Karim Barkawi

Karim Barkawi is a German entrepreneur and investor who founded Barkawi Management Consultants in Munich in 1994. He grew up across Germany, Egypt, and the United States, and holds a degree in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Munich (TUM). What began as a specialized supply chain management (SCM) consultancy grew over roughly three decades into a group of operating and technology companies serving more than 500 clients in over 100 countries.

In 2018, Barkawi sold the consulting entity — Barkawi Management Consultants, then about 250 consultants across seven offices — to NYSE-listed Genpact (NYSE:G), capping 25 consecutive years of growth. Rather than exiting supply chain entirely, he repositioned the remaining Barkawi Group as a venture builder and family office that invests in and builds supply chain technology startups, headquartered in Munich.

Today Barkawi oversees Group Strategy and Finance and remains actively engaged as a board member in several Barkawi companies, including ketteQ (cloud-native, AI-driven supply chain planning, headquartered in Atlanta), B2X (tech-enabled aftersales and customer-care services), and ClearOps (supply chain optimization). He founded B2X Care Solutions in 2007, building a global network of service partners delivering in- and out-of-warranty services for consumer electronics brands such as Samsung, Xiaomi, and Apple. He frames the group's mission as improving the quality, efficiency, and sustainability of global supply chains.

• Invests at seed and early stage, supporting companies from prototype through scaling; follow-on growth funding is provided by Barkawi alongside renowned VC co-investors.
• Operates as a "builder + investor" — combines investment capital with deep entrepreneurial and operating expertise rather than passive capital.
• Concentrated thematic focus on supply chain technology: planning, sourcing, distribution, aftersales, plus adjacent themes like mobile device lifecycle and recycling/circular economy.
• Strong conviction in AI and automation for supply chains — in his own words: *"You can't build tomorrow's supply chain on yesterday's architecture,"* and *"We're helping the world shift from supply chain control to supply chain intelligence."* He sees the future as *"human-machine collaboration with automation managing complexity while people focus on strategy and exceptions."*
• Values founders building category-defining technology in markets he knows operationally — he tends to invest in and then stay deeply involved (board seats, strategy).