Strategic Assessment & Next Steps

A full-day strategy session with The Greenhouse team

The workshop brought the team together to assess 8 years of activity, align on strengths and gaps, and identify what needs to be clarified for the next phase of The Greenhouse.

Pre-reads covering The Greenhouse mandate and journey, corporate innovation models, regional and global benchmarks, and the MENA venture landscape were distributed in advance.

Date of workshop: 19.5.2026

The day was structured around 4 exercises:

1. TGH Activity Assessment: categorized 88 activities across pillars into Worked, Didn't Work, and Can Be Reworked.
2. SWOT Analysis: mapped strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks based on the assessment.
3. Thesis Review: aligned on where TGH plays, who it serves, and what needs to evolve.
4. Strategic Relevance Matrix: mapped activities by importance for the Group vs. importance for TGH.

This document synthesizes the insights from the day and outlines the next steps.

TGH delivered against changing mandates; the opportunity now is to refocus its assets toward the Group

The Greenhouse should be assessed against the mandates it was given over time. Its role evolved as the Group evolved.

The first mandate: innovation culture and retail tech

In its first phase, TGH was created to inject innovation culture within the Group and act as a bridge between Chalhoub teams and the startup world. Its role was to educate teams on emerging retail technologies, identify opportunities, source retail tech startups, and create a space where colleagues could engage with innovation in a tangible way.

This mandate was delivered. TGH hosted more than 100 events in the space, ran 4 retail tech cohorts bringing more than 20 solutions to the Group, and saw multiple business units sign contracts post-POC. The space was active and visible internally. Chalhoub colleagues attended opening days, demo days, Beauty Lab and Fashion Lab moments, and TGH was featured in key Group events such as the Group Seminar. The Ibtikar Program generated more than 150 applications, showing that the appetite for innovation inside the Group was real.

As the Group matured into its transformation journey, new innovation capabilities were created across the organization. Dedicated teams emerged around beauty creation, fashion creation, corporate innovation, e-commerce, omnichannel, technology, and data. Innovation became more embedded within business units and specialized functions rather than centralized in one place.

The second mandate: commercial ventures and ecosystem

From programs to ventures

The first programs (retail tech cohorts) led to the Ibtikar intrapreneurship program, which opened the door for employees to build solutions to real business problems. From Ibtikar came Wear That, a company created internally to serve a new customer segment and explore a new business model entirely. The team's success in scaling Wear That to seed-plus stage and eventually Series A proved that TGH could build and grow ventures, not just source and pilot them.

The second mandate: commercial ventures and ecosystem

That proof point evolved the mandate. TGH was now expected to scale its venture-building capability externally and create more high-growth ventures for the Group. The Startup Studio grew, external entrepreneurs came through the door, and TGH built stronger links with investors, co-investing alongside regional players such as Salica, Plus VC, and angels. MOUs were signed with government-backed entities including Sundooq Al Watan, F100, and Hub71. TGH joined Dubai SME's incubator and accelerator network, won a government project against established consulting firms, and started charging for programs and venture sourcing.

In 2025 alone, ventures in the portfolio raised more than $800K in external funding and are generating their own revenue, alongside the external partnerships, government projects, and co-investment relationships TGH has unlocked.

The perception challenge

The activities of TGH are therefore not fundamentally complex: TGH sources and builds ventures in the retail space. What became complex is the perception of TGH. Different stakeholders associate it with different moments in its history: supporting employees to launch ideas, fashion and beauty incubation, retail tech solutions, external events, venture building, or simply an innovation space they have not recently interacted with.

The workshop highlighted that TGH did deliver value and did respond to the mandates it was given. The challenge is to recognize that the Group has changed, the mandate has changed, and TGH now needs to reposition accordingly.

The past model created the assets the next model needs

The years spent building external presence were not wasted. They created the ecosystem, partnerships, investor relationships, and credibility that the next phase needs.

The internal mandate built trust, visibility, and innovation literacy inside the Group. The external mandate built credibility, access, and market validation outside the Group. The next mandate should connect both.

TGH now returns to the Group with more to offer than it had at inception: a recognized brand, a physical space, a venture-building track record, investor relationships, government partnerships, sourcing reach, program IP, and a team that knows how to operate entrepreneurially inside a corporate environment.

