El Mahdi was appointed as Managing Director and CEO of Telecom Egypt in September 2025, having served as a non-executive board member since March. In November 2025, it signed three MoUs to expand WE Health Cloud, its digital health platform. It also announced the completion of the core 2Africa infrastructure, a subsea cable system, as part of the 2Africa consortium. In the first nine months of 2025, the group generated revenues of $1.6 billion and had total assets of $4.3 billion. El Mahdi served as founder and chairman of Trade Globe and TeraWaves Networks and as group CEO of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT).