Sharif is a seasoned entrepreneur, technologist and business executive with over 25 years in early and growth stage operational and leadership roles within startups and public companies.

In the last 10 years, he has invested in over 200 technology startups in the Silicon Valley and the MENA region as an angel investor and partner at top global venture capital firms such as 500 Startups and Plus VC. His track record in startup and VC ecosystems, product development, business model evaluation and go-to-market strategies has guided hundreds of founders.

Prior to his career in investing, Sharif was the Partner Lead to VCs and Startups at Google where he worked with top tier VCs and their most promising startups. Before that, he spent 5 years leading performance advertising solutions for Google’s largest customers in North America. He joined Google through the $750m acquisition of AdMob, the world’s leading mobile advertising network. Before AdMob, Sharif was a technologist and serial entrepreneur having founded or co-founded several companies in the Consumer Internet and B2B space over a twelve-year period starting in 1998.

In addition, Sharif serves on the board of San Francisco based non-profit TechWadi, where he was the chairman of the board from 2015-2019, helping build meaningful bridges between MENA startups and Silicon Valley.

Sharif earned his MBA from UC Irvine and his BS in Neuroscience from UCLA. In 2018, he relocated from his home state of California to Dubai with his wife and three children.