“I don’t have to do everything with a contract. If I say something, I honour it.”  

“Invest in the best” 

“You can’t be a crook and a leader at the same time. If you have a bad reputation you are finished, no matter how rich you are or how hard you work.”

“We have a tribal culture. People always need a tribal chief in the Arab World.”

“Anybody who is a leader here has to have the ability to manage through crises. This is when a leader shows his mettle. Not when there is a boom; not when the sea is calm. Anyone can sail during calm seas.”

“Entrepreneurs are people who struggle and win against the odds.”

“I still put in more hours than my best employees. Everyone sees that I’m there on the front line – not just telling them what to do.” 

“Mistakes always happen. And here we try to highlight them and not hide them under the carpet.”

“This is in many ways, the wild, wild East. I don’t have a credit system, a legislative system, or a judicial system that is ready to support me.”

“We have given up on much of our past in bringing in ideas from the Anglo-Saxon world. But we have not taken the brightest of those ideas, only the superficial.”

“To be a true leader is to establish in front of others that your value system does not change with the situation.”

“Work out the gaps between the skills you have and those you need for the career you want to build.”

“The value of sticking to my principles, and not giving people what they thought they could get by threats, extortion or blackmail is enormous.”

“A leader is someone people can trust and seek direction from in a time of crisis. They feel he will always fight for them and for whatever is right.”