Simulation is how the world prepares for what matters. Work deserved one too.

Pilots rehearse, surgeons rehearse, astronauts rehearse — for the working day, the world mostly offered slides.

The spark

Elie Barnaba, in his own words.

The first time I felt it was at INSEAD. Somewhere between the lectures and the frameworks, they put us inside a simulation — a business to run, decisions to make, consequences that answered back. I’ve forgotten many classes. I never forgot the feel of doing something real.
Then I spent fifteen years in consulting watching the opposite. I’ve taken the trainings. I’ve designed them. I’ve delivered more of them than I can count — classroom, online, one-on-one, whole floors of people at once. And I kept arriving at the same honest conclusion: almost none of it mimics reality, and what sticks is only what gets applied. The relevant survives; the rest evaporates by Friday.
In 2023, as AI made it possible for software to talk back, push back, and read your work the way a good manager does, it clicked: development could finally be tailored, relevant, and effective — the way the best simulation always was, at a price everyone could reach. That’s when Simi was born. Since then, one question has driven everything: how do I put this in everyone’s hands?

The mission

I’m on a mission to change how people develop. I want a student in her first job, a director before his first board, and a public servant on her hardest day to have what pilots have had for a century: a place to practice before it’s real. I want every individual to afford it — and I want governments and enterprises to build tailored simulations that take their teams beyond the basics of training, to the point where the work itself improves.

Elie Barnaba · Founder

The founder

Elie Barnaba has spent 18+ years building at the intersection of strategy and human capability: Philips, then BCG, then founding PACS — a strategy firm he scaled to a successful acquisition by EY — where he became the partner leading the business transformation practice across MENA. Along the way he led national programs in skills and productivity, advised ministries and boards, and trained hundreds of professionals: an INSEAD MBA and board director who has spent a career watching what training does and doesn’t change.

Simi is his answer. He builds it from MENA, for the world.

Principles in public

Real work over quizzes
Claims earned, not announced
Substance over fluency
Never imitating real public figures
Your data is yours

Get in touch

One inbox. One working day.

A question, a cohort, a simulation you wish existed — a person reads every message.

[email protected]

Or see the work first — visit the screening room or browse the catalog.