Serial entrepreneur Muhammad Shehata launches successful businesses in childcare, trucking and travel to Egypt

Faced with moving back to Egypt or landing a job in the United States, Muhammad Shehata’s life could have panned out differently if his family hadn’t put its roots down in the Midwest.

Shehata is a serial entrepreneur with businesses in childcare, travel, and trucking. Previously, he was an architect, but as COVID rocked job security, he thought it was time to bet on himself. Now Shehata finds himself on In Business Madison’s most recent “40 Under 40 list for his ventures — but his life could have turned out very different.

Shehata was born in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area of Iowa as a first-generation Egyptian-American. His journey carried many woes as one of the few Muslims in the area and one of the only Egyptians, with Iowa’s Muslim population largely Bosnian at the time. However, the experience led him to embrace the feeling of being different.