Leyla El Guermai is an innovative entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of RAFINYA, an AI-driven travel companion designed to revolutionize how the world explores Africa. Her mission is to elevate the travel experience by matching individual tastes and real-time contexts with high-quality local experiences, transforming a traditionally time-consuming planning process into a seamless, minutes-long interaction. By leveraging an LLM-native marketplace, Leyla is dedicated to making the continent’s hidden gems accessible to a global audience through cutting-edge technology.

Leyla’s career in the travel sector began in North America, where she led the supplier acquisition strategy for Planned.com, a prominent platform focused on corporate travel and events. While her time in Canada provided a deep foundation in travel tech and logistics, her strategic vision eventually led her back to Morocco to apply those global insights to her own startup. Today, she sits at the forefront of the African travel-tech landscape, building digital tools that bridge the gap between modern discovery and authentic local exploration.