The story of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and success is not like other stories. This is because the man who’s always smiling, is very frank and clear, also suffered from poverty and want, at the opposite extreme to his financial and practical success today.
The man who at the start could not afford any tuition fees for school, now chairs one of the largest auditing firms in the world. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh who once worked at an ice cream factory, is now studying a thousand projects.
Yes, a thousand projects.
This number of projects may seem unimaginable in any country and for any company no matter great its capacity or volume. Yet whoever knows the amount of trust that most Arab countries grant this self-dependent young man would not be surprised that Talal Abu-Ghazaleh has reached the status he’s in now.
What is the secret of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, the man who yesterday donated one million dollars to the American University of Beirut, which he graduated from and which named a college after him? And where can one meet with Talal in order to hear his story?
In Beirut?
Kuwait?
Riyadh?
Paris?
We finally caught up with him in Paris. He was there specifically to say hello to Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, the prince of Riyadh who was on a private visit to the French capital. Instead of Talal starting the interview by talking about himself, he started by talking about the prince who entrusted him and extended a hand of support for working in Riyadh at the highest levels.
Talal says simply and lovingly: “In Kuwait, the great credit goes to its governor, His Highness Sheikh Jaber Alahmad, who –thanks to his support for my company- it launched into what it has become. And in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the great thanks goes to His Highness Prince Salman who showered me with endless trust and generous hospitality”.
But how did Talal Abu-Ghazaleh start?
With extreme simplicity, he conveys the story from the beginning:
I was born in Jaffa in 1938, and at the time of Palestine’s Nakba (i.e. disaster), I moved to Lebanon and learned in its schools till I entered the American University of Beirut and graduated from there in 1960 with honors. Since I left Palestine, I cannot remember ever paying my school tuition fees whether at the Islamic Makassed school of the American University, because I always used to get a scholarship due to my academic distinction. In addition to the scholarship, there was a monthly wage for my expenses and livelihood this whole time.
Despite this, I still used to work all the time. This is because my father was old, and was 70 years old when we left Palestine. The second reason is because I had a large number of siblings that I had the responsibility of expenses for, in addition to the household.
I moved around between various jobs such as teaching at the Makassed schools, then at the Shweifat College and private institutes at night. I also worked in translation, and translated books for certain sums of money. Additionally, I worked at an ice cream factory where my daily wage was three pounds for twelve hours of work.
So overall I had suffered to acquire my education and tasted the bitterness of life and consequently understood the idea that a person needs to work hard in order to secure his education.
Despite this I excelled in my studies. I graduated in 1960 and entered the real world and started at the bottom of the ladder. This means that I was a small-time employee with the title of clerk or assistant or auditor, or even an auditor being audited, until I became a higher-level auditor and then manager and partner.
Where did you begin your current professional career?
I started in Kuwait. Therefore I must honestly say that it was the first country that had bestowed its grace upon me after my own homeland Palestine. Further, when I left Palestine I found in Lebanon a second homeland that raised me and secured a life and education for me, in addition to securing what is the most valuable in the world to me and that is my wife who is Lebanese. She is my greatest capital in this world and I met her at the American University when she was my colleague in studies. To me she is everything, and of course she gave me my four children who are Louay, Qusay, Mai and Jumana. The oldest is 13 years old.
After Lebanon I moved to Kuwait, and the credit to my practical (professional) success goes to Kuwait. Kuwait embraced me in such a way that I cannot describe when I was nothing and thanks to it I am now everything. Kuwait treated me not just like a Kuwaiti but actually better than a Kuwaiti, as the conditions that were ensured to me in Kuwait were not ensured to anyone. In my work there, I never once felt that I was in a country of which I wasn’t a native. On the contrary, internally I felt like a Kuwaiti more than the Kuwaitis themselves.
I worked in Kuwait as a smalltime employee, and thanks to support of officials at work and state officials, I grew and started to find myself and what I could do. This went on till the year of 1972, when I moved into the new phase of establishing our current company “Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and Partners”, which is our institution and headquartered in Kuwait. Within a year of creating the company, it became the largest in Kuwait and the Gulf, and then expanded to other areas. We began opening offices in many different countries.
