Desperate bid for a profitable future

On a sunny morning in spring 2022, confusion reigns for but a moment. Executive has an appointment to interview Imad Kreidieh, the chairman and general director (CDG) of state-owned enterprise (SOE). Still, the company’s gates are closed and plastered with snap labor strike announcements. However, a brief conversation through the closed gate’s metal bars later, and we can enter via a broad and uninvitingly bare courtyard into the telecommunications infrastructure operator’s and services provider’s sprawling administrative complex.  Walking into the building, a visitor with some background in navigating public offices and varied ministries in Beirut will quickly feel ‘at home’ – if one can ever develop any homey feelings in a structure that seems to have been designed in the past century for signaling the greater glory of a mighty state to its anonymous supplicants. The setup is admin-perfect for echoing those ‘wells of silence’ that people easily stumble into