In this episode of Sloanies Talking with Sloanies, host Christopher Reichert, MOT ’04, sits down with Raafet Azzouz, SFMBA ’24, to explore his remarkable journey from a small town in Tunisia to global finance and entrepreneurship. Azzouz shares how his early love for mathematics and humanities shaped his academic path through France, ultimately leading to senior roles at major financial institutions like JP Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Despite his successful Wall Street career, he felt the need for a deeper sense of purpose, prompting his decision to step back, pursue impact-focused ventures, and enroll in the MIT Sloan Fellows MBA program.
Azzouz speaks candidly about the challenges and strengths of the immigrant experience—resilience, adaptation, and resourcefulness—which inspired his New Colossus Project. This initiative tells the stories of first-generation immigrant trailblazers in America, aiming to reframe the narrative around immigration and highlight its immense contributions to innovation and entrepreneurship. He also discusses how MIT Sloan became a space for personal transformation, where he stepped outside his comfort zone through courses in leadership, improvisation, and social media, all while reflecting on his identity and future direction.
Throughout the conversation, Azzouz emphasizes the value of risk-taking, lifelong learning, and giving back to community. His evolving definition of success now centers on impact, connection, and legacy rather than titles or accolades. This episode is a powerful reflection on navigating change, finding one’s voice, and the importance of institutions like MIT Sloan in shaping not just careers, but lives.
Sloanies Talking with Sloanies is a conversational podcast with alumni and faculty about the MIT Sloan experience and how it influences what they’re doing today. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode Transcript
Raafet Azzouz: What I love about MIT and Sloan is really the ethos. And I think here the ethos is hard work, humility, and brilliance. If you want to take stock of your life and achievements and to be a better person for the next chapter, it's also the perfect space for that.
Christopher Reichert: Welcome to Sloanies talking with Sloanies, a candid conversation with alumni and faculty about the MIT Sloan experience and how it influences what they're doing today. So, what does it mean to be a Sloan? Over the course of this podcast, you'll hear from guests who are making a difference in their community, including our own very important one here at Sloan.
Hi. I'm your host, Christopher Reichert, and welcome to Sloanies Talking with Sloanies. My guest today is Raafet Azzouz, a 2024 Sloan Fellow graduate.
Welcome, Raafet.
Raafet Azzouz: Thank you for having me.
Christopher Reichert: Let me give our listeners some background about you. Raafat was born and raised in Tunisia, a country with a very rich history, including the Carthaginian Empire, the Roman conquest, the Arab conquest, the French colonization. And it's also known as being a birthplace of the Arab Spring. So, it's quite a has a rich history.
Raafet is the founder of the MIT New Colossus project (www.newcoloss.us), which tells the success stories of first-generation immigrant trailblazers in America, and one of his most recent interviews was with Noubar Afeyan, the founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, which is behind Moderna and one of the leaders in the vaccine's development for COVID. So I urge you to have a listen to that interview. He's an interesting fellow.
Raafat was also the founder and CEO of Athena Impact at MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund program, and for nearly 13 years was at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
His education ranges from a Bachelor of Science and mathematics with highest honors, or more poetically, “mention tres bien”.
Raafet Azzouz: That’s very French!
Christopher Reichert: He has a Bachelor of Law, a Master of Science in Finance, as a French Government Excellence Fellow at ESSEC. And of course, he has his MBA from MIT Sloan as a Sloan Fellow, where he took advantage of the cross-registration opportunities to take coursework at Harvard Business School and my other alma mater, Harvard Kennedy School. I also, I think I've discovered your famous doppelganger, William Abadie. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He plays the always-debonair Antoine Lambert and Emily in Paris. Have you heard that?
Raafet Azzouz: You are the second person who tells me that. There's another Sloan fellow told me the same thing.
Christopher Reichert: So, I really love your MIT Colossus project, because I think that as a first generation American, it resonates with the stories of immigrants and the kind of the American story of entrepreneurship and starting fresh in a new country. And in that episode with Noubar Afeyan, you delve into topics like moving to America and entering MIT, how bold, what-if questions lead to revolutionary breakthroughs, in his case, many, but Moderna is probably the most recent. Some of the key elements in the process of invention, how to find strength in challenging times, and the influence of your background and journey. So, I want to I want to talk about those elements in your life, having grown up overseas and I don't know is English. French, I assume is your is your native language or maybe Arabic.