The support and guidance that I received from the ruling family in Kuwait and specifically from His Highness Prince Sheikh Jaber Alahmad and his constant counsel and hospitality for this establishment as an Arab organization is something that I cannot even express in words.
The company Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and Partners as an auditing firm is not only the largest in the Arab world, but is proud to be recognized and accepted anywhere. This means that when the seal or signature or a budget is given under the name of “Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and Partners” in Tokyo, Australia, Luxembourg or anywhere else in the world, it is as if you obtained the signature of what is known as the “Big Eight” companies, with no questions asked.
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh smiles and then continues:
This is the second phase that we are launching from, as there is no reason that these companies only should remain in this field. I think this was a shortcoming on our part and a failure if we cannot create one Arab institution out of these eight or nine. This is the ambition that we are working towards. We haven’t stopped and will not stop in this phase that we are in.
This is because Arab efficiency is superior and I have Arab youth working for me in addition to foreigners such as Americans and Europeans and others. An Arab person works in a superior fashion to his foreign counterpart. We were lacking the existence of institutions that give people the fields to work and study in. We are working to ensure the availability of this area and are marching in a plan of open partnership, as every year we include new youth in our establishment. All of our current partners are employees and every citizen who proves himself is a partner. Actually when someone joins us we ask whether or not he/she is a potential partner. i.e. Will they become partners one day? And after five or ten years, if there is no future energy for him/her to be a partner then there is no need for investment and no need for us to train him/her. This is because we spend enormous sums on training. We spend 10-15% of our general income on training, whereas it is known that major corporations spend 3% of their gross income on training.
So we spend a lot of our income, and most of our profits on training, and all partners entered based on this philosophy. We want to build something not to turn a profit, but to build a foundation that will be among the greatest worldwide, and not only in the Arab region.
Today, our establishment has 23 branches throughout the Arab world, and we just opened our first office outside the Arab region in Paris, and we are thinking of opening an office now in Washington.
And the other institutions?
When we created Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and Partners in 1972, we found there was a need for a consulting organization in the sense of administrative, financial and industrial consultations. The Arab region has good centers for consultations, but most of these work in one country (domestically) and there isn’t one that works outside its locale. As such, the market unfortunately became open to foreign institutions. These take up all the consultation business because of this vacuum.
The vacuum cannot be filled by these foreign entities because they are unable to do so for simple reasons: The first is the language problem. When the foreign expert comes along, he will not be able to understand the information, material or statistics that are all in the Arabic language, in addition to not being able to understand the nature of the Arab world as needed. Our strength here lies in the fact that we’ve been able to create a strong apparatus of experts that are no less efficient than any foreign expert, and these experts are Arabs who’ve worked abroad in consulting firms. Their expertise is no less than that of a foreign expert sent to us by a foreign establishment. But their advantage is that each of these experts is an Arab, whose loyalty is to the region and understands the environment, language, mentality, people’s efficiency and how to deal with them, in addition to permanency.
So when someone calls us on the phone and says that he’s facing a problem, within minutes or hours the necessary expert will be by his side, and this is something that can’t happen when the expert is from Chicago, Paris or London.
Therefore, we found this to be a necessity, and in 1974 created a studies institute called Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Associates, which is for administrative, financial and industrial consulting. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Associates has become today the largest consulting establishment in the Arab region as well.
It has begun collaboration with the other major consulting organizations globally such as Strand Research Institute and others such that we cooperate with them on certain projects and gain expertise in similar projects that have been conducted in the past. We want to start where others left off. It is our national duty to learn what others already know and to start from there and develop that if we can.
He continues excitedly:
We were able to build this organization, which today is the largest consulting establishment in the field of studies that address projects, companies’ creation and putting systems in place. These include microfilm systems, warehousing systems, and administration and accounting systems. It also conducts strategic, economic and market studies, in addition to industrial studies. This is deliberate, because we believe that the strength of our nation lies in the area of industry. Of course all foreign parties and companies try convincing us that industry is a failure in the Arab region for many reasons.
