INSEAD - The Secret To My Success

Let me tell you a little bit about my experience with INSEAD. It all started following the dot-com crash and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when investors in the Middle East became anxious to find new places for their money, seeking opportunities in the region. Being based in Dubai during this tumultuous time with my business with SWIFT signalled an exciting new period of prosperity.

However, it was the concerns of my corporate advisor regarding whether I had the management expertise to take the company to the next level which started my journey. As I mention in my book,?

“At first, I was deeply skeptical. I was forty-six years old and I was a successful businessman. Why did I need to go back to school now? What on earth could professors in their ivory towers teach me- a graduate of the real world of corporate life? It did not help that the cost of the one-month Advanced Management Program was an eye-watering $30,000. But in the end, I let myself be persuaded that it was a good idea. And it was.

A few weeks later, I found myself walking through the leafy campus of INSEAD, the French business school in Fontainebleau, just outside of Paris. I thought it then, and I still think it now: this was one of the biggest and most important steps in my life”.

Despite years of real-world experience, those few weeks at INSEAD introduced me to new ways of thinking, acting and leading that I still carry with me today- invaluable lessons which I started to put into practice as soon as I returned to Dubai and helped me to guide EastNets through various phases of success.?

To put it into perspective, in 2001, just before I entered INSEAD, EastNets was generating revenues of $1 million per year. By 2003, that number jumped to $6 million, doubling again to $12 million per year by 2005.