Raafet Azzouz: Arabic and French both.
Christopher Reichert: When did you start learning English?
Raafet Azzouz: It's a very good question. Very late actually. I started learning English when I was 15.
Christopher Reichert: I learned Spanish when I was 13, 14. And while I think of myself as bilingual, I know that there are subtleties in the language that are lost on me. And so, when I think about the idea of moving to Spain, for example, or South America, and saying, okay, I can do that because I speak Spanish. I also think, wow, how much effort would it take to kind of start and really embed myself into the intricacies of whether it's business language or social and cultural languages. How does that work for you? How did you navigate that?
Raafet Azzouz: I mean, the first thing to say, it is complicated. It is not an easy feat, and it requires a lot of first courage to take the step. And I'm not just speaking about me. I mean, in general. Two, it requires kind of a certain creativity and humbleness to be able to learn new ways, new languages, new customs to adapt. Three, I would say, also strength, personal strength, to be able to keep your own history and culture whilst learning a new one and making it flourish at the same time.
It's like dancing. You move from one step to the other. But it's as much a technical challenge, obviously, because in my case I went abroad on a scholarship. I'm born in a small town on the Mediterranean Sea, more known for being a beautiful city with beautiful beaches, moved to France to pursue my studies in prep school and at ESSEC and in my law school from then it's just like one adventure from another. And you just take a bet, and you take risks, and it's unknown. It's completely unknown.
I remember when I moved to France, I had no family there, moved to the UK afterwards. I lived in London for ten years. I mean, I got recruited by JP Morgan after my Masters of Finance. Yeah, it was like a new beginning and taking a big bet. But I'm very grateful, and all of these bets were more lottery tickets for me so far. So, I'm very grateful for all these risks I've taken.
Christopher Reichert: And so you have a quantitative background. You started you've had finance, but also the legal studies as well. How have you kind of blended that? I mean, tell us about your kind of journey to where you are now.
Raafet Azzouz: Oh, uh, hard work, a lot of luck and a lot of perseverance. Look, I come from a mathematical background, so mathematics was my passion when I was a kid. Literally, I would devour any mathematical problem that exists on the face of the earth. But at the same time, I had also a very, I was very prone for more humanities. So, history and philosophy and I actually the business school path in France was very balancing on both. So, you had extremely technical on the mathematical side and finance. I mean French business cooperating on, on the finance side. But at the same time, they develop the person from a human standpoint and given the French influence or the French history, in philosophy, in arts and so on and so forth. So, I think it's that kind of instead of going to a pure engineering school, which was like the obvious path for me, going to business school was not the obvious path and never regretted that choice one second.
Christopher Reichert: So in your path from Tunisia to, to New York and a few places along the way, if you compare yourself to your classmates when you were young, is your journey highly unusual for your peers in that you you've left your country, you've moved to multiple places.
Raafet Azzouz: I mean, the first constraint is obviously a very simple constraint, but which is a major constraint, is being able to get a visa to go abroad from Tunisia is not easy. Obviously, that was it's much easier when you get a scholarship from the French government. I would say it is it is not that common. No, it is not that common. And it's not because people don't want to or wouldn't like the opportunity, but because the opportunity is not offered to them.
Christopher Reichert: So you have to to really make the effort to, to make that first kind of connection and leap out.
Raafet Azzouz: I mean, at first I didn't know. I had no clue. I wanted to be in finance. I my, my, all my family are doctors and professors, so I had no clue what was finance.
So coming to business school, I actually thought I wanted to be in strategy and I started my career, believe it or not, in fashion. I was doing strategy for Chanel in Paris. Uh, really enjoyed it. But that was not my path.
Christopher Reichert: See that? There you go. That's why you resonate with your doppelganger!
Raafet Azzouz: Yeah. That's I actually it's a good way to to complete the circle on that one. Uh, yeah. No, I did start at Chanel in Paris, which was actually a lot of fun. I have still a ton of friends from the Chanel days 25 years later. Uh, so then I decided to do strategy because I really enjoyed it, and I was very lucky. I send a letter. I mean, I think it's the only physical letter I sent by mail to the head of strategy of Total the oil company is like the biggest valuation in France back then. And one day I receive a call from a lady she's like, hi I'm the assistant of Mr. Mosconi back then, he's like, he would like to see you for an interview. And I have to be honest, I sent, like, maybe 100 CVs, so I had no clue who he was. He's the head of strategy at Total. I was like, oh yeah, of course, I'll be there tomorrow.
