Omar Samra, Adventurer & Explorer

Omar Samra is a mountain and polar adventurer, serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker and analogue astronaut. He’s a staunch advocate for space and exploration, the transformational power of nature, climate action, women, refugees and disability rights.

He’s the first Egyptian to climb Everest, the 7 Summits (highest mountain on every continent) and ski to both the North and South Pole. In 2017, Omar made three first ascents of Antarctica mountains and named them. He rowed 1,000km across the Atlantic Ocean before capsizing in a storm. His survival story, which also sheds light on the plight of refugees, was made into a documentary that screened at the Cannes Film Festival among others, to wide acclaim.

Omar served as the Vice-Commander of Lunares 3, a 15-day moon-analogue mission conducting research on lunar habitability. He’s a citizen-science astronaut candidate with project PoSSUM, and the winner of an XCOR Aerospace sub-orbital space flight in the Axe Apollo space competition among 2 million applicants.

In 2009, following a career in Banking and Investments, Omar founded Wild Guanabana, the Arab region’s leading adventure travel company where he still serves as CEO. Subsequently Omar founded a handful of other businesses in the education, environment, space, and tourism sectors, as well as a children’s education charity in his late wife’s honour. In 8 years, it has touched the lives of more than 100,000 children in 10 countries.

Omar is an ambassador of the Earth Shot Prize, a Mark Maker for Montblanc, a former Goodwill Ambassador to the UNDP, and an honorary ambassador to Nepal. He is a board member of Equality Now, and the Chairman of the board of Marwa Fayed’s Toy Run. He holds a degree in Economics from the American University in Cairo and an MBA from London Business School in Entrepreneurship.

Click here to view Omar’s CV.