Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a leading self development author and coach in the United States of America. Tracy is a best selling writer with more than 40 books published, more than 300 video and audio programs produced, and a live audience of more than 250,000 each year.

Tracy was born in Canada to a family that struggled financially and had very few luxuries in life. He was a high school drop out and started his career as a laborer, working in several physically demanding jobs during his teenage years.

When Brian Tracy turned twenty, he left Canada to travel the world like he had always dreamed of. After driving to North America he got a ship to England and then cycled to France, Spain, and Gibraltar. Tracy also drove through the harsh and sometimes life threatening Sahara Desert with a couple friends, and eventually settled in Johannesburg, South Africa for two years where he worked and lived. After briefly returning to London to work, Tracy traveled through areas of Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. He then spent a further 2 years working and living in Thailand, Asia.

The 8 years of travel and adventure molded the life of Tracy. He worked with the famous Dr. Albert Schweitzer, experienced life and death situations, and trained with martial arts experts to gain his black belt in Shotokan Karate. Tracy has since traveled to more than 80 countries throughout the world.

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.” Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy eventually went on to earn his Masters Degree in Business at the University of Alberta in his 30s. He then worked in real estate development, automobile importating and distribution, marketing, sales, advertising, training, and consulting. Before coming the Chief Operating Officer of a company with $265 million in assets and had more than $75 million in sales annually.

Traveling to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and Canada several times each year, Brian is a well-known speaker all over the world. He is the author/narrator of countless best-selling audio learning programs and the author of 16 books, including Maximum Achievement, Advanced Selling Strategies, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, and The 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires. Brian has been on countless television and radio shows, and is featured regularly in major publications across the country, and overseas.

“I believe through learning and application of what you learn, you can solve any problem, overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal that you can set for yourself.” Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy has produced more than 300 different audio and video learning programs covering the entire spectrum of human and corporate performance. These programs, researched and developed for more than 25 years, are some of the most effective learning tools in the world.

Noel Whittaker

Noel Whittaker is a well known Australian money columnist, public speaker, investment planner, and best selling personal finance author. His popular “Making Money Made Simple” book has transformed the lives of thousands of Australians and made learning about money interesting.

Whittaker’s financial career began with ten years at the Australian Westpac bank in the area of international banking. He has also worked in a law office for three years, he was a chief accountant at a listed property company for two years, and spent two years at Beneficial Finance.

Noel Whittaker is best known for his educational books and newspaper columns that have influenced the financial decisions of many thousands of readers. His most popular book is “Making Money Made Simple”, which teaches the basics of finance, investing, taxes, and planning for retirement. Noel has published thirteen books and several audio programs that focus on improving the financial knowledge of readers.

His weekly finance columns reach more than six million readers each week and are published in newspapers like the Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Sunday Mail, the Melbourne Age, the Brisbane Courier Mail and the Perth Sunday Times. Whittaker’s articles are also regularly featured in well known magazines and he has a weekly radio program that is heard on more than 50 radio stations.

Noel Whittaker and Cheryl Macnaught established the financial planning company Whittaker Macnaught in 1982. It is now one of the largest independently owned financial planning companies in Australia with more than 6 offices and 70 staff.

Stephen Alan Wynn

Stephen Alan Wynn is a major player in the development of the Las Vegas gambling oasis in Nevada, USA. His casino developments in Las Vegas continue to grow in size, ambition, lavishness, and some would say excess. Wynn has also become a notable art collector with important paintings being bought by him for up to $35 million (the record price he paid for a JMW Turner painting).

Stephen Alan Wynn was born on the 27th January, 1942 in Connecticut. He was raised in Utica, New York with a younger brother. The business of gambling was introduced to the young Wynn from an early age as his father operated a chain of Bingo parlors.

Michael Wynn passed away before his son Steve graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature). Steve Wynn then took control of his late father’s Bingo enterprise, which proved to be the beginnings of a continually expanding gambling and entertainment empire.

With the profits from the Bingo businesses, Wynn bought a stake in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. He and his wife (Elaine Pascal) then moved to Las Vegas in 1967.

Each new investment brought Wynn greater profits, allowing his casinos and hotels to expand in size and reputation. He introduced things like an indoor forest, outdoor volcano, impressive water fountains, a pirate ship, an artificial lake, and fine art galleries with paintings that would have the finest museums in the world salivating.

