The New Calculus Founder Series: Walid Hassouna (CEO, Valu)

This fireside conversation, hosted by Dina H. Sherif, will bring to campus one of the most influential fintech leaders in the Middle East and North Africa, offering students from MIT and across Boston a rare opportunity to engage directly with a founder building at the forefront of innovation in growth markets. Walid Hassouna, Co-Founder and CEO of ValU, led the company from its launch as Egypt’s first Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) platform to one of the region’s leading consumer finance firms, culminating in a landmark IPO on the Egyptian Exchange in 2025. In the absence of reliable credit infrastructure, he developed an alternative scoring system using behavioral data, and led the push to have it regulated. Along the way, he navigated the ethical and operational challenges of scaling credit access responsibly in a volatile economic environment. The event will explore how entrepreneurs can build responsibly in underserved markets, what it takes to lead through volatility, and how technology can be used to expand opportunity without compromising ethics. Open to students from MIT and other Boston-area universities, the session will be especially relevant for those interested in entrepreneurship, fintech, and innovation across the MENA region.