The rewards of risk

Rizkgroup, a Beirut-based communications and advertising holding, has played a high stakes game in recent years that few other firms have dared follow. Since 2007, the Rizkgroup has expanded in four markets: First, they opened in Damascus; then they plotted a course to Sanaa in 2008, and from there leapt into Khartoum the next year. To top off their lineup of new territories, they ventured in 2010 into Kabul. From 2010 onward, Rizkgroup has also launched a new group company, Rizk Public Relations (RPR) and this year, engaged into a corporate match-to-be-married with Havas, the French communications conglomerate that carries the name of the world’s oldest news agency and has major international interests in advertising, digital, and corporate communications services.     Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria are among the most risky places a company can get into in this period of history. But while Syria’s implosion in 2011 was