His most impressive building to date is the “Wynn Las Vegas” which was opened in April, 2005. It is perched upon the famous Las Vegas Strip and stands 50 stories high, making it one of the tallest buildings in Las Vegas. It is a 2,716 room hotel with 111,000 square foot of gaming area. The $2.7 billion development is a more elegant and subtle creation by the man that had previously used glitz to attract the punters. From the outside the Wynn Las Vegas is relatively understated, encouraging visitors to enter the building to experience things like The Wynn Art Collection, the Penske and Wynn Ferrari / Maserati Dealership, the Lake of Dreams, and much.

In 2006 Steve Wynn also opened “Wynn Macau” in the gambling hub of Macau, China.

Wynn continues to play a very active role in the running of his business empire and lives in Las Vegas with his wife.

Samuel Zell

Samuel Zell is best known as a real estate entrepreneur in the United States. He is the co-founder and Chairman of the Equity Group Investments firm, a private investment company that has managed to bring four internationally based real estate developers into public offerings. In 2008 Sam Zell had an estimated worth of $6 billion.

Sam Zell was born in September of 1941 to Polish immigrants. His parents were Jewish and they fled their native land to come to America just prior to the Nazi invasion of Poland. Zell attended the University of Michigan and graduated with a BA in 1963. During college he managed apartment buildings in Michigan and it started his real estate career. While he was at the university, Zell was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity where he met and befriended Robert Lurie.

Five years after graduating, Sam Zell and Lurie created Equity Group Investments through which they began purchasing cheap real estate from motivated, often distressed, sellers. As the market changed and prices rose and fell, the men continued to purchase real estate at cheap prices at low times and profited as prices soared. Equity Group Investments then created three separate companies to manage owned real estate: Equity Office Properties, Equity Residential, and Manufactured Home Communities. Equity Office Properties is the largest office owner in the country while Equity Residential maintains its status as the largest apartment owner in America. In February of 2007, Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, purchased Equity Office Properties Trust for $39 billion.

Sam Zell also created SZ Investments LLC and is the Chairman of Capital Trust Inc. and Anixter International. He first invested in Anixter International, a communications and specialty wiring company, in 1987 when it was worth only $600 million. Although it makes a variety of goods, Anixter manufactures the largest number of Ethernet and computer cables sold on the market. The company was worth approximately $4.6 billion athe the beginning of 2008.

In mid 2007, Zell bought the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, two major regional newspapers, as well as other media hubs from the Tribune Company. Samuel Zell has since received generous offers to purchase the newspapers.

In addition to real estate purchases and other major acquisitions and holdings, Sam Zell actively supports education through philanthropy. He helped fund the Real Estate Department and the Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and created the Zell-Lurie Institute at his alma mater, the University of Michigan to which he as also given generous donations. He also funded the Zell Center for Risk Research at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Sam Zell’s involvement in academics does not end with his donations, however. He is on the President’s Advisory Board at the University of Michigan as well as the Visitor’s Committee at the University’s Law School. Zell continues to serve on the JPMorgan National Advisory Board and the Eurohypo International Advisory Board.

Zell refers to himself as a “professional opportunist” and has made a living making smart, but risky investments. Others have given the savvy investor the nickname of “grave dancer” because of his ability to buy businesses that other thought were dead.

Zig Ziglar

Zig Ziglar is a popular American motivational speaker and self help author. He came from humble beginnings to be an expert sales person, best selling author, and highly sought after public speaker. Ziglar has successfully blended his own religious beliefs with positive thinking to create a philosophy that is his own. Zig Ziglar was born as Hilary Hinton Ziglar on the 6th of November, 1926. He was born in Alabama, but was mostly raised in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Ziglar was child number ten of twelve and went through much hardship growing up. His father died in 1932, just weeks before his youngest sister also died. This left his mother to care and provide for her eleven siblings by herself. After serving in the Navy and being discharged in 1946, Ziglar briefly started studying at the University of South Carolina. Choosing to pursue a career in sales, rather than full time study, he started selling pots and pans for the Wearever Aluminum Company. Although he struggled in the beginning, Ziglar improved his sales skills over several years, selling products for various companies. In the early 1970s Zig Ziglar began his career as a full time motivational speaker and self help author. His self help classic “See You at the Top” was first published in the early seventies. It went on to be reprinted again and again, with sales still strong after 30 years of it first being published. Ziglar is a born again Christian with a very strong belief in God. Many of his books are written from a Christian perspective or at least have subtle evangelizing messages within them. One of his favorite phrases is “You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” Over his long and successful career he has published more than twenty five books on leadership, personal growth, sales, faith, family, Christianity, and success. He has also published and recorded a long list of audio programs, videos, books and training curriculums for individuals, small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, churches, and nonprofit organizations. “I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.” Zig Ziglar Quote Selected published books by Zig Ziglar include..

