I am Abdalla Elshahhat. Fifteen years in B2B commercial, a decade of it building the channel underneath the number: first on the consulting side for three large device and pharma companies, then running commercial excellence for a healthcare technology business across 30 countries in EMEA, then running intercontinental distributor markets for a US medication automation company.
Those intercontinental years are the proof I lean on. Project-based sales of automated medication dispensing cabinets, sold entirely through distributors. In 18 months the business went from $5M to $14.8M a year and the partner network from 20 to 35 markets, while the regional team got smaller, not bigger. Every fiscal year reset to zero, so none of it was recurring revenue hiding a flat business. It was distributors who had a reason to sell, a price list that gave them one, and a contract that said who owned what.
Today I run a 50+ market distributor network in medtech. I sit on three advisory boards. And in my own time I do one thing for other device companies: take the product beyond the home market through distributors, because for a €1M to €15M device company distribution is the only growth lever you can pull without raising money or hiring a sales force. Done right it is also the revenue line the next investor or acquirer prices.
The Distributor Index came out of the same work. Every launch starts with the same question, who is licensed to import and hold the registration in this market, and the answer was always buried in a registry nobody searched. So we made the registries searchable and left the judgement to the Audit.
I take one launch at a time and I do not sell for you. If your device is cleared, selling at home, and the next step is abroad, book the half-day Audit. The full ladder, with prices, is below.
The Distributor Index is free and shows who is licensed. The services below are paid and turn that into signed, selling distributors. They cover capital equipment, surgical, orthopaedic, cardiovascular, ENT, GI and urology, dental, anaesthesia, monitoring and consumables. Imaging and radiology are in the Index because the registries hold them, but the services do not cover them.
You leave with a ranked market list, the registration holder picture per market and three named distributors, or we both know it is not a fit. Either answer is worth the morning. The Index gives you the counts. The Audit gives you the read on each name.
Sprint: market ranking across 25 countries, regulatory reality map, ideal distributor profile, a named longlist of 15 to 20, and a go/no-go you can take to your board.
Build: outreach and negotiation to signature, the distribution agreement, transfer price list and margin stack, territory and exclusivity rules, annual targets, and a 90-day onboarding pack per partner.
Registration in your name: in markets where a foreign manufacturer cannot hold its own registration, I set up an independent local holder through corporate-services partners, so distributors are appointed under you and can be replaced, not the other way round.
Signed-or-Free. Not five signed by month seven? I keep working at no monthly fee until they are.
Monthly distributor review, quarterly business reviews with each partner, two further signings a year, and the scorecard your board reads. Index alerts on new registrations and competitor listings in your markets are part of it.
For companies I would want to own a piece of: me as chair plus two or three clinical, regulatory and capital advisors from my network, and capital and exit introductions through licensed partners. The detail is for the room.