When Zineb Drissi-Kaitouni co-founded DabaDoc in 2014, Morocco’s tech ecosystem was still in its infancy. Startups were scarce, venture capital even scarcer, and few women were visible in the space.
Yet, Drissi-Kaitouni trained in finance, shaped by global experience, and grounded in her North African roots saw what others didn’t: a digital revolution waiting to be built.
Today, as the co-founder and CEO of DabaDoc, she stands at the forefront of Morocco’s digital transformation, bridging technology, healthcare, and financial inclusion with a vision that is quietly shaping Africa’s emerging digital economy.
Drissi-Kaitouni’s path into entrepreneurship wasn’t accidental.
After earning her degree in Business Administration from HEC Montréal, she began her career in investment banking, working in Casablanca and Paris.
But the more she immersed herself in numbers, the more she realized that data told human stories — about inefficiency, inequality, and opportunity.
The healthcare sector in particular struck her: millions of Moroccans struggled with access to medical specialists, not because they lacked doctors, but because the system lacked coordination.
In 2014, she and her brother, Driss Drissi-Kaitouni, launched DabaDoc, an online platform that allows patients to book medical appointments with doctors across Morocco and beyond.
The idea was revolutionary at the time — a digital health marketplace designed for a region where healthcare infrastructure was both fragmented and paper-based.
Within a few years, DabaDoc had expanded to Tunisia, Algeria, and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, connecting thousands of doctors with millions of patients.
What sets Drissi-Kaitouni apart is her ability to blend vision with pragmatism. DabaDoc’s success isn’t just in digitizing healthcare; it’s in democratizing it.
By reducing waiting times, improving transparency, and enabling cross-border medical access, the platform became a model for how African entrepreneurs could solve local problems with scalable technology.
Her leadership turned DabaDoc into one of Africa’s earliest and most successful healthtech startups, so compelling, in fact, that in 2021, the Moroccan telecom giant Orange Group acquired a significant stake in the company, signaling global confidence in the North African startup scene.
Beyond her entrepreneurial triumphs, Drissi-Kaitouni is part of a broader movement redefining what women in technology and finance can achieve in Africa.
Her influence now stretches beyond healthtech.
Through her experience scaling DabaDoc, she has become a mentor and advocate for women founders navigating the region’s nascent startup ecosystem.
She actively speaks about the need for gender equity in venture funding and digital education, emphasizing that empowering women in business is not just moral logic — it’s economic strategy.
Drissi-Kaitouni’s leadership style mirrors the quiet strength of many North African women breaking boundaries: collaborative, data-driven, and grounded in community impact.
Her work has earned her recognition across international media, including Forbes Africa, Jeune Afrique, and Arabian Business, which all celebrate her as a pioneer in both digital healthcare and female entrepreneurship.
As Morocco accelerates its digital transformation from fintech to e-health to smart cities, Drissi-Kaitouni’s story offers a blueprint for inclusive innovation.
She represents a generation of African women who are not waiting for permission to lead change; they are building the systems that will define tomorrow’s Africa.