* Better Than Good: Creating a Life You Can’t Wait to Live - Published in 2006

* Confessions of a Grieving Christian - Published in 2004

* Selling 101: What Every Successful Sales Professional Needs to Know - Published in 2003

* Success for Dummies - Published in 1998 * Over The Top - Published in 1997

* See You at the Top - First published in 1974

Zig Ziglar resides in Dallas, Texas and continues to publish self improvement books and take on public speaking engagements worldwide.

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart (born Martha Helen Kostyra; August 3, 1941) is an American business magnate, television host, author, and magazine publisher. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she has gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing publishing, broadcasting, and merchandising. Stewart’s syndicated talk show, Martha, is broadcast throughout the world by NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution. A successful author, Stewart has written numerous bestselling books and is the publisher of, among others, Martha Stewart Living magazine.

In 2001, Stewart was named the third most powerful woman in America by Ladies Home Journal. In 2004, she was convicted of lying to investigators about a stock sale and served five months in prison. After her release from prison, Stewart made a highly publicized and highly successful comeback.

Martha Stewart was born in Nutley, New Jersey to middle-class Polish-American parents Edward “Eddie” Kostyra (c. 1912 – 1979) and Martha Ruszkowski Kostyra (b. Buffalo, New York, September 16, 1914 – d. Norwalk, Connecticut, November 16, 2007). Stewart, along with her five siblings, was raised in Nutley, New Jersey. Stewart graduated from Nutley High School in her hometown.

Her family instilled in her a strong passion for activities in the home. Stewart’s mother taught her how to cook and sew. Later, she learned the processes of canning and preserving when she visited her grandparents’ home in Buffalo, New York. Her father had a passion for gardening, and passed on much of his knowledge and expertise to his daughter.

Stewart was also active in many extracurricular activities, such as the school newspaper and the Art Club. During this time, Stewart began a modeling career. She was hired and appeared in several television commercials and magazines, including one of Tareyton’s famous “Rather fight than switch” cigarette advertisements. Finishing with straight As, she was awarded a partial scholarship to Barnard College in New York City.

Initially she intended to major in chemistry, but switched to art and European history, and later architectural history. It was around this time that she met and later married her husband, Andrew “Andy” Stewart, on July 1, 1961. After marrying Andrew Stewart, Martha left Barnard for one year, and continued her moderately-successful modeling career, while her husband finished his law degree at Yale Law School. She returned to Barnard a year later, to graduate with a double major in History and Architectural History. In 1965 her only child, daughter Alexis Stewart was born.

At this time, Stewart began to hone and develop her business skills. In 1967, she became a stockbroker. She was very successful until she left the profession in 1973, in order to focus more time on her daughter, and to restore her new home in Connecticut. It has been suggested that a scandal involving Levitz Furniture may have contributed to her decision to leave the firm of Monness, Horstman, Williams, and Sidel. Several Principals at the firm allegedly received kick-backs from Levitz for selling stock in the financially-troubled company. Stewart and her husband decided to move to Westport, Connecticut. They purchased and undertook a massive restoration of the 1805 farmhouse on Turkey Hill Road that would later become the model for the set of the Martha Stewart Living television program. Stewart and her husband undertook the entire venture by themselves. During the project, Stewart’s panache for restoring and decorating became apparent.

In 1976 Stewart started a catering business in her basement with a friend from her modeling days, Norma Collier. The venture quickly became successful, but soured when Collier alleged that Stewart was difficult to work with, and was also taking catering jobs on the side. Stewart soon bought her portion of the business. Stewart was also hired as the manager of a gourmet food store, The Market Basket at the Common Market which she transformed into a booming success.

