About
Who is Ghassan Nawfal?
Ghassan Nawfal is a Dubai-based sales leader with 20 years of B2B and technology sales across the Middle East, Europe and North America. He is Director of Sales for GPOS at Geidea UAE, was previously SVP Global Sales at Grubtech, mentors founders at the Misk Accelerator, and speaks on sales, payments and food-tech.
Not to be confused with Dr. Ghassan Nawfal, the general surgeon in Beirut. Different person, no relation.
Twenty years, seven countries, one job
I have sold one thing for twenty years: the decision to trust a company you have not worked with yet. The product changed. The rooms changed. The job did not.
It started in Montreal, producing executive summits for marcus evans: medical device manufacturing, aerospace and defence, pharma marketing, nine years of getting senior people to fly somewhere on the strength of a phone call. Then Beirut, running international sales for IFP Group, the exhibitions organiser behind Food Africa, and the Anuga, Boot and Medica pavilions. Then Riyadh, where I ran the commercial side of Arabnet Riyadh, the Kingdom's largest tech exhibition at the time, with more than five hundred exhibitors.
In 2021 I moved from events into the technology that was eating them. At Hafla, the Hub71-backed event marketplace, I was VP Growth while the team went from four people in a hotel to twenty-five and six hundred events in six months. At Grubtech I ran global sales for a restaurant operations platform serving more than ten thousand restaurants, through the $15 million Series B led by Jahez.
Today I lead sales for Geidea's POS business in the UAE. Geidea is one of the region's largest licensed payment providers, and my customers are restaurants and retailers who want the till, the kitchen screen and the card terminal to be one conversation instead of three.
What I do outside the quota
I mentor founders at the Misk Accelerator, mostly on the unglamorous middle of sales: the first enterprise deal, entering Saudi, the hire you make when the founder can no longer close everything alone. I speak at conferences on sales, payments and food-tech, always from deals that actually happened. And I write on LinkedIn most weeks, which is where the long versions on this site come from.
I am Lebanese, I studied commerce at Concordia in Montreal, I hold a PMP from the American University of Beirut, and I sell in English, Arabic and French. My parents are in Beirut. I go back as often as the calendar allows, and more often than it does.
Ghassan and his team are always there, willing to help and fully vested in their client's success.
Ghassan is an empowering manager who likes to boost the confidence of his colleagues and employees with his approach. He is also one of the best professional sales tutors I have met.
Questions people ask
- Who is Ghassan Nawfal?
- Ghassan Nawfal is a Dubai-based sales leader with 20 years in B2B and technology sales. He is Director of Sales for GPOS at Geidea UAE, was previously SVP Global Sales at Grubtech, and mentors founders at the Misk Accelerator.
- What does Ghassan Nawfal do at Geidea?
- He leads sales for Geidea's point-of-sale business in the UAE, working with restaurants and retailers that want their POS, payments and kitchen systems on one stack.
- Is this the surgeon Dr. Ghassan Nawfal?
- No. Dr. Ghassan Nawfal is a general surgeon in Beirut. This site is about Ghassan Nawfal the sales leader in Dubai. Different people, no relation.
- Where is Ghassan Nawfal based?
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is Lebanese, studied in Montreal, and has lived in seven countries.
- How do I contact Ghassan Nawfal?
- Through the contact form on this site, or by messaging him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/gnawfal.