Al-Ayyar's Keynote speech at AUK's Class of 2007 Graduation Ceremony

Keynote speech given at AUK's Class of 2007 Graduation

Good Evening!

Your Excellency, Minister of Education . . . Distinguished Guests . . . Ladies and Gentlemen . . .

It is an honor to be here. It is a great day for you, for AUK and for me.

I thank Sheikha Dana, Founder & Chairman & President, Dr. Marina. . . for giving me this honor.

Your graduation brings back memories of 31 years ago . . . my graduation day. It was in Big Springs, Texas, which is probably not shown even on the map. The temperature there is almost the same as here. We were ten proud Air - Force officers . . . with hair much shorter than yours.

Let me share with you some important milestones in my life.. Hopefully some of my life lessons can be valuable to you.. My career had a few important stages. Each had its up and low moments.

The first stage . . . I would label it as the youth era: The era of learning to be disciplined, learning to deal with ambition and competition.

By the way . . . I became a pilot, not because I wanted to, but because it was a joint decision with a few friends . . . we saw it as a short cut to America, without parent's concession and support.

My first life lesson . . . Do not make big decisions by just listening to your friends they, probably, do not have a full picture about you.

I married young . . . at age 22. . . By age 26 , I had a wife and two kids . . . My heart and soul however were focused on being a successful entrepreneur . . . I was planning to make the biggest decision in my life . . . to move from a secure job in the Air Force to the Wild , Wild West . . . wanted to be rich . . . Quick !! So I made the choice . . . Thinking about it now, it was not such a wise decision . . . can anyone say otherwise?

The next stage of my life started with fireworks. This was the Manakh time.. Wonderland, Disney land, whatever you want to call it. Everybody . . . and I mean everybody . . . was busy with stock market "trading ". . . even the butcher, the vegetable seller and the bokhur (Scent) vendor. And we did not stop at that . . . we truly believed that we were experts.

Many of you are familiar with the internet bubble . . . this was our bubble .like everyone, I thought this would last until I achieved my financial goals, but . . . as quickly as the rise came , the fall came even quicker . I landed very hard . . . but not as hard as many others.

My life lesson here was . . . in good times you must always know how to strengthen yourself! And remember . . . what comes quickly - goes just as quickly!

I came out of it feeling the failure . . . it was not a good feeling. However, I picked up the pieces, worked with the family business - brick and mortar stuff . . . all this was hard work, no flashy life.

I would describe this phase as the salary era in my life . . . it was challenging . . . multiple business, family emotions & inheritance issues. The circumstances made a 9 to 5 job look attractive. It was very difficult to adjust from living like a millionaire . . . even for a short period of time . . . to living on a budget.

I began working for the private sector in 1986, when I was 32 years old. This was the first time I worked for others. I had never done that . . . I had experienced over the last 10 years some success and some failures. Now . . . I was determined "not to fail"

Any job that I did, I gave my best . . . the commitment was there . . . I put in long hours . . . I took on responsibility . . . and took decision. I contributed my little experience into my work .Interestingly . . . the results of these efforts started showing success.

In this stage of my life, the lesson I learnt was that. . . Commitment, Discipline and Hard Work will bring value . . . sooner or later.

This was good preparation for the next stage of my career . . . the Corporate World. I joined KIPCO in 1990 and 3 months later, we were invaded by our neighbor Iraq. So it wasn't a good start.

The corporate world environment was very new to me . . . so intriguing! I decided to do more listening than talking. As a result, I was probably the quietest CEO in Kuwait for the first year. Then we built what we built . . . the KIPCO Group.

In 1991, KIPCO began with two companies from the Financial Services sector. Today . . . the KIPCO Group has 54 companies in the Financial Services . . . Media . . . Real Estate . . . Industrial . . . Healthcare . . . and Aviation sectors.

In 1991, KIPCO had operations in only 4 countries. Today . . . KIPCO operation across 18 countries primarily in the MENA region i.e. The Middle East & North Africa . KIPCO began with approximately 200 employees. Today . . . our total head count is over 12,000 . . . with over 60 nationalities.

In 1991, KIPCO's consolidated Assets were US$257 Million. Today . . . . KIPCO's consolidated Assets are US$20 Billion.

We were the first corporate to be rated in the MENA region. We were the first to do a cross border deal. . . the biggest one . . . some 3.7 billion dollars in Kuwait. We introduced the transparency (Shafafiya) forum . . . which we have been doing for the last 3 years.

The success we achieved over the last 17 years came from. . . Having the right vision. . . Having the right people. . . and Working together in harmony. It was also the result of the many personal life lessons that I learnt.

One valuable life lesson I will mention is hat . . . irrespective of a good or a bad experience . . . you can extract knowledge from it . it can be a great teacher when you learn from it and collect . . . in the form of experience.

Let me share with you a few insights. . . the first one is that most of the time , the first obstacle is your own mind. . . so open your minds . . . you will be surprised , that once you do this , your destiny suddenly becomes larger .

Another is. . . always raise the bar. . . In your conduct. . . In your ethics and particularly . . . In your execution.

The other insight is about handling problems . . . First and foremost, never sweep a problem under the carpet. . . Focus on it , to resolve it . Most of the time, you will have more options than you think. When the problem is too big . . . fragment it . . . then attack each part separately. Choose the best solution but remember . . . sometimes, some solutions may be good for a part, but not for all.

Team work is important . . . but it is more important to create a culture which encourages open and free discussion of thoughts and solutions in your team. You will be surprised that juggling with solutions will very often help you to find the master key to the problem and opportunities.

As you go into the market place with its great macro economic environment , quality of education & information technology . . . with knowledge in your palms. . . it will be a great and exciting time . . . whatever you choose to be ! All you need is hard work. . . Dedication . . . harnessed with Good Ethics!

If you do that, you will do well, feel well and you will be noticed.

Congratulations and wish you all the success . . . Thank you.