A business school in Mosul — not a branch of anyone
Mosul Business School exists because the city has more people who work hard than people who work methodically — and the distance between the two is what caps the growth of most of its businesses.
The problem we are trying to address
Mosul has tens of thousands of small and medium businesses, most of them built on personal experience and persistence. When the moment to scale arrives, the owner hits a clear ceiling: they do not know their true cost, they have nobody to delegate to, and they cannot convert ambition into a plan anyone can follow.
Available management training is either theoretical and detached from the local market, or too short to leave a trace. We wanted something between the two: intensive enough to change something, applied enough to be used immediately, and in Arabic — because that is the language participants actually think in.
Three principles we do not compromise on
Honesty about what we offer
We promise no job and no government accreditation. We say clearly what the certificate is and is not, and leave the judgement to you.
Small cohorts
25 seats maximum. The programme rests on discussion and individual review, and that does not work in a crowded hall.
Output before content
Every unit is designed from one question: what document does the participant leave with, and can they use it tomorrow?
Salih Mahmood
Founder of Mosul Business School. He designs the curriculum, runs the first cohort and leads most of its sessions.
He founded Mosul Space in 2014 and led it for eight years — a business incubator and technology hub in Mosul that worked with hundreds of young people on turning ideas into operating ventures or into jobs at serious companies. Since 2023 he has worked on economic empowerment and skills programmes with international organisations operating in Iraq, overseeing vocational training centres and designing the entrepreneurship programmes inside them.
He holds an MBA from the SEPT Competence Center at Leipzig University, Germany (2021–2022), and a BSc in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Mosul (2017, first in his class).
That background is why the programme takes this shape: ten years of building training measured by what the trainee does afterwards, not by how many hours it ran.
Guests and other instructors
Most sessions are run internally to keep the curriculum coherent, with other practitioners joining for specific units.
A full week is set aside for guests: business owners and professionals from Mosul presenting their real experience — what worked, what failed and why — because that kind of knowledge exists in no syllabus.
We are in our first pilot cohort and operate under the legal framework of a registered company. The other instructors and guests are named before the units they take part in.
Where to find us
Base: Mosul — Hay al-Muhandiseen. Sessions are fully in person, and the exact location is sent to admitted participants before the cohort begins.
Is this programme for you?
The fastest way to find out: send us a short message describing your work and what you want to change, and we will answer you straight.