This is something I am specialized in, and have delivered lectures on it throughout major cities worldwide in the USA, Switzerland and Tokyo, Paris, Lyon and London. I delivered speeches on the industry in the Arab world. Why should industry succeed in the Arab region? There are at least ten reasons that distinguish us from any other industrial nation currently, the simplest of these are the availability of energy, labor, no union-related problems, the existence of strong purchasing power, proximity of the initial resources market which is closer to us than Europe, and the export market which is Europe and Asia that is closer to us than western markets. We have all the prerequisites to create successful industry. Of course we need support, but in our estimate this is a national duty. Therefore, we focused greatly on building industry and today we are working on 1000 industrial projects in the Arab region.
Industry is our main objective and the company offers services on integrated projects such as:
1- Studying the project
2- Creating the company
3- Finding a foreign company/partner
4- Assisting in negotiations to establish projects, particularly from the aspect of execution contract and what follows
5- Creating a system for the project
Our apparatus in our consulting company includes engineers, financial economists, lawyers, financial administrators, and accountants.
The strongest nations of the world are the industrialized ones, and not those that possess money or large populations, and the strongest members of industrialized nations are the industrialists. Industrial establishments are who and what control the state. In the USA for example, they govern and decide the level of expenses, the budget, the price of commodities and everything in the world of economy. As such, our focus is on the industry.
Our consulting organization has proven its status and today we are conducting studies for most Arab governments, national and foreign institutions. We have been accepted as a global consulting establishment and not just an Arab one!
Abu-Ghazaleh goes on to discuss the milestones of success:
The third institute in the organization is Price Waterhouse - Talal Abu-Ghazaleh. We also believe that opening up to the advanced world happens of course by building bridges with it, and transferring experiences and expertise to build our skills as well. So we also created a company with Price Waterhouse, which is the largest and oldest accounting firm in the world. It is also a trading company and our combined entity with them was built on a 50-50 basis. (50% for us and 50% for them). Also, in the first time in the history of this kind of organization, the presidency of the company is with us and not with them; the company works under our administration and I am the chairman of its board. With them, we coordinate the training programs, and the technical level.
Whatever they have as far as professional, technical and training development are at our disposal. Accordingly, the level of our efficiency and productivity today is at the same level as theirs in general.
The fourth entity in the organization is the ‘Trademarks registration’ establishment. Through our offices we register trademarks to protect industrial property. Also, we are the largest establishment in the Arab region in this field. These four establishments work in the same location under the same administration, yet are independent companies, with independent partners and apparatuses. At the same time, they all benefit from common services and from support of one another. The only thing they have in common is that I am the chairman of all of them!
On the future, he says:
We are now embarking on a new idea and a new project, which is filling the gap in the Arab world in investment services and investment guidance or opinion. The Arab region is approaching an enormous phase of growth and this growth will require investment services. So we are creating an independent company that will be supported by the rest of the organization and have the organization’s services offered to it. This company will be ready to deal with investors whether they are public or private institutions or individuals, and offer investment services for the entire Arab region. Of course here we have an advantage because the institutions in question have knowledge of the market, good connections, reputation and status and their ability to ensure capabilities. Therefore, the best various investment services can be offered. This entity will be called “The Arab Projects Company” and will be registered in Bahrain.
Our look towards the future is based on evaluating the locations of the Arab economy and its future, both presently and later on. There is no doubt that every loyal Arab realizes that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is the great hope for Arabs in all fields. Also, there is no doubt that the progress existent in KSA under the king’s leadership and officials, in addition to the balanced and reasonable direction of the economic policy makes the decisions taken by KSA extremely important. This also means that a huge organization such as ours in the Arab region should be focusing its attention in servicing the kingdom as it has unlimited energies, and resources in secure hands, that build the interest of the kingdom and the Arabs.
We have three offices in KSA; in Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah. We are currently establishing three other companies in the kingdom to accommodate additional activities.
I am personally responsible for the activity in the kingdom even though I have no other responsibility or position other than being the chairman of the company. So I do not have direct responsibility on any aspect of our business except the KSA, in addition to being the chairman, due to the significance of this field of work and my emotional attachment to it.
