From Beirut to billions

From his office in Paris overlooking the Seine, 47-year-old Fady Michel Abouchalache, Chief Executive Officer of Quilvest group with $18 billion in assets under management, is proud to show off his latest art piece, a framed limited edition Hermes scarf with a large cedar specially produced for Lebanon. Abouchalache spent his first 18 years in Lebanon, before emigrating to the United States where he earned a suma cum laude (the highest praise) graduate degree from the Wharton School of Business, an affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in public administration from Harvard. Then, with experience as a senior manager at consulting firm Bain and Company and as a banker in the merger and acquisition department of Tucker Anthony, Abouchalache decided to leave behind the land of Uncle Sam’s financial sophistication to take a shot at evolving the financial markets in the underdeveloped Middle East.  In 1998, along