When life is abundant with opportunities and you are motivated by the will to learn and passion to lead, you will reach many achievements. Then, age will not be measured in years, but rather through experience, with open-mindedness and an authentic mindset capable of differentiating between good and bad.
My name is Yousef Bin Saeed Lootah. I first opened my eyes and mind to the world of business through my father Haj Saeed Lootah’s counsel. From a very young age, I have been working hard trying to understand discussions in the business world, as our family business encompasses a great range of activities. Discussions addressed different subjects such as society, the environment, education and other interesting matters.
My main reason and inspiration for joining the family business at such an early age was my father, Chairman of the S.S. Lootah Group’s many accomplishments in the business community. My elder brothers also joined the business, bringing in their hard work and innovation.
I entered the business world under the patronage of my father when I was just a teenager. To build up my experience and provide me with exposure, my father used to let me accompany him on visits to construction sites. This increased my interest in architecture engineering and developing my design skills. During the summer, I joined an engineering design company as a trainee. My graduation project was the design of a two-storey villa.
Further, my father prepared me, from a leadership perspective, and assigned me with many missions to act as his representative. I remember delivering a speech at the Islamic Economic Conference held in Bahrain when I was only fifteen. He also sent me to China with a delegation to discuss investment opportunities in industrial companies and to build ready-mix concrete plants in the UAE.
After graduating from the Islamic School in Dubai at the age of sixteen, I started working as a general coordinator at my father’s office, the S. S. Lootah Group. Every day, he urged me to enhance my professional work experience. Then he engaged me in field work by assigning me to follow up the execution of seven construction projects undertaken by the Group, the most significant of which was the Lootah Technical Center. During that time, I received training at ZAS PSE Engineering Consultants, a subsidiary of the Group, by experts in design and tower building where I worked on the project of designing the Lootah Twin Towers.
After completing the construction of Lootah Technical Center, I began to work on preparing the steel works, carpentry, fiberglass, yacht manufacture, and radio and television studios with a specialized work team. I also joined a special training program in Aerospace Engineering in Germany.
Today, I am the Deputy CEO of Lootah Technical Center, the advanced technological arm of S. S. Lootah Group. I strive to continue in the footsteps of my father, who taught me how to be insightful, the value of innovation, and how to always think out of the box.
Tharawat Magazine, Issue 6, 2010