The next phase is about deploying these strengths inward with more focus, stronger governance, and clearer connection to business needs.

Retail experiences through venture building and venture sourcing

The workshop aligned on a directional thesis: TGH should focus on identifying and commercializing underutilized Group assets, the capabilities, data, infrastructure, and customer access points that exist within the business but are not being monetized or explored as standalone opportunities. These are the 5% of assets no one is currently looking at, which can be spun off into their own ventures or developed into new revenue streams.

This is where TGH's unfair advantage is strongest. No external venture builder has access to the Group's retail footprint, brand relationships, customer data, operational infrastructure, or supply chain. TGH can see opportunities inside the Group that the market cannot, and build ventures around them faster than an outsider could.

The exact scope and criteria for identifying these assets need to be defined as part of the operating model.

The focus needs to be narrower and clearer

TGH should primarily bring value to:

• Commercial business units, specifically Group Own Brands, with retail problems that technology, new ventures, or new business models can solve.
• Government and institutional partners where partnerships create authority, revenue, access, and project pipeline.
• External founders and investors who strengthen the venture building and sourcing pipeline.
• Group leadership by providing visibility on emerging retail technologies, venture opportunities, and future business models.

Out of scope or to be transferred

• Brand sourcing for the Group's portfolio, unless clearly linked to innovation or new business models.
• General innovation culture workshops and training, unless linked to a strategic business need.
• University visits for Group talent attraction.
• Generic ecosystem events without a clear sourcing, partnership, or business development objective.
• Pilots without a business owner, budget owner, and scale pathway.

These activities may still matter to the Group, but they do not need to sit with TGH.

What must remain and be developed further

The team collectively agreed that the following are essential to The Greenhouse's identity and must be maintained regardless of how the operating model evolves.

The physical space

The Greenhouse space is not just an office. It is a platform for retail experimentation, a venue that hosts the mission and brings it to life as a tangible expression of the Group's commitment to innovation.

The space has become a destination for external-facing Group moments: hosting delegations, associations, visiting partners, and international guests. It is also a talent attraction point. Team members across the Group have cited The Greenhouse as part of why they joined.

Going forward, the space could play a more active role in representing the future of retail experience. Beyond being a physical testament to the Group's commitment to innovation, the space should become where we run physical retail experiments the same way we run e-commerce experiments. That capability is a competitive edge no other entity in the region has.

The brand and external presence

The Greenhouse brand, website, social media, and LinkedIn are assets that took years to build. They attract founders, startups, brands, investors, and government partners organically.

This equity needs to be safeguarded but it also needs to be made more purposeful. External presence should be tied to deal flow, founder access, investor relationships, government credibility, business development, and Group reputation.

The entrepreneurial way of working

Speed, agility, stage-gated decision-making, test-learn-pivot cycles, and the ability to work under uncertainty are part of TGH's value.

The Greenhouse cannot function as a traditional corporate department with traditional corporate processes. If it does, it loses the operating advantage that allows it to source, build, test, and learn faster than the wider organization.

The voice of innovation

Even as the mandate narrows, TGH must remain the Group's voice on innovation, retail technology, venture building, and the startup ecosystem.

This means maintaining ecosystem relationships, attending key conferences, identifying emerging signals, and communicating what we learn back to the Group consistently.

Three structural areas the operating model must address

1. The scaling gap

TGH is strong at sourcing and building. It has not yet cracked scaling within the Group.

POCs get implemented but do not consistently convert to Group-wide deployments. Ventures survive externally but are not always used by business units. The handoff point between "TGH proved value" and "the Group adopts it" is where impact stalls.

This is partly structural. Tech team prioritization blocks integration. Budgets do not exist for unsolicited solutions. The Group has shifted from startup experimentation to enterprise solutions. Business units do not always have the mandate, budget, or incentive to continue after TGH proves value.

The operating model needs a defined exit point where TGH's job ends and the business unit takes ownership, with the budget and mandate to continue.

2. Push to pull

Currently, TGH often identifies opportunities and brings them to business units. When the need does not originate from the business unit, adoption stalls.