And that was the beginning of strategy at Total. And that's where I discovered commodities and commodity markets. And that's where the junction happened. So, it was kind of sheer luck, you know. I mean, it was luck, obviously. I was you know, I had the right pedigree and the right competence and some background, but it was luck. And so, yeah I discovered that commodities were the area that I wanted to be in and I wanted to discover trading when I was at Total. So yeah, that was kind of the juncture to finance.
Christopher Reichert: You know, so the well, I mean, you say it's luck, but I wonder how much I mean, I know there's an element of luck in all of this, of course, but I mean, I wonder how much of the setting yourself up for that luck comes from being outside of your comfort zone and not wanting to go back to the comfort zone and thinking the only way is forward. And I'm thinking also how that might tie into your New Colossus project as well.
Raafet Azzouz: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, all these were unknowns. And by saying unknown, it's all of these were outside of my comfort zone. It's outside of my zone of knowledge. It's outside of my zone of comfort. I mean, every one of these were bets. I was taking risks, even, like applying in strategy at Chanel. I mean, it was like. I mean, it's kind of it feels like coming from the left side, but then it was a risk worth taking. And every one of these was actually taking a big leap and doing great at it or trying to and going from there and the reality and I think out of the comfort zone. I think most of the interviews I had in every one of my job lasted were very short and didn't have many interviews. Every time it was like, okay, you're in, come, please come.
So, I think that kind of risk taker approach and that kind of ability to move from one thing to the other and adapt fast and be able to excel at it in a very short period of time was very appealing in my first years at Total, JP Morgan and Chanel, so on and so forth.
Christopher Reichert: And so you were at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for almost 13 years. And then from there, it looks like you left during COVID, and then you started the Athena Impact through the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund program. And tell us how that and it looks like you did Sloan after that. So, tell us about that transition.
Raafet Azzouz: I joined Merrill when it was Merrill, so I joined in before the financial crisis. We went bankrupt the same day as Lehman. So, one day in the Tube in London, I look at my BlackBerry and I see that we have been bought by another investment bank and over the weekend. So, I went through the years of the global financial crisis, which meant a whole decimation of an investment bank back then, the whole financial industry in London. But the area I was in was really quantitative. So, we were it was what we call quantitative investment strategies.
And when I came to Merrill in 2008, it was in early beginning, we were like ten people globally. We had $250 million in assets. It's what you would call today a multi-strategy hedge fund. So, we started we started building it from 10 to 50 to 100. And our assets were moved from 250 million to $1 Billion to $10B to $20B to $30B.
So, it was a rapid growth and I think in my careers I was in London at the beginning, and then I was asked to move to the US to run the American business for the commodity side. And then the equity division asked me similarly to run it for them globally, which is much bigger fish than commodities. But we had a very strong track record on the commodity side. We were quite well known on the street. But in 2020, let's say I felt like, do you remember that video game Mario Bros?
Christopher Reichert: Yes.
Raafet Azzouz: When you go from level to level, you try to get one star after the other and another and another. So, in 2020, I felt like I went from commodities to equities. I went from Co-running Europe, Middle East and Africa as well as to head of Americas to Global Head. So, I've done a lot of steps. I've done this the raising money, financial engineering, so on and so forth. And I think I was reaching a certain level in the game where I was not excited anymore and I needed a new challenge. So, I've had like continuous challenges in my career, and I think that's what I needed. I decided to actually leave to pursue Athena Impact, which was a super interesting fintech on impact investing. So, I wanted to apply our quant DNA to the impact investing world which was booming and but for retail investors so B2C. So I moved to Boston back then and as I happened to be in Boston doing this I met another Sloan Fellow who is between you and me, who is a Sloan Fellow ‘12, Claude Grunitzky, he's one of my mentors, close friend for, like, 20 years.
He's from Togo, I’m from Tunisia. We both moved to New York through Paris and London, where family friends, his cousins are friends of mine for decades. And I meet Claude in New York and we had lunch and it was like in 2021. And he tells me, oh, you know what? When I was your age, I sold my company. And I was like deciding what was next. And I did this program at MIT called Sloan Fellows. You should really consider it. And I was like, oh, interesting. And I think Claude was a major driver for me to actually go to MIT.
