having awesome Clients

Lastly, this lesson about the importance of people extended to my early clients at Turwa. One client, who became a dear friend, not only referred his team to me but also became my biggest advocate through word-of-mouth marketing. Adham Gari support opened countless doors for me.

This week, I turned 38, and if there's one lesson I've learned over the past year, it’s that investing in relationships—and, more importantly, the quality of those relationships—yields some of the highest returns on investment in one's career. High-quality people naturally attract other high-quality individuals, creating a cycle of growth and success that is truly inevitable.