Fractional Chief Commercial & Operating Officer · Dubai
Fractional commercial and operating leadership for industrial and product businesses growing across MENA and East Africa — whether you’re entering the region, or scaling out of it.
$40M
17 markets · 22% YoY through 40 distributors and 20 direct OEM accounts · 3% share gained
$23M
GCC and Africa · launched NSK's Dubai branch, a UK export model turned into a local operation
13 territories
$50M+ contracted
An EV manufacturer's international network, built from founding
The problem
Most companies growing into a new market get help with one half of the problem. They buy a strategy for how to sell and find nobody to build the operation that has to deliver once it works. Or they tighten up operations and wonder why revenue hasn’t moved.
The failures are familiar. The wrong partner in the wrong country, appointed because they were available rather than right. Pricing set by guesswork against competition nobody has mapped. An order book arriving faster than the supply chain can carry. A founder or a country manager holding the whole thing together personally, because no structure exists to hold it for them.
I’ve spent twenty years on both sides of that — running direct OEM sales and distributor networks across seventeen markets, and building the forecasting, pricing, supply chain and operating rhythm that let growth survive itself.
Where I work
The Gulf, Egypt and across North Africa to Morocco, and down the east coast through Kenya and Tanzania.
That’s a trade corridor rather than a continent, and it runs through Dubai — the freight, the finance and the regional head offices are all in the same city. Being based here isn’t incidental to the coverage. It’s the reason the coverage works.
UAE · Saudi Arabia · Bahrain · Qatar · Kuwait · Oman · Egypt · Libya · Tunisia · Algeria · Morocco · Kenya · Tanzania
What I offer
I don’t hand over a strategy and leave. I take a seat — fractional commercial and operating leadership, a day or two a week, inside the business, owning how you sell across the region and the operation that has to deliver it.
Most engagements start with a short, fixed-fee sprint: we work out exactly what needs building, and whether I’m the right person to build it, before either of us commits to the longer relationship.
Start here
Four weeks · fixed fee · from $8,000
For businesses entering a new market or launching a new line. We settle which markets first and why, direct versus distribution, what the market really bears on price, and a defensible number for the first twenty-four months — and what has to exist inside your business before any of it works.
You finish with a twelve-month build plan and a proposed operating rhythm. That plan is the shape of the seat — yours to run, with or without me.
Three to four weeks · fixed fee · from $8,000
For businesses whose partners are already in place and underperforming. We work out whether it’s the partner, the price, the product or the support they’re getting — each has a different fix, and guessing wrong is expensive. You finish knowing exactly what to change.
Where it leads
One to two days a week · six to twelve months
The ongoing seat, and the core of what I do. I stay in the business: partner selection and appointment, pricing and margin architecture, forecasting and pipeline discipline, and the operating rhythm that turns a plan into delivery — through to finding and hiring the permanent local lead when the time is right.
Fit
About
I'm a commercial and operating executive with twenty years building international businesses, most of it from Dubai.
Fifteen of those years were with NSK, the Japanese precision components manufacturer, running commercial operations across the Middle East, Africa, the UK and Ireland. I opened their Dubai office and grew the GCC and Africa business to $23M, then led the MENA region to $40M across seventeen markets. A secondment back to the UK turned around a mature business against a €13.5M target, with margins six points above budget.
In 2021 I joined an EV manufacturer at founding stage as Chief Commercial and Operating Officer and built the commercial and operating infrastructure from nothing — thirteen territories, more than $50M in contracted revenue, and the supply chain, procurement and governance to support it. Some of that meant working with Dubai's RTA on the regulatory changes that made electric last-mile fleets viable here at all.
I now work fractionally, usually one or two days a week, with businesses that have committed to growth their current structure can't yet deliver. I also advise founders and boards on market entry and international scale-up, and invest in early-stage sustainability and energy-transition ventures.
MBA with Distinction, Bradford University School of Management · BEng (Hons) Aeronautical Engineering, Loughborough · Chartered Manager, CMI
Contact
steve@sheikhwood.com+971 56 349 7001LinkedIn
Most engagements begin with a short call and a four-week sprint. If it isn't a fit, I'll say so.