But Lakhraim does not take all the credit for the group’s success. One of the corner stones of the company is its “good people”, he says.
“I always surround myself with excellence. I believe I have the best team in the industry because they work harder than I do.
“We’ve built an excellent team locally and we’ve been growing that team and choosing certain people from different competitors.”
And it’s that workforce that gives Millennium an edge, says Lakhraim.
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“We know the market and we know the mentality of the people better than any other company.” Abu Dhabi-born Lakhraim believes he also owes some of his success to “being a local guy”.
“This business is driven by relationships. I have a lot of contacts in the Middle East and have formed relations which mean that I’ll receive a more welcoming reception than someone coming from Singapore, London or Germany, who has to cross that cultural barrier.
We don’t have to go through that, we can approach any of the royal highnesses or ministers without a problem”.
However, being a UAE national did have its disadvantages. For one, when Lakhraim was embarking on his career, it was generally unheard of for a young man from Abu Dhabi to have an interest in the region’s new and emerging hospitality industry.
That’s perhaps one of the reasons why today Lakhraim considers himself as “the only guy from the UAE who has an international hotel operating firm and isn’t government hired”.
He says this with pride, having risen through the ranks to deputy director general at Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH).
He reveals: “The government has some shares in ADNH and it controls the company. My passion went beyond that. I wanted to grow the industry on a regional and global level by straying away from the government and the way the old mind thinks. ADNH is moving too slowly, it’s an old-fashioned company and I’ve tried to change a lot of things”.
When Lakhraim first met with Millennium Hotels Plc partner, he saw his chance to move on from ADNH.
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