Meanwhile, Stewart’s husband had become the president of prominent New York City publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. In 1977, Andy Stewart was responsible for releasing the English-language edition of The Secret Book of Gnomes series, by Dutch authors Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet which quickly became a blockbuster success and New York Times Best Seller. Andy Stewart contracted Stewart’s company to cater the book release party, where she was introduced to Alan Mirken, the head of Crown Publishing Group. Mirken was impressed by Stewart’s talent and later contacted her to develop a cookbook featuring recipes and photos from the parties that Stewart hosted. The result was Entertaining (book), ghostwritten by long-time fashion maven Elizabeth Hawes.

From there, word of her skills and business grew rapidly. Entertaining became a New York Times Best Seller, and the best selling cookbook since Julia Child and Simone Beck’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, released two decades earlier.

Thomas Boone Pickens

Thomas Boone Pickens is well known for his involvement as the chair of the hedge fund BP Capital Management and his advocacy of US independence from foreign oil through alternative, renewable power sources. Pickens has also been listed as one of the richest Americans by Forbes magazine and has given over $700 million to charity.

Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. was born on May 22, 1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma to a father who leased land rights (oil and mineral). As a boy, Pickens ran a paper route with 28 deliveries which he quickly expanded to 156. Pickens would later attribute this early business practice to his later success in acquiring and expanding businesses.

In the late 1930s, Pickens and his family moved from Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas. After finishing his high school education, Pickens attended the University of Texas A&M, later transferring to Oklahoma A&M (now called Oklahoma State University). Pickens graduated with a degree in geology in 1951 and soon found a job with Philips Petroleum. He worked at Philips until 1954, after which he worked with exploratory well digging. In 1956 Pickens founded Mesa Petroleum.

Mesa grew quickly under T. Boone Pickens’ watchful eye and eventually acquired Hugoton Production Company which, at the time, was more than 30 times as big as Mesa. Pickens continued to grow his business and, by 1981, Mesa had become one of the largest independent oil companies in the world. Pickens continued to purchase smaller companies but also set his sights on larger targets including Gulf Oil, Philips Petroleum, and eventually Diamond Shamrock. While not all of his takeover attempts were successful, Pickens became well known for his ruthless attempts at acquiring new companies.

In 1989 Pickens moved Mesa to Dallas where, eight years later, he founded BP Captial Management (named for Boone Pickens and not associated with British Petroleum) which has two hedge funds, Capital Commodity and Captial Equity, both dealing with oil and natural gas. Pickens’ own stake in the funds earned him $2.7 billion in 2007.

In 1997 T. Boone Pickens created the Pickens Fuel Corp., a company promoting the use of natural gas a cleaner-burning fuel-alternative for automobiles. As a result of his research and efforts in the oil industry, Pickens has supported the claim that the world’s oil supply is on the decline and that companies need to start investing in not only alternative fuels, but also domestic sources. The company was renamed Clean Energy in 2001.

Pickens first started warning the public against high oil prices in late 2007. His predictions of one barrel of oil costing more than $100 became a reality in 2008 when the prices shot up to $145 and eventually settled under $110. Pickens has since warned that there is a cap on oil production and that the US needs to find alternative, domestic, renewable energy sources to cut the price to the consumer as well as decrease the dependence on foreign oil.

In June 2007 T. Boone Pickens began promoting the world’s largest wind farm which he planned for the northwest corner of Texas. According to his plan, Pickens’ wind farm would produce up to four gigawatts of electricity and include up to 2700 wind turbines on almost 200,000 acres of the Texas Panhandle.

In July of 2008, Pickens introduced “The Pickens Plan”, a proposal to reinvent US energy resources by promoting oil-alternatives such as natural gas, wind power, and solar energy. A major part of his plan is to replace current natural gas demands with wind power, freeing up the gas for use in other areas like automotive fuels. The Pickens Plan promotes the idea of using the central areas of the US that run from Texas up to Wisconsin and Minnesota as the primary field for collecting wind energy. This area, also known as the Great Plains (and sometimes Tornado Alley), has some of the highest potential for wind energy in the world. According to Pickens, the plan would not only promote jobs, but also create a central location for energy resources in the US due to it’s equidistant location between the two coasts.

