Ismael Belkhayat

Ismael Belkhayat is the Founder and CEO of Chari, a leading B2B e-commerce and financial technology platform based in Casablanca, Morocco, that serves traditional retailers across Francophone Africa. Before launching his entrepreneurial career, he spent three years working as a strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group and completed his international education at Cornell University and ESCP Europe. The serial tech entrepreneur previously founded successful Moroccan digital startups, including the property portal Sarouty.ma and the mobility service VotreChauffeur.ma. Under his leadership, Chari participated in the Summer 2021 batch of Y Combinator and subsequently raised an early 2022 bridge funding round backed by global investors including Plug and Play that valued the company at $100 million. Belkhayat also directed the growing firm's strategic expansion into West African markets through the June 2022 acquisition of the Ivorian e-commerce application Diago.