Creating a Culture
Having touched on the all-important issue of human resources, I am curious as to how El Zyr selected the people to help him deliver his vision 20 years ago and how now, he ensures the company culture he fostered at the beginning filters through the team of 10,000-plus.

He says the philosophy is the same at it has always been: to seek out people with ambition, and the intelligence and patience to deliver on this. The challenge is then to keep ambitious people motivated, by offering them the chance to grow and develop.

“In this respect I think Rotana has been very successful. Intelligent people that are motivated, career-driven; we have many of them here. We have had maybe one or two changes in the corporate office in the last 15-20 years.

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And all of these people have grown with me; I mean I have also grown. When I started this company, my professional abilities, my commercial, negotiating abilities were not as they are today; I was not as mature as I am,” he admits.

“Knowledge you can acquire but ambition is something you are born with, I mean you cannot teach someone to be ambitious. If he is not ambitious, he is not ambitious.

“Young people have to understand that it’s an investment,” he says of a career in hospitality, complaining that today candidates are often too concerned with salary.

“Anybody, to succeed, needs to be educated. This doesn’t mean going to the best university in the world; education is also a process, you can be educated while performing your duties, as you are starting your family, growing,” he observes.

“Number two, is patience. Many people failed in their lives because of their lack of patience, they want everything when they need it, whereas, in reality, things will come to you when it is right, at the right time.

The third thing is ambition, one must have big ambition, big dreams. Fourth, learn from mistakes. There are people that don’t make a decision because they cannot tolerate the idea of making a wrong decision but if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you don’t learn at all. It’s not the end of the world. Turn the page and restart.

“Finally, structure your career. If you want to become a general manager, you have to know at what time and when. I have a piece of paper that I wrote on maybe 20 years ago. When do I want to retire? When is my son getting married? When is he graduating? I wrote it out. Believe me. And sure enough... it’s maybe 80% near reality,” reveals El Zyr.

“Plan your future. Don’t think that you can become a chief executive or a general manager overnight. I am, today, a different chief executive than I was 20 years ago. It is because of the process of learning, education and patience,” he reflects.

Handing over the reins
With that in mind, it’s clear that El Zyr has known for some time that he will be stepping down in 2014. But still, handing over the reins after 21 years leading a business is quite an undertaking — particularly when it’s a business one has started.

The transition will be fairly gradual, with El Zyr sitting on the board and essentially acting as coach and consultant to Kaddouri.

“I’m going to be here to answer any questions he wants. And I’m going to probably look at unconventional deals that the company makes with third parties,” he says. “I want to spend four to five hours a day [with Rotana] for the next couple of years until things are smooth.”
He’s confident of course that Kaddouri has the character to continue in his footsteps despite some personality differences.

“I discovered my successor maybe 10 years ago. I discovered in him the drive and the energy, the intelligence and the fairness one needs; he was fair, he was correct. I saw that this guy has got a future; the way he talked, the way he behaved, the way he performed his duties; I saw that this is a promising individual.

And I said to myself and I even shared it with some of my partners and colleagues here that this is a winning bet. He has not disappointed me yet,” says El Zyr, proudly.

But he adds that in some ways, the pair are very different.

“Our colleagues in the company are going to find differences. Dealing with him is completely different to dealing with me. I am probably tougher than him,” laughs El Zyr.

Kaddouri too, will notice a big change, he adds. “It’s a very big shift. Because you know, being answerable for every question, every problem in the company is different from having an umbrella — he’s now sitting on the roof and sometimes it’s lonely to be on top. But he is lucky because he will have me for a couple of years yet!

“It can be good; it can be bad that he has me,” he adds, realistically. “He can rely on me. I know that it’s not easy for him, I know it’s not easy for me if I see something that is not done the way I like it to be done; I may be irritated but I will learn that, okay, as long as it doesn’t harm the company, it doesn’t harm him, I’ll let him do it,” says El Zyr.

For himself though, El Zyr says the time is definitely right to move on. He’s at the summit of his career, with the potential to still achieve much more in other areas.

“In the future, I will be busier than I am today; I know how to be busy anyway. I will be doing a lot of things that I had no time to do in the past,” he says, referring to pro bono work and speaker opportunities with universities, as well as spending more time with his children and grand children.

“I think that I still have the energy to do something else. It’s not that I want to start a career again or I want to open a fashion factory, no. There is still time for me to do significant things and to be useful, to the company and to myself.

“It is very challenging for the company — to find the right person to take off and hit the ground running,” he says of the change in leadership.

“Of course, there are plenty of people who can be chief executives but would they react the same way we do? Would they think the same way we do? Would they understand our culture? Is there a period of trial and error? What are the probabilities of success?

“So that’s why I said ‘okay Omer is almost ready, it’s the right time to put him to test’. As I told you high flyers will go, they will be poached, somebody is going to come and take them.

So rather than wait until he is demotivated and wait until I am too old, let’s make the move,” he says confidently. “I said I want to go when I’m still able to be delivering at the optimum of my career and I’m there.”