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Summer
2014 21
In a rags to riches story,
Akram Miknas
‘63
, the giant behind Promoseven Hold-
ings group (FP7) –the largest advertising
and communications network in the
Middle East and North Africa, started out
quite modestly while still in his early 20’s.
Today, FP7 is spread across 14 countries
with a staff of more than 680 and is
worth a whopping $125 million.
It was long road fraught with many
trials and tribulation, but Miknas per-
severed. In a tribute to the man with a
huge drive and vision, ARAB AD dubbed
him as the Man of the Year in their Janu-
ary 2014 issue.
In it, Miknas begins at the beginning….
right here at IC.
My parents were divorced and my
mother died when I was 12 years old.
We were in Beirut at the time and my
mother had remarried and I had my two
sisters who were younger than me at 10
and 6 or 8 years I can’t quite recall.
I felt I was lost. I ran into the woods
behind our house and the practical side
of my character came to the fore as I
started thinking what should I do? How
can I manage and take care of my sisters?
They were my siblings that my mother had
with my father but at the time I thought
that he didn’t want to have much to do
with us. So I started to think what can I
do? I knew I had a small plot of land in
my name so I thought perhaps I could sell
that; I didn’t know how much money it
was worth, and then I saw a plane and
thought perhaps I could become a pilot.
The fact that I wasn’t even 13 yet and that
I wouldn’t stand the chance of becoming
a pilot didn’t cross my mind. At the time
the thought foremost in my mind was
what can I do for me and my sisters?
On the day of my mother’s funeral,
my father surprised us by attending it
and he actually showed his concern for
us and took us back with him to his
home in Tripoli Lebanon, which is where
I was born. He tried to do right by us as
a father, and certainly took care of my
sisters by immediately putting them into
a girl’s boarding school nearby. As for me
he thought that I could join the family
business. However, I wanted to continue
my education – thanks to my mother’s
influence on me. She was a well-edu-
cated woman probably one of the few
women who had been to university in
her generation and had graduated from
the American University of Beirut. She
saw the importance of education and I
expressed this clearly to my father.
Initially things went well between us,
but when his latest wife came back from
a holiday, she began to resent me and
made my life quite difficult. I realized that
there was no future for me with them so
I packed a few belongings, rolled them
into a mattress, assessed my financial
position, which was five Lebanese Lira
and caught the next bus back to Beirut,
for one Lira - and headed straight for my
school – International College or IC as it
was popularly called.
When I arrived in school, it was the
summer holidays but I searched for and
found Mr James Sullivan, the head of the
boarding campus. He took me under his
wing and helped me, first by offering me
a place to stay with him in his off-campus
apartment and then he helped me to get
into the boarding school when I improved
my grades. In the meantime my father
arrived and agreed to pay the boarding
school fees. I worked hard at my studies,
improved my grades and was allowed to
join the boarding and also through James
Sullivan’s good offices, I was granted a
small amount of student assistance. In
a few months I realized I needed to do
something more to augment my school
fees and income.
I had watched some American movies in
which I’d seen door-to-door salesmen and
thought this was something that I could
do. One day I happened to notice that
the nearby small grocery store regularly
received a visit from a large car delivering
soaps, tissues and other toiletries. I noted
the name and phone number on the side
and contacted the manager. I was by then
around 14 years old and by good fortune,
the manager, a man called Saied agreed
to meet me. I explained that I was still in
school, but needed to supplement my
fees. I gave him a brief background about
myself, he was impressed, and at the age
of 14, I had landed my first job.
Within a few months of doing my door-
to-door sales I discovered encyclopedia
sales – a more profitable line of work
and so I gave up selling toiletries and was
the only school kid of fifteen who was
in this business. I made enough to more
than cover my expenses in the school
with some to spare. I sold encyclopedias
for two years and then the year I was
to finish school I went with a cousin to
Benghazi where we had a particularly suc-
cessful trip especially as that was the time
when Libyan oil was coming into its own.
While selling encyclopedias I had also
started to sell insurance. And if one didn’t
work with a prospect, I’d try selling them
the other. Sometimes I sold them both to
the same contact. It was through these
two sales jobs that I managed to com-
plete my schooling and pay all my fees.
Soon after I completed school, I went
on a very successful encyclopedia selling
gig to Libya and then joined the Ameri-
can University of Beirut (AUB) to study
Business Administration…..
Excerpt reprinted with permission from
Arab Ad.
To read the rest of the article, go to
http://www.arabadmag.com/ (January
2014 issue)
The
Life
and
Times
of
Akram Miknas