The visionary engineer Samih Sawiris

Are excellent education and practical training sufficient for success, or is luck the most important factor ? Should a father express his love with firmness and strictness, or should he spoil his children to compensate for his absence or long hours work ? Is it possible to combine the pleasure of living with the requirements of work of a major businessmen? How can studying history benefit financial and business leaders? Do capitalists during the monarchy still have a role in the future of economic, social and cultural development?

He excelled in a high-quality, international-level school education on the land of Egypt, which was completed at technical university in Berlin to graduate as a mechanical engineer. Moreover his academic vacations were filled with training at his father’s company on actual work mechanisms, but that did not prevent him from enjoying the elite beach life in Alexandria at the time. Even when his father sent him just enough money for his living and studies in Germany, so that he could become accustomed to independence and seriousness and build his wealth with his efforts, he did not hesitate to do simple jobs in restaurants and hotels, then as translator for the sake of more financial freedom so that he could enjoy the life of European youth. Later he was always able to combine the pleasures of life with excellence in his field of work, even when his companies and investments multiplied locally, regionally and internationally, and he became one of the richest business men by setting a work period that did not exceed an average of six hours a day.

Although intelligence, education, training, and dedicated work were among the reasons for excellence, the lessons of childhood and youth left their marks in the conscience, as his eyes were opened to close family relations. His father studied agriculture at university to manage the lands of a wealthy family, until they were subject to laws limiting land ownership in the fifties of the last century. But the father did not loose hope, rather worked in the promising field of construction with a partner, until his company expanded to include fifty thousand employees, but in 1961 it was subject to nationalization and himself to house arrest The son saw his father steadfastly complying with the status quo and accepting a less wealthy living. Even as the father lost his company, which he had persevered in developing after the expropriation of the lands, he was keen to provide the best school and university education for his three children in Egypt and abroad, in addition to practical training in the company.

The father combined strictness and respect for the freedom of his children and treated them in a way that ensures family cohesion, openness and mutual trust, and in a way that encourages them to build their wealth through their independent efforts. Then again the son saw his father after they allowed him among the former capitalists to travel abroad after the setback of 1967, so the later chose to work in neighboring Libya in the field Construction, so that he would not leave Egypt permanently for the remote emigration accepting countries, rather his sons would be raised in Egypt, which they loved, and so that he could see them on two vacations a month until he returned to Egypt with the opening of the seventies, when he predicted that Gaddafi’s Libya would take the path of socialism, hence he saved his company from nationalization this time.

Did the son learn from his father’s journey that good initiatives and struggle are not a guarantee of success if luck is bad? And while accepting the importance of luck factor, does life necessarily require hard work and sacrificing the joys of life? Was this acceptance an encouragement to dare take the initiative since realistic calculations do not always guarantee success? Was optimism and the winner mindset behind ambition and success, as long as probable loss was not frightening, but rather could be overcome, as the father did more than once? It is said be optimistic about the good to happen and you will find it happening also it is said that the universe is an echo of what we send. Belief in luck is then related to belief in destiny, and respecting the wisdom of life and going along with it is more worthy than conflicts and complaining from it. Mature souls do not try to change the nature of life, but rather change and develop according to circumstances.

During the seventies open door policy three young men returned to their home country after graduation from the best universities in the West. The father’s reward was that he allowed them to open their companies in the field of communications, construction and hotels and touristic development in the name of the well-known mother company Orascom Group Conglomerate. The middle son intelligently chose a field outside of competition, which represents a component of life of the beach and company: his dream of youth that he always missed in the midst of the struggle of study and work, so he began manufacturing fiberglass sports tourist boats, and when his success encouraged others to break into the field, he moved his activity to a more comprehensive component for restoring the dream, but this time the field was more difficult, more adventurous and more creative . After years of studying abroad and building boats, the quality of life he was accustomed to in Alexandria, Agami, and Hurghada had deteriorated. In the nineties, he acquired desert coastal land on the Red Sea near Hurghada for free, as an encouragement from the state to revive tourism in the region by establishing a homogeneous elite community to attract more.

The challenge was great; Building roads, lakes and infrastructure, extending facilities, and developing modern village with an authentic and creative Egyptian architectural heritage, including maintenance and entertainment services, to encourage international hotels to invest. A challenge that required financial sacrifices to spend on costly services, in order to expand the attractive pioneering project to cover maintenance expenses with the increase in population and tourists.

The result exceeded the visionary expectations. Rather, the project became a breakthrough in the quality of life, environmental protection and tourism revival, an introduction to regional and international real estate development projects, and a model that encouraged him and others to establish modern urban compounds in various parts of Egypt. In this way, he was able to reconcile the requirements of work, rest, pleasure, and success by following his creative passion to achieve the dream. Thus, Orascom Hotels and Development companies and its investments multiplied locally and internationally until it reached the Emirates, Morocco, Switzerland, and lately even Saudi Arabia, always with originality and environmental and architectural creativity, till the billionaire Samih Sawiris was known as the Emperor of tourism. 

Indeed, El Gouna's tourism and environmental success caught the attention of Switzerland, so they asked him to set requirements for the development of the village of Andermatt after moving the army camp from it. The requirements were precise and fair, to the point that the local developers moved away from them, but he accepted its development under the same conditions when Switzerland finally offered him the implementation of the project.

But where do the courage of leadership and the audacity of adventure come from? And are education, family upbringing and conditions, intelligence, imagination, ambition and luck sufficient to form the strategic thought that sees the future with certainty and builds it with years of work and perseverance? Open education, knowledge of the experiences of countries, and creative passion seem like another side of the truth, complemented by the passion for studying history and benefiting from its lessons regarding the destinies of nations and the conduct of leaders, which calls for a sense of serenity in the face of the vicissitudes of time. All that supported by self-confidence, self-esteem, and worthiness can attract abundance, excellence and happiness in comfortable harmony.

As Einstein said: living the future as if it was the present is not a philosophical but rather a matter of physics, and therefore, I think that , the passionate certainty of the valid dream was the driving force for its realization, and that luck represented the optimism for the goodness that it brought about. Now if the dream of abundance and wealth is what preoccupies young people today, then The career of businessman Samih Sawiris calls for contemplation, and if its elements may not be completely available for many, at least some of them may have been sufficient for an achievement that balances between work and rest, between originality and creativity, between dream and reality, between being Egyptian and international, and between the requirements Life facts and being yourself while celebrating life as you build it for yourself and your country.

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