Christopher Reichert: Yeah, because you have, I mean, you have a law degree and you have a finance degree. And so what do you think about when you when you think about your time at Sloan, which I know in 12 months. It is such a rush, right.
Raafet Azzouz: Yeah.
Christopher Reichert: It's hard to it's hard to, particularly in the spring. You're trying to slow things down and make it last as long as possible, right? So what do you think about your time there? Is there is there a class that you particularly refer to in your mind, or a framework that that has changed you from before and after?
Raafet Azzouz: I would say it changed me tremendously, but because I took this time away. I mean, my background is quantitative and technical, so I literally took anything that was outside of my comfort zone again.
Christopher Reichert: Right. So, not necessarily accounting and finance and all that.
Raafet Azzouz: Zero zero. Right. Aside from the core, if they were not, if I didn't manage to waive it. And I think that was the most valuable part for me is I did a lot of self-introspection like a lot of classes like U-Lab with Otto Scharmer were wonderful. Believe it or not, I hate social media. New Colossus for me is as far away as my personality. I'm a rather discreet person. My personal social media is one post every two years. The class with Ben Shields Social Media class of Ben Shields, which is a dear friend as well as Otto, was also one of the highlights of my time there.
But I think speaking about going out of the comfort zone I also took classes in the Institute, but not the classic classes. I took voice acting at the theater school. I took improvisation at the theater school. So those were, like, extremely eye opening, and the exposure you get there, I mean, it's a personal exposure, but I was impressed. I have to say, I was impressed by the undergrads, especially in the artistic fields. Some of them showed so much creativity in the way they were approaching it. It brought me a lot. To summarize, a lot of these classes are very important and really going outside of my comfort zone, but not inside of my specialty. Really trying to know myself better because after 20 years working and running, literally running at five speed from one continent to the other, you don't have time to think. You just go, go go go go. And you know it's Wall Street. It's not like we have time. We are one of the most high-paced environment in trading, is one of the most high paced environment out there on the work side.
Christopher Reichert: Not so touchy feely, I hear.
Raafet Azzouz: Zero. But it's okay you take what you take and you know, it was a great experience. I loved my time onthe trading floors every year of those.
Christopher Reichert: So yeah. And I notice you also cross-registered. Up at, at Harvard up up the river. Both at Kennedy School and the Business School, which I think is a great, um, privilege, I guess an opportunity when you go to Sloan that you can go up and take courses up there and around Boston. Was this areas of study that weren't available at Sloan?
Raafet Azzouz: Yes. As I was working on my, on the fintech project, Athena impact on the impact investing and two of the Harvard professors who are also advising me on that. I took Sustainable Investing with Brian Trogstad and Business at the Base of the Pyramid with Michael Hsu, I mean, both also great friends.
That was at the business school, and that was a unique take with given their background and at the Kennedy, I took the Heifetz classes, which were a treat.
Christopher Reichert: Iconic.
Raafet Azzouz: Iconic. And, I mean leadership, that was really my focus at the Kennedy. I mean, it was, as you said, a privilege to be able to do that.
Christopher Reichert: Tell us about the New Colossus Project. What's your motivation for that and what are your goals for that?
Raafet Azzouz: New Colossus started as part of that introspection process and kind of really putting in effort into the multiple identities that I have and we all have multiple identities that we layer in, in our human evolution. And one of the questions that I asked myself was really which one of the identities that actually I've taken for granted or put on the side was the immigrant identity. And the immigrant identity is an identity of resilience. It's an identity of perseverance. It's an identity of creativity, resourcefulness, of adaptation. There is a lot of great things to say about it.
And thinking about it back then, the narrative around immigration has lately been very steered to one direction, which is doesn't give credit to generations of great immigrants. When I say great, it's like the greatest. They built countries, they built the biggest companies, they employed hundreds of thousands of people, you name it.
I mean, half of the unicorn in America today are built by immigrants. Immigrant founded. Half. But the narrative is different. So, you know what? I like to take the high road. This is for me, the way to take the high road. And what's the best way to do it is actually to showcase and to tell the stories of those who actually are the bright stars and the north stars of certain communities. And these people are ambassadors for whole diasporas. It's not one company, it's a whole diaspora.
So that's the that was the genesis of New Colossus.
Christopher Reichert: And you mentioned that you have a low social profile.
Raafet Azzouz: I'm rather discreet.
