Sawiris is a scion of Egypt's wealthiest family. He built a fortune in telecom, selling Orascom Telecom in 2011 to Russian telecom firm VimpelCom (now Veon) in a multibillion-dollar transaction. He's chairman of Orascom TMT Investments, which has stakes in an asset manager in Egypt and Italian internet company Italiaonline, among others. Since 2012, Sawiris has expanded its investments in gold mining through La Mancha Resource Capital. In 2016, he founded ORA Developers, which has real estate developments and hospitality projects in more than seven countries.