From Lebanon to Silicon Valley: Early Life and Formative Influences
May Habib’s journey began in the Lebanese countryside, the eldest of eight in a family that faced considerable obstacles. The 1990s brought conflict, and her family sought refuge in Canada, a move that left a lasting imprint on her perspective. As a young immigrant, May quickly learned to navigate new cultures and languages, developing a strong understanding of both the power of communication and the difficulties posed by language barriers. This early experience of displacement and multilingualism solidified a core belief: the language spoken at birth shouldn’t dictate the chances one gets in life.
Her entrepreneurial drive showed itself early on. Even as a teenager, May had a talent for spotting problems and creating solutions. After moving to Canada, she pursued higher education with determination, eventually graduating from Harvard University with high honors in Economics. This academic foundation provided her with analytical rigor, but it was her personal experiences with language inequities that steered her toward technology as a tool for empowerment. Habib’s journey reflects resilience forged in adversity, setting the stage for her future innovations in AI and natural language processing.
Founding Qordoba: Pioneering AI in Language Services
In 2015, May Habib co-founded Qordoba, a language services and digital content company initially based in Dubai before expanding globally. Partnering with Waseem AlShikh, a Syrian entrepreneur, the duo built a business serving over 650 clients by leveraging early AI techniques for localization, translation, and content creation. Qordoba represented one of the first commercial applications of natural language processing (NLP) to solve real-world enterprise problems in multilingual content management.
The industry, back then, was still leaning on human translators. It was expensive and prone to inconsistencies, especially when you needed to scale. Habib saw the writing on the wall. The research papers on transformers, in particular, opened her eyes to the possibilities of AI in language generation. Qordoba’s success story proved that AI could churn out high-quality, culturally aware content, and do it quickly and cheaply. This venture also sharpened Habib’s skills in NLP and AI language tools, while giving her a crash course in scaling a tech company in a cutthroat market. By the late 2010s, she’d racked up over ten years of practical experience, making her ideally suited for the generative AI wave.
Launching Writer: A Bold Move into Enterprise Generative AI
In August of 2020, Habib and AlShikh officially formed Writer, building on the groundwork laid by Qordoba, but now with a full-stack generative AI platform designed specifically for enterprises.
Unlike many startups that relied on third-party models like those from OpenAI, Writer took a contrarian path: developing its own proprietary large language models (LLMs) and infrastructure. This decision stemmed from Habib’s insight that enterprises needed secure, customizable, brand-consistent AI that could handle mission-critical workflows without risking data leakage or hallucinations.
Writer’s platform enables companies to deploy AI agents that automate complex tasks, from content generation to data analysis and process orchestration. Early adoption came from Fortune 500 giants such as Accenture, Prudential, Vanguard, Mars, Uber, Salesforce, Intuit, and Qualcomm. By emphasizing governance, security, and domain-specific fine-tuning, Writer addressed pain points that generic models could not. Habib’s leadership turned Writer into a unicorn, with recognition as a Forbes AI 50 company, a CNBC Disruptor, and one of the fastest-growing AI firms globally.
Scaling to a Multi-Billion Valuation Amid AI Boom
Under Habib’s leadership, Writer flourished. In November 2024, the company secured $200 million in a Series C funding round, elevating its valuation to $1.9 billion, though some estimates later suggested it could be around or above $2 billion. Habib’s substantial ownership stake highlights her success as a founder. Writer’s platform has demonstrated its worth in real-world enterprise applications, helping clients reduce expenses, improve brand coherence, and streamline operations.
Habib has positioned Writer at the forefront of “agentic AI,” where systems autonomously reason, plan, and carry out tasks. This approach differs from consumer-focused chatbots, emphasizing secure, scalable solutions for regulated sectors. Her decision to develop proprietary models, even when others cautioned against it, has proven prescient, as businesses increasingly seek control over their AI infrastructure.
Thought Leadership and Advocacy for Equitable AI
May Habib, more than just a business leader, is a recognized authority in the AI space. She’s a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and a MELI Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Her voice has been heard at major gatherings, including TEDAI San Francisco 2025, Davos (where she participated in panels with Axios at WEF26), Web Summit, and numerous AI-focused summits. In interviews and informal discussions, Habib explores the future of work, the importance of deliberate leadership, and the imperative of developing AI in an equitable manner.
Inclusivity is a central tenet of her advocacy. Drawing on her own experiences as an immigrant, she stresses that AI should work to break down, not build up, language and cultural barriers.
She advocates for responsible AI, focusing on bias reduction and data privacy, to ensure technology serves a wide range of global workforces.
Her vision for the future: a reimagined enterprise.
Looking forward, Habib sees a 2030 workplace that’s a world apart from the present. She anticipates self-evolving LLMs that provide proactive guidance, agentic systems managing complete processes, and AI simplifying complex business functions. Writer intends to spearhead this transformation by making generative AI dependable and ready for enterprise use.
Habib’s story—from a Lebanese immigrant to a Harvard-educated founder at the helm of a $2B+ AI company—demonstrates how personal challenges can spark innovation. Her efforts not only push technology forward but also foster a more just digital future, where language is no longer a barrier to opportunity.
