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Sustainable food initiative wins our FBN Next Generation Lombard Odier Award 2021
FBN Next Generation Lombard Odier Award 2021 awards next generation of entrepreneurs at UNCTAD’s 7th World Investment Forum (WIF).The Family Business Network (FBN) and Lombard Odier have nominated three exceptionally promising young family business entrepreneurs as finalists in the 13th FBN NxG Lombard Odier Award.
Each of the three finalists will introduce their entrepreneurial story, including the role of their family and the perseverance needed to stay focused in these unprecedented times, at the FBN Family Business Week on 18 to 22 October 2021, held during UNCTAD1’s 7th World Investment Forum2 (WIF).
The Covid-19 outbreak has presented intense challenges to any entrepreneurial journey and yet one thing is certain: it will accelerate the next wave of innovation. Throughout these challenging times, FBN and Lombard Odier believe it is essential to consistently foster and support young NxG entrepreneurs.
Family businesses are well-known for their resilience over time and throughout crisis, and the same should hold true for NxG entrepreneurs! The FBN NxG Lombard Odier Award was created in 2009 to celebrate and support outstanding intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial projects initiated by the next generation of family business owners.
The 2021 finalists were chosen by a jury of senior business leaders and entrepreneurs who reviewed candidates aged between 18 and 40 from 10 different countries. The finalists and their projects were selected based on the following criteria: Innovation, Viability, Sustainability, Communication.
This year, the FBN NxG Lombard Odier Award partners with Columbia Business School3 who offered the winner coaching sessions to help him pursue his ambitions.
The three finalists for the 2021 edition of the NxG Award are:
WINNER: Wissam El Khoury
Lebanon, 2G, K. Invest (Holding) SAL
CEO K. Invest (Holding) SAL, founder “Le Pré SAL”
Wissam el Khoury is the CEO of K. Invest (Holding) SAL, a Lebanese based single family office, with an aim of preserving and generating assets by investing in social, durable, and sustainable projects with direct effect on the local community. To that effect, Wissam has founded Le Pré SAL, a start-up fruit juice and vinegar manufacturing company, based in Lebanon, to cater directly to social problems, such as solidification of the rural economy, fruit supply chain improvement by processing the fruits that farmers grow, as well as push the “health” consumption trend.
FINALIST: Norah Essam Al Muhaidib
Saudi Arabia, 3G, Al Muhaidib Group
Founder & CEO, “Culture” and eCommerce Manager, Mayar Foods
“Culture” is an ecommerce marketplace exporting Saudi and Middle Eastern fashion, design, and culture to the world. Culture puts local first, showcasing Arabian designers and connecting them to their customers. They have over 90 regional brands across clothing, accessories and lifestyle products.
FINALIST: Dmytro Gutsal
Ukraine, 2G, Camion Oil
Board member Camion Oil, Founder of ServicePlace.pro
ServicePlace.pro is a Web platform to develop your own service marketplace. The team developed an engine to launch a marketplace where anyone is able to find, match, book and pay online for services needed from thousands of service professionals. Projects are already launched in automotive, beauty, architecture and sport industries.
Frédéric Rochat, Managing Partner at Lombard Odier said: “We offer our sincere congratulations to Wissam El Khoury as the recipient of the FBN NxG Lombard Odier award, and to Norah Essam Al Muhaidib and Dmytro Gutsal for the fantastic achievement of reaching the final stage. Entrepreneurship and innovation sit at the heart of family businesses, and we – as a bank with 7th generation family members still strongly engaged in our firm - are very proud to be a partner in the FBN Next Generation award.”
“At Lombard Odier, we are convinced that sustainability needs to be at the heart of all business decisions. This is a conviction we share with the members of the Family Business Network and this award champions young entrepreneurs who are building businesses that positively impact their local economies.”
The Winner
Wissam El Khoury
Lebanon, 2G, K. Invest (Holding) SAL
CEO K. Invest (Holding) SAL, founder “Le Pré SAL”
Wissam el Khoury is the CEO of K. Invest (Holding) SAL, a Lebanese based single family office, with an aim of preserving and generating assets by investing in social, durable, and sustainable projects with direct effect on the local community. The fund ventures into Real Estate, direct Private Equity investments (Food & Beverage and Banking), as well Asset Management.
To that effect, Wissam has founded Le Pré SAL, a start-up fruit juice and vinegar manufacturing company, based in Lebanon, to cater directly to social problems, such as solidification of the rural economy by generating employment in remote villages in the mountain, fruit supply chain improvement by processing the fruits that farmers grow, as well as push the “health” consumption trend by offering consumers 100% natural beverages.
Wissam is a member of the NxG committee of FBN Levant and the 6th generation of an agricultural family. Over the years, previous plantations included wheat and tobacco, which have been totally replaced by fruits since the mid-1950’s.
Wissam holds a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering degree from the Lebanese American University4 (LAU) as well as a Master’s in Business Management degree from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP Business School), as well as attending family business courses at IMD Lausanne5 on how to lead the family office.
“Being part of a family business, is working with a set of values and long term vision. The project was set up for a social need to help local villagers with a long term goal of making the project sustainable. If I wasn’t part of a family business and my goals were shorter term, then definitely the handling of the business and relation to its financial figures would have been completely different with no consideration to the social and people’s impact, especially during the difficult times the country is currently passing through.” Says Wissam.
1 https://unctad.org/about
2 https://worldinvestmentforum.unctad.org/#/ms-1/2
3 https://home.gsb.columbia.edu/
4 https://www.lau.edu.lb/
5 https://www.imd.org/
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