Karim Tazi is a Moroccan textile industrialist, founder of Casablanca-based high-street fashion brand Marwa and chief executive of parent company Folly Fashion. Since launching the brand in 2003, he has delivered an aggressive expansion plan. By 2022, Marwa had over 80 stores across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region stretching from Morocco, Algeria and Libya in the west to Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE in the east. In 2021, he turned his attention to Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, opening stores in France and Côte d’Ivoire to anchor the business in those regions.
The Meknes-born businessman cut his teeth at French retailer La Redoute before developing a vertically integrated business model for his own brand back in Morocco. A champion of local manufacturing, he employed a team of international and local designers to adapt European fashion trends to suit local tastes across the Arab world at accessible price points, enabling Marwa to take market share from European high-street and fast fashion giants operating in the MENA region. Tazi has held several institutional leadership positions including the presidency of the Moroccan Association of Textile and Garment Industries (AMITH), a role which saw him promote the country as a sourcing and manufacturing hub for international brands.