Over the course of his career, Pickens has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to various charities and Universities including Oklahoma State University, relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina, The University of Texas, and various programs supporting the well-being of families, children, teenagers, and animals.

George Soros

George Soros is a Hungarian born billionaire investor, philanthropist and author. The American businessman was once known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” after speculating on the Pound Sterling, believing it was overvalued. Soros earned himself 1.1billion US dollars from the deal in 1992. George Soros is also a generous philanthropist, giving away millions of dollars every year to the poor and disadvantaged of the world. He also has numerous critics in both finance and politics.

George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. In 1947 Soros fled the Soviet Union Communist occupation of Hungary and arrived in England. George Soros is the son of the Esperantist writer Teodoro Schwartz. Teodoro (also known as Tivadar) was a Hungarian Jew, who was a prisoner of war during and after World War I and eventually escaped from Russia to rejoin his family in Budapest.

The family changed its name in 1936 from Schwartz to Soros, in response to growing anti-semitism with the rise of Fascism. Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because it has a meaning. Although the specific meaning is left unstated in Kaufmann’s biography, in Hungarian, “soros” means “next in line, or designated successor”, and in Esperanto, it means “will soar”. His son George was taught to speak Esperanto from birth and thus is one of the rare native Esperanto speakers. George Soros later said that he “grew up in a Jewish home”, and that his parents were “cautious with their religious roots”. However, Soros’s father was proud of his Jewish roots.

He then went on to study at the London School of Economics and graduated in 1952. Soros then emigrated and settled in in the United States of America in 1956.

George Soros has been married and divorced twice, to Annaliese Witschak, and to Susan Weber Soros. He has five children: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan (with his first wife, Annaliese); Alexander, Gregory (with his second wife, Susan). His elder brother Paul Soros, an engineer, is a well-known philanthropist, investor, and New York socialite.

Upon moving to America, Soros set up an investment fund that went on to create his massive fortune. It was his intention to simply support his love of writing from his Wall Street earnings, but his well timed investment decisions saw his wealth increase dramatically each year. The Quantum Fund, went on to become one of the most successful managed investment funds ever, with a more than 30% increase annually over a 30 year period.

Soros also gained many critics along his path to financial success. Through his International currency speculating he was once given the nickname of “the man who broke the bank of England” from a deal that earned him more than one billion US dollars. He has also been accused of negatively affecting the Malaysian ringgit during the Asian financial crisis through his aggressive currency speculation.

George Soros is also a very active philanthropist that is willing to use his money to fund causes that he believes in. Since 1979 he has been supporting and funding various organizations and activities world wide. His first charitable actions helped to fund black students in the University of Capetown in South Africa during apartheid. Soros is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute, an organization that supports activities in more than 50 countries worldwide.

George Soros is also the author of several books on the economy and politics. He first entered the business world to fund his passion for writing and philosophy, and continues to fulfill this passion with more than 8 published books.

During the 2004 American election year, Soros has risen to fame with his criticism of George W Bush. Although not usually known for his participation in politics, Soros believes that the direction the Bush government has been taking America is dangerously wrong. He has contributed more than 15 million dollars to oust President Bush. Soros commented that “it is the central focus of my life” and “it is a matter of life and death”.

Robert Kuok

Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien (born October 6, 1923, in Johor Bahru, Johor), is an influential Malaysian Chinese businessman. According to Forbes his net worth is estimated to be around $10 billion on May 2008, making him the richest person in Southeast Asia.

Kuok is media shy and discreet; most of his businesses are privately held by him or his family. Apart from a multitude of enterprises in Malaysia, his companies have investments in many countries throughout Asia. His business interests range from sugarcane plantations (Perlis Plantations Bhd), sugar refinery, flour milling, animal feed, oil and mining to finance, hotels, properties, trading and freight (International Shipping Corporation, Transmile Group) and publishing.