Today we are not only the largest company in KSA only. Whoever is familiar with the numbers knows that we are bigger than all other competing companies combined. But the issue isn’t a matter of volume, but what we prepared as far as knowledge and capabilities to serve progress and assist in KSA’s economic growth. In any one of our offices all of our organization’s individual establishments work as an integrated unit, even if they are legally independent from one another.
Now, what is our role?
We feel that it is not enough for us to have a successful organization in the sense that it fulfilled its role in its specialization, but should rather have a profitable one with visions for the future, with the number of its partners growing annually and offices uniting.
We have a role to play in the region. Because of this, we took on some of the projects that we have. One of these is the Abu-Ghazaleh Accounting Dictionary. Unfortunately prior to this, there was no dictionary, neither good nor bad. For six full years, I personally worked, along with the help of my colleagues in the organization, on preparing the first accounting dictionary, which was printed by Macmillan Publishing in Britain. Macmillan handled the publishing and distribution costs while I held the publication rights.
The purpose of this dictionary isn’t commercial at all, because what I invested in it as far as time and money is irreplaceable. But the aim is to exert an effort towards unifying the accounting language. We as professionals need at least to agree on understanding the language and communication that we use, as far as businesspeople and institutions are concerned. We are trying to commonize the language we deal in for our profession and the organizations that we serve.
The process takes time, and this dictionary may well be a draft that will generate comments and suggestions for changes. This is something that we welcome, and I have said as much in the dictionary’s introduction, as it is only a first attempt, the objective of which is to reach something that we are all satisfied with. Yet there is no doubt that up till now, the reactions that I have received whether from colleagues in the profession, businesspeople, or officials in the Arab region were extremely satisfying and supportive of this professional effort. This made up for all the exhaustion and energy spent on this project. In my estimation, in a few years, the expressions in the dictionary will become a reference as long as there is no other reference. They will become a reference also for schools and universities in addition to our organization, and the dictionary is now a reference for all individuals at our company. There is another project ongoing as you know which is the college project in Beirut, namely the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh College for Higher Studies (in Adminsitration). This is something that we are quite proud of for numerous reasons:
Firstly, it is a college in the Arab region for higher studies that gives or will be giving the Masters and Doctorate degrees in the Arab nation.
Second, we are proud that it was established in Lebanon which is a part of our nation. Lebanon was and will remain a source of intellect, knowledge and civilization in the Arab region. Lebanon’s role is clear and doesn’t require any testimony from me. I learned in Lebanon, and if it wasn’t for Lebanon and the American University in Beirut, I would not have become who I am.
A person with a conscience must recognize the goodness bestowed upon him, and as such this is the reality with me.
After the success of this experiment, I can confidently say that I am ready to cooperate with any Arab university that wishes to conduct a similar exercise in establishing higher studies. Today, I think that what I did was the right step.
Reasons for the project:
Our nation needs it, and it is in the field of our specialization, as an organization of accounts and investments. The college will graduate holders of the highest degrees. I am currently inviting them and am trying to employ them, and seek them out from other countries. I am now creating the factory so to speak, that will produce the capabilities that I need. I can also support this college by giving it the resources, the expertise and what the market demands and support the university and college with everything that they need relating to businesspeople and associated qualifications and programs.
Also, a part of the arrangement was for the college to train members of our organization, since I consider training to be very important. This will relieve us of an administrative burden, because this now becomes the responsibility of the college. By a transfer of the necessary budget, we were able to ensure the financial support needed for the college for its creation, which is something we are proud of and consider it part of our national duty as I previously mentioned.
In general, we consider the organization to have a role for growth of the Arab world, and not just being an organization for services. Therefore, it has created and is creating different projects in its field from a civilized and educational aspect. We believe that our superiority as Arabs is a civilization-related superiority and our future depends on our civilization-related success or failure. Our organization also is of the position that the Arab region needs certain types of services that we can provide, and so we play a role that transcends our mere existence. When a client or company want a particular service, we take the initiative and present projects, and provide guidance and advice to firms such as: how to operate and distribute the workload, information on foreign companies, how to operate in the region and expand the market of activities, and advising national institutions on how to increase their success and business opportunities.