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A
zmi T. Mikati
, a Lebanese businessman, was born
on September 21st, 1972 in Tripoli, Lebanon. In 1994,
he earned a bachelor of Sciences from Columbia
University, NewYork. While in college, he founded T-One, a
telecom company providing long-distance services between
the United States and other international destinations. It
proved quite successful and was later sold in 1997 to a US
publicly traded long distance company. In 1998, he became
CEO of Investcom, a leading emerging market phone com-
pany. Under his leadership, the Company’s sales grew in less
than seven years from US$ 30 Million to US$ 1 Billion.
In 2005, Investcom listed its share on the London Stock
Exchange, and the Dubai International Financial Exchange.
It raised more than US$ 740. In 2006 Investcom and MTN
announced a landmark deal to combine their assets and cre-
ate the pre-eminent mobile operator in emerging market.
At 33, Mikati was the youngest CEO of a Middle Eastern
publicly traded company. Today, at 35, he is the CEO of M1
Group an international investment group with a strong
focus on the Telecom sector. M1 remains one of the largest
shareholders in MTN a Johannesburg listed company.
He lives in Beirut, Lebanon with his wife Mira Zantout
and their two children Nada and Taha.
In February 2007, Mikati joined the Board of Trustees of
the International College.
Q: You are incredibly young and yet you are the CEO of one of
the world’s multi-million dollar companies. You are undoubt-
edly in a world of businessmen and women who are much old-
er. Have you found that your age has handicapped you in any
way? Have business people ever treated to you differently (pos-
itively or negatively)?
MIKATI
: Undoubtedly, when people meet me for the first
time they are a bit taken by my age, and my dress code (that
is usually very casual). I sometimes hear comments like “we
thought you were older”. But this slight disadvantage in peo-
ple’s first impression usually dissipates after our first meeting.
Q: Tell us a bit about your childhood and youth. Your family, we
understand, was in construction. The telecommunication infra-
structure was practically destroyed. It was then that your father set
up a ship-to shore satellite phone on the rooftop of his office building.
The idea was a hit. Everybody wanted one. And thus was born the
first privately owned cellular network in the Middle East. Would
you say that the same spirit of pioneering runs through you as well?
MIKATI
: I grew up in Lebanon, in a very tightly knit fam-
ily. Since my early age I used to spend a lot of time at the
office with my father and uncle, the company’s founders,
living their daily challenges and trying to learn from
them. I would like to think that I have been impregnated
with some of their pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit.
Q: You were still in college when you founded T-One. What
made you come up with the idea of founding it to begin with?
MIKATI
: Probably that was the part of pioneering and entre-
preneurial spirit that has been infused in me over the years.
Q: What about campus life? How did you manage to juggle
your studies, run a business and attend social activities?
MIKATI
: It was challenging yet very exciting and I
would say that I did very well at two out of these three. I
was an average student that ran a successful company,
and profited from all of what New York had to offer.
Q: You currently live in Beirut with your wife Mira and two
children, Nada and Taha. Would you describe yourself as a fam-
ily man? How do you spend your time with your children?
MIKATI
: I consider myself a family man; due to work I
travel extensively, and unfortunately am not able to spend
enough time with them, but whatever time I have with
them is quality time devoted to doing whatever they enjoy.
Q: What does IC mean to you? Where would you like to see IC
heading?
MIKATI
: On the emotional side IC is the school my father
attended since elementary up to his high school gradua-
tion, and on the rational side it is an exceptional institu-
tion that educates and shapes the leaders of tomorrow.
Q: There are many entrepreneurial students, like yourself, at IC.
They have the vision but perhaps not the means of achieving
their goals. What would your best advice be to them? What
would you say to guide them into being the next ‘Azmi Mikati’?
MIKATI
: I am confident that their aspirations are higher.
Probably the only and most important mean they need is
education; and as they are studying at IC then they are on
the right track; once this is available, together with a
dream, the ambition to make that dream a reality, and the
perseverance to keep on trying even after they fail, I am
confident that inshaAllah their goals will be achieved and
their dreams will realize.
AZMI MIKATI :
OUR NEWEST BOARD MEMBER