Faysal Mkati spent two years studying on the full-time MBA program at Grenoble Ecole De Management between 2009 and 2011. Although the university's main campus is in the vibrant city of Grenoble in southeastern France, Faysal spent the majority of his time studying in London with the London School of Business and Finance.
Faysal, who was born in Dubai, worked as a Product Sales Manager in the sovereign Arab state of Qatar, heading a department and managing a budget worth $20M in 2008. Before that, he worked for Microsoft for three years, providing support for their offices in Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus and Malta.
Before embarking on a move to London to study his MBA, Faysal also worked in territorial sales at SAP in Qatar, managing oil and gas accounts for eight months. But despite a successful career across the Gulf, he moved to England's capital for the global networking opportunities.
Faysal chose Grenoble purely for its location. The business elite in Qatar hold London in high regard, and the high-end affluent people have close connections to the city, Faysal says. Two years spent studying in London allows him to "break the ice" with local Qataris. In 2008, Faysal established his own event management, PR and marketing agency, then called SPOT NOW Communications. Although Faysal is Lebanese, he chose to head the company from Qatar, where his father has worked for 35 years.
Qatar has prospered in the last several years and its economy is currently ranked 2nd out of fifteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Its overall economic score is higher than the regional and world averages, and unemployment is at an impressive low of 0.4%. Since economic freedom in 2008, the country's Government has sought reforms to enhance the entrepreneurial environment and growth is currently at almost 19 per cent. It is an attractive market and one that Faysal has prospered in.
But given the choice, the Grenoble MBA would have headed the company from his home in Lebanon. "I would head the business there of course. It's my home country," he said. "But with the bombings, there is no room in Lebanon for me now."
Lebanon has often been at the centre of Middle Eastern conflicts in recent years. At least 42 people were killed and over 400 injured in two huge bomb attacks in the northern city of Tripoli this month. A week before that, 27 people were killed after a car bomb exploded in the country's capital, Beirut.
It's economic growth is a meager 1.5 per cent and Faysal acknowledges the conflict would make business difficult. But he stresses that there are more opportunities elsewhere, regardless. "There is opportunity and business growth elsewhere," he said. "Lots of Lebanese companies work remotely from Lebanon and into the Gulf region and international arena, but they don’t get the whole cake. Its not sustainable."
Grenoble says that 92% of its graduates are in employment after graduation, but after his MBA, Faysal's business racked up $2M in its first three years. The company's most high-profile event to date, a Formula 1 demonstration that Faysal helped organize, took in $4M alone. Another event that they managed, a boat show, earned them around another $3M. "We can say we have 5-6M (in revenue) now. That's the minimum we have," Faysal said.
The company went through a shake-up in 2011 when Faysal split with his business partner at the time, whom he had learnt a great deal from after a career switch from sales. Companies in Qatar are required to be 51% owned by a local partner, but when they decided to go their separate ways, Faysals' did not want to sell their shares in SPOT NOW Communications.
The Grenoble MBA was forced to re-brand the company with a new business partner, now called Snow Comms Group, in January 2011. The switch was damaging to the business and growth was lost. "It's the same business, the same clients, just a different name," Faysal said. "We only changed the name because of the paperwork.
"We were set back. You loose a year or two of growth. We lost the credibility and financial history of the company. When I started again from zero, I lost all the accounts and benefits from the banks."
Snow Comms Group had ten international offices around the world before Faysal was forced to start again. Despite a rich revenue, they now have just 4-5. "It has shrinked because the business model is not working really well," he said.
"We tried to open offices around the world. We flew, we tried it, but it didn't work so we need to reconsider.
"We have to think strategically and think which markets we want to be in and why. Now, we need to consider which clients we are advertising too."
Faysal's family own a construction company and they wanted him to become an engineer. But he preferred "the ties and the office" and had always wanted to own a business for himself. It was a difficult career switch with a background in sales, and one that Faysal could not have done without the help of his MBA from Grenoble. "I benefited a lot from the MBA, because now I am more confident and comfortable," he said.
"It was a little bit of a challenge at first. From IT management to communications, the business language is different. The difficult part was learning the know-how.
"I was lucky that I was shadowing my business partner at the beginning. It was very challenging to be honest."
Although Faysal has had his setbacks, high-profile and high-earning events are nothing to turn your nose up at. Heading the company from Qatar, and managing events with organizations as big as Formula 1, SNOW Comms Group will surely rise in tandem with Qatar's booming economy.
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