Fadi Ghandour: Entrepreneur of the Middle East

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Techcrucnh TV just released an interview between Shervin Pishevar and Fadi Ghandour, Co-Founder and CEO of Aramex. Mr. Ghandour is very passionate about social entrepreneurship and in the interview he discusses the challenges he faced when starting Aramex with his partners, especially in Saudi Arabia where it took them 16 years to obtain a license to operate, that is persistence!

Mr. Ghandour is quite the character, you can see the energy he exhibits as he tells stories about the random items he has in his office and how he’s had the same office desk since he started Aramex over 25 years ago. He also discusses the investments he’s made in twitvid, jeeran, d1g and how it all started with Maktoob and the affects the Maktoob Yahoo! deal had on the region.

But aside from his colorful stories he shares his views and advice about investing in the Middle East as well as his take on failure. He mentions that for a start-up investors such as himself look for passionate people who believe in what they have to offer, its not about the business plan. Because as he mentions at the end of the day he’s investing in the entrepreneur. And he realizes that these investments might not always come to fruition, people should learn how to accept failure, learn from it and move on. (failure for both investors and entrepreneurs).

Finally Mr. Ghandour advised entrepreneurs in the region to believe, be passionate and never be afraid of failure because its irrelevant, in fact its the only way people can learn!

You can watch the full interview here.

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Having worked with top digital agencies and companies in the MENA region for the past number of years I'm now looking now to venture on my own with small side projects in online, SaaS products. Things I like include: gaming, sports, technology, social media, start ups, funny things and reading about new bright ideas.