Christopher Reichert: But I think one of the interesting things about the New Colossus project is that it's the in our age, right? The marketing of it has to go through social media and the distribution is through, I guess, non-legacy platforms.
Raafet Azzouz: Yes.
Christopher Reichert: So how are you finding your balance in there?
Raafet Azzouz: Well luckily I took that class with Ben. But more importantly the good thing about this project is it brought very fast many, many people to volunteer across the institute. I had MBAs, Masters of Finance, Course 6. I had people from all over the institute who volunteered and so on and so forth, who and we, we have like different generations actually in this project and we tackle different things being on the profiling, on the research as well as the social media and all the different things. So we're kind of have a pool of very talented people who are have been actually volunteering on a rotational basis because people graduate. Most of most of the people who like George Masterson or Yaphet Tedla. They are now working in investment banks. We have like we have had a flow of very talented actually. Yeah. Most of them are working at Goldman Sachs and several investment bankers.
Christopher Reichert: So, as you work on your MIT New Colossus project, what's been the most helpful vehicle for spreading the word?
Raafet Azzouz: I think the, the beauty of the project is how much of a grassroots movement it has been so far with the engagement and the support we have received. And I think what has been the most helpful if anyone likes what we do is really to share it either on LinkedIn or on Instagram to spread the word, especially within the communities, as we have seen, like when we had Moungi Bowendi, the Nobel Prize laureate. We had all the Tunisians and the North Africans and different communities getting involved. And so, yeah, if you like the work and you know, it, it would help. It always helps us to reshare and to grow our audience and to have more people so that we can reach a critical size.
Christopher Reichert: So, one of the questions I ask my guests is what your definition of success is. So do you do you have one of those in mind. Has it evolved?
Raafet Azzouz: I think it has evolved, and I think it already started evolving in 2020. And I think that was one of the drivers of coming back. Coming back to school. So I would say the the more the definition of success now for me revolves more around community, family. So it's evolving and also more on the giving back side. So, my first chapter of my career for almost two decades was it was Wall Street. And all that goes with it and I think it was a great chapter, but I think the next one is different. And I think community, family and giving back is very important in that one.
Christopher Reichert: And if you think about so you've come out of Sloan and you can reflect on your time there. Do you have any thoughts for perspective Sloanies as they consider should they/shouldn't they go to graduate school in the first place or choose MIT Sloan?
Raafet Azzouz: I mean, I love. MIT and I love Sloan. I'm biased, but there is a reason. I'm not easily biased. I would say Sloan is, I mean, if someone is looking for a space to actually take a step back, and I think everyone should take a step back at one point in their career to reflect before jumping to the next career chapter or life chapter. It can be moving a continent. It can be changing jobs. It can be many things. I think that's the right space.
If you want to take stock of your life and achievements and to be a better person for the next chapter, it's also the perfect space for that.
What I love about MIT and Sloan is really the ethos and brilliance. These three things and I met so many brilliant and humble and hardworking people, I was impressed. I was impressed and I think that it's one of the best places for that. And I'm not going to say anything about the other schools, but it's a great it's a great environment.
Christopher Reichert: Yeah. And I think in terms of the other schools, I think that's part of the ecosystem that is that you can take advantage of it if you go to MIT.
Raafet Azzouz: So, absolutely, the other schools are definitely, I think being at MIT and being able to cross-register at the HBS or HKS, it's a privilege and that's someone should really try to take advantage of. But again, according to what they're trying to achieve, according to their kind of North Star of what they're trying to achieve, not just for sitting in a classroom.
Christopher Reichert: Well, on that note, I want to thank Raafat Azzouz, a 2024 Sloan Fellow graduate, for joining us on this episode of Sloanies Talking with Sloanies.
Raafet Azzouz: Thank you.
Christopher Reichert: If you want to follow Rafael's work at New Colossus, the website is www.newcoloss.us. I'll put that in the show notes for everyone. So thank you again for joining us.
Raafet Azzouz: Thank you so much.
Christopher Reichert: Sloanies Talking with Sloanies is produced by the Office of External Relations at MIT Sloan School of Management. You can subscribe to this podcast by visiting our website, mitsloan.mit.edu/alumni, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Support for this podcast comes in part from the Sloan Annual Fund, which provides essential flexible funding to ensure that our community can pursue excellence. Make your gift today by visiting giving.mit.edu/sloan.