Kuok’s father arrived in Malaya from Fujian, China at the beginning of the 20th century, and Kuok was the youngest of three brothers, born on October 6, 1923, in Johor Bahru. He claims he began in business as an office boy, and later started a business with relatives’ support. In fact, upon graduation, he worked in the grains department of Japanese industrial conglomerate Mitsubishi between 1942 and 1945

Kuok senior died in 1948, and Kuok and his two brothers founded Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd in 1949, trading agricultural commodities. Under the new post-colonial government, Kuok began in the sugar business alongside the government. In 1961, he made a coup by buying cheap sugar from India before the prices shot up. He continued to invest heavily in sugar refinery, controlled 80% of the Malaysian sugar market with production of 1.5 million tonnes, equivalent to 10% of world production, and so earned his nickname “Sugar King of Asia”.

In 1971, he built the first Shangri-La Hotel, in Singapore. His foray into Hong Kong property was in 1977, when he acquired a plot of land on the newly reclaimed Tsim Sha Tsui East waterfront, where he built the second hotel, the Kowloon Shangri-La. In 1993, his Kerry Group acquired a 34.9% stake in the South China Morning Post from Murdoch’s News Corporation.

His companies have investments in many countries, including Singapore, Thailand, Mainland China, Indonesia, Fiji and Australia. Businesses in China include 10 bottling companies for Coca Cola, ownership of the Beijing World Trade Centre.

His political influence is attested by his having been selected as one of the advisors on Hong Kong’s future in the runup to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong, and his minority stake in CITIC Pacific. He was also instrumental in conveying information and setting up the meetings between Malaysia and China governments leading to full diplomatic cross recognition of the two countries.

Kuok has married twice and has eight children. He officially retired from the Kerry Group on April 1, 1993. Nowadays, Kuok Khoon Ean one of Robert’s sons, handles most of the day-to-day operations of his businesses. He is currently residing in Hong Kong.

Mohammed Al Amoudi

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al Amoudi born 1946 in Dessie, Ethiopia but grew up in Weldiya. He is a Saudi Arabian /Ethiopian business magnate who lives in Ethiopia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranks Mohammed Al Amoudi as the 77th richest person in the world with a net worth of $9 billion. Mohammed Al Amoudi is Ethiopia’s richest person and the richest black person in the world In 2006 his net worth was estimated as between $2.5 and $6.9 billion, causing Arabian Business to rank him as the world’s 8th richest Arab, and Forbes to rank him as the world’s 77th richest person. Al Amoudi’s father is Yemeni and his mother is Ethiopian. He immigrated to Saudi Arabia in 1965 and became a Saudi citizen. Depending on disparate ethnic categorizations, and Al Amoudi’s mixed Ethiopian and Yemeni parentage, he is one of the richest Arabs.

Al Amoudi made his fortune in construction and real estate before branching out to buy oil refineries in Sweden and Morocco. He is said to be the largest foreign investor in both Sweden and Ethiopia. He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the Addis Ababa University and has been honoured with the Swedish Royal Order of the Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Al Amoudi owns a broad portfolio of businesses not only in oil but also in mining, agriculture, hotels, hospitals, finance, operations and maintenance. Some have said he is gaining monopoly on businesses in Ethiopia, but there seem to be other wealthy Ethiopians to challenge some of his companies. Despite losing bids to Al Amoudi, CEO Girma of Ethiopian Airlines said Al Amoudi’s work is a healthy competition, saying “growth and competition, it is good for everybody.”

His businesses are largely to be found within two conglomerate holding and operating companies, Corral Petroleum Holdings and MIDROC (Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies), which he owns and manages. He employs over 40,000 people through these companies.

Al Amoudi has focused his East African investments on Ethiopia since the mid-1980s. MIDROC Ethiopia was created in 1994. He is strongly committed to Ethiopia, especially job creation and infrastructure capacity building. He is also well known as a philanthropist in his birth country and has built a 140-bed health care facility and supports visual impairment, disabled, children’s health and poverty alleviation programmes. In the education arena, he provides overseas scholarships and is a patron of the Ethiopian arts. Al Amoudi has sponsored the CECAFA Cup, Africa’s oldest cup competition for the last three years, during which time the football tournament has been known as the Al Amoudi Senior Challenge Cup.

Al Amoudi is a frequent visitor to the UK and the US where he has further business interests and was jointly honoured by the World Bank and State Department for his work in supporting African development. This was the first time that the World Bank had hosted such an event for a private sector investor.