Day: November 16, 2025

• Noura Sakkijha and Majed Masad cofounded jewelry brand Mejuri in 2013. They’re also married.
• They said their partnership thrives on trust, clear roles, and open communication.
• Masad said when it comes to disagreements, they use Jeff Bezos’ famous “disagree and commit” strategy.

Noura Sakkijha and Majed Masad met in 2009 through mutual friends, and they were instantly drawn to each other’s entrepreneurial drive.

They got married two years later, and launched jewelery company Mejuri together in 2013. Sakkijha is the CEO, while Masad, the cofounder and president, oversees marketing, data, retail, merchandising, and real estate.

Being married cofounders can present some unique challenges.

“We’ve had many instances where we’re like, ‘should we be doing this together?’” Masad said.

But their relationship has also been an asset in building the company, both told Business Insider.

‘Crazy trust’

Both Sakkijha and Masad said that their greatest strength is their trust in each other.

“I have blind, crazy, crazy trust that he’s got what he’s working on,” Sakkijha said, adding that they’re both “in it to win it.”

Masad said one advantage of working together is their ability to be direct. That level of openness helps the business move more quickly, he said.

Both said that working together also brings out their individual strengths. Masad said he sees himself as detail-oriented, data-driven, and passionate about problem-solving and strategy, while Sakkijha thrives in communication, decision-making, and emotional intelligence. That “divide and conquer” approach has been key to growing the business — as well as managing responsibilities at home with their twins.

“We balance each other out, even in the boardroom,” Masad said. “Sometimes we’ll be like, I’d be going sideways, and Noura’s course correcting, or vice versa.”

‘Disagree and commit’

While the couple’s different strengths help create balance, they can make decision-making more complicated. Masad said he tends to evaluate choices through a commercial lens, while Sakkijha focuses more on design and product vision.

Sakkijha said they see eye-to-eye about 95% of the time. When they reach a disagreement, Masad explained, they’ve learned to defer to the person who’s closest to the issue to make the final call.

Masad said he applies Jeff Bezos’ management philosophy of “disagree and commit,” as described by the Amazon founder in a 2016 shareholder letter.

“If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, ‘Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?’” Bezos wrote in the letter.

Masad noted that while some of their decisions revolve around “two-way doors” — which Bezos describes as decisions that can be reversed — there are also tougher “one-way door” choices, which are more permanent and involve more back-and-forth. In those moments, he said, it’s crucial to trust that the person handling the decision has thought it through carefully.

“I’m not gonna say it’s always pretty and it’s always easy. There are situations where we’re like, ‘come on, that’s not the right call,’” Masad said.

Masad said the early days of the business were the most challenging, as the couple was still newly married and learning each other’s working styles while trying to build a company from the ground up. Then came the pandemic and twins.

He said the two have worked hard to separate their home life from work, but it’s an ongoing effort.

“Noura’s problems are my problems; my problems are Noura’s problems,” Masad said.

Masad said that the two have learned to tell each other when they’d rather not discuss work. To keep business conversations away from the dinner table, the couple also schedules one-on-one meetings to discuss business matters and resolve disagreements.

• My daughter brought home a school project, and I treated it as if it were my own assignment.
• I felt satisfied with it — until another mom reminded me that kids should do their own work.
• I wish I hadn’t hijacked her project and that she’d learned more autonomy.

Last year, my first-grade daughter was assigned a diorama for a school project. She and I built a coyote habitat from magazine clippings and cardboard. She cast her artistic direction and took the lead. It turned out nice — cotton clouds strung up on string and paper-pointed mountains — what you’d expect from a first grader.

Then we got to school and viewed the others. Parents had clearly poured hours (and money) into creating professional-level displays: jungle trees made of plaster, clear plastic streams, and papier-mâché cacti.

My daughter caught on, too. “Mom,” she said on the way home, “did you see those other ones? They were way better than mine.”

I assured her she’d done a fine job, but it had obviously been a parental showcase, even though that wasn’t anyone’s intention.

This year, we upped our game

Now, when she brings home a school project, I feel as if I, too, have just received homework. How lucky. My daughter brought home her most recent assignment, which required her to decorate a pumpkin like a favorite character from a book; she read the sheet and waved it in my face.

“Mom, this time can we do something better?” I could hear the anxiety in her voice — she wanted her project to measure up.

Instead of scrounging supplies around the house, we scrolled through Pinterest-perfect examples. Then we headed for the craft store with our vision and $20 in hand.

I mixed the perfect flesh color for Ludwig Bemelman’s Madeline, cut out her pinafore from felt, and commissioned my 12-year-old son to construct her hat and paint her face.

My daughter and I spent a comically long time cutting and gluing individual strands of yarn to make Madeline’s hair and fringe bangs.

At some point, my daughter drifted away, frustrated.

“We’re almost done,” I said, urging patience.

But it wasn’t we anymore; it was me. I had hijacked her project, and it wasn’t fun anymore.

Still, I felt satisfied we wouldn’t be “showed up” this year — our pumpkin looked very homemade and wouldn’t be the best, but our effort showed.

My daughter’s pumpkin did fit in — with the other parent-assisted projects

On presentation day, our imperfect Madeline was a far cry from the best. There were character faces too perfect to be the work of a child. Yarn was placed and glued without a stray hair. Animal ears constructed from symmetrical foam pieces.

A handful of endearingly childish ones stood out like sore thumbs.

“Which one’s yours?” I joked to one of the other moms.

“The Hungry Caterpillar.”

This sweet little pumpkin, painted with smudgy flowers and fruit and a blobby caterpillar, was one of the few clearly crafted by a second grader.

“Oh, so your child actually did it by herself,” I blurted.

The mom wasn’t offended. “Yep, she did it on her own. Don’t get me started on these projects.”

I laughed uneasily, thinking how much I’d helped my daughter on hers.

My good intentions — wanting to help, to do something together — morphed into performance

My daughter wanted my help so hers would turn out a little more polished and presentable. But in hindsight, that means she lost the chance to feel capable, to gain autonomy.

Next time, I want to step back, to let her create something a little more lopsided, streaky, or uneven. To teach her that effort matters more than polish. And that we don’t have to give in to perfection and pressure.

But this will require me to put aside my pride — to cheer her on and encourage her visions without getting too involved. And when she shows up at school disappointed that hers doesn’t measure up to the other parent-led work, to remind her that she did it all on her own and should be proud.

Because it’s her project, not mine.