The operating model needs a mechanism where business units come to TGH with problems, and TGH sources or builds the solution.

This requires two things: education and integration. Business units need to know what TGH can do. TGH needs visibility into business unit pain points, RFPs when available, strategic priorities, and unsolved customer or operational problems.

3. Too many innovation departments created confusion

Over time, multiple innovation-focused departments were introduced across the Group. Each was created with strong intent. But the multiplication of mandates unintentionally fragmented ownership, created overlapping activities, and confused business units about where to go for what.

The Greenhouse's positioning and clarity suffered not because it stopped delivering, but because the landscape around it became crowded.

A clear definition of what "innovation" means in the context of the Group, and who owns which part, is needed.

What the next phase can build on

Turn sourcing into a systematic capability

Over 8 years, TGH has sourced and evaluated a large volume of brands, startups, technologies, and founders. The criteria, patterns, and scoring methodologies used across programs, sourcing, and venture building can be systematized into a repeatable methodology for the Group.

This turns a manual, one-off capability into a scalable asset: a structured way to identify, evaluate, and route opportunities to the right part of the Group.

Retail innovation is underserved in the region

Retail and luxury innovation remain understructured in the region compared to sectors such as fintech.

TGH is positioned in a white space that few other entities in the region occupy with the same combination of retail context, startup access, venture-building experience, and Group-backed credibility.

The Greenhouse comes back to the Group stronger

The years spent building external presence created the ecosystem, partnerships, investor relationships, and credibility that the next phase needs.

TGH now returns to the Group with a stronger platform than before: external validation, government credibility, investor access, startup pipeline, venture-building knowledge, and program IP. The next phase is about deploying these strengths inward.

Bridge startup-grade solutions and enterprise-grade deployment

The Group increasingly needs solutions that are practical, scalable, and integrated. Startups often move fast but lack enterprise readiness. Enterprise vendors are scalable but not always innovative.

TGH can play the bridge role: identifying early solutions, validating relevance, shaping them into business-ready propositions, and helping the Group decide what to test, scale, partner with, or build.

Summary of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks

What the innovation strategy needs to answer

The workshop produced alignment on direction and surfaced the structural gaps. The following questions remain open and will need to be answered as part of defining the innovation strategy.

Operating model

• How does TGH deliver on venture building and venture sourcing with its current team and resources?
• Which activities are core to the mandate, which are supporting, and which should stop or sit elsewhere?
• What governance structure enables fast, standardized decision-making, including investment decisions, stage gates, and kill criteria?
• What should be the intake model for business unit challenges?

Group integration

• How do we shift from push to pull so that business units initiate needs rather than TGH pushing opportunities?
• Where does TGH's responsibility end and the business unit's begin when scaling a venture or technology?
• How do we define "innovation" across the Group so that ownership is clear and mandates do not overlap?
• How should TGH plug into Group own brands, omnichannel, tech, data, retail operations, and commercial roadmaps?

Funding and measurement

• What funding mechanism supports multi-year ventures within annual budget cycles?
• How should TGH's impact be measured: revenue, portfolio value, strategic value delivered to business units, or a combination?
• Should programs be formalized as a strategic revenue stream, evolved into a methodology for business units, or both?
• What metrics prove that external presence is creating value?

Identity and positioning

• How do we maintain The Greenhouse's external equity while bringing the focus back to the Group?
• What does The Greenhouse space become in the next phase: a retail experimentation lab, an ecosystem hub, or both?
• Does TGH need a refreshed narrative or rebrand to signal the new phase and reset internal perception?
• How do we explain TGH simply: what we do, who we serve, and what we do not do?

Translate the workshop insights into a clear future model for TGH

The workshop was not designed to make final decisions. It was designed to surface what worked, what did not, what needs to be reworked, and which strategic questions still need to be answered.

The next step is to translate these insights into a clearly defined future model for The Greenhouse.

This should include:

• Mandate: why TGH exists today.
• Thesis: where TGH plays and why.
• Model: how opportunities are sourced, built, tested, funded, scaled, or handed over.
• Governance: how decisions are made.
• Metrics: how value is measured.

The output should then be validated with leadership and translated into an action plan.