Emile Khoury, 36, is chairman of the Young Arab Leaders’ Lebanon chapter. He is also the chairman and CEO of Virgin Megastore in Lebanon and managing director of CIEL, a major distributor of books in the Middle East. Khoury spoke with Executive about YAL initiatives in Lebanon, which include education, employment opportunities for Arab youth, leadership skills and development and entrepreneurship.
E Can you talk about the initiatives the Lebanon chapter of Young Arab Leaders has undertaken recently?
We have an office internship, where we [asked] universities to give us applications, and students came to do internships at our respective companies. We also have a mentors program where we work with students from Lebanese University. We chose 20 students and we paid them to take an English course at the British Council. During those courses, every student was assigned a mentor [who was] a YAL member. So the students came to spend time with the member in their company, shadowing them during the day, and watching the member making decisions. The students were able to tell their mentor about their hopes for their future career, and were able to get advice from the members.
E Which initiatives have been the most successful?
The internship was very successful, the mentorship was also very successful — both of them. They were successful because for some students we helped them to discover a whole new world.
For example, one student, he was being mentored by one of our members, and he went and he saw their offices in downtown, and he discovered a world he didn’t even know existed. He was a brilliant student but not exposed. Before he had discovered this world, his dream was to get a government job at Électricité du Liban.
E So there was a significant need for this type of program in Lebanon?
Yes, the initiative was basically to open the students’ horizons and widen their opportunities to what is around, according to their experience. There was a huge gap between students and their knowledge of the work market, and the members.
We saw it as an opportunity for students to spend time with our members, and I think it opened the students’ eyes to a lot of things. The members who mentored the students were mainly all business owners or managers, so they were in a position to give the best advice on what path to follow and how to go about it to get the good job.
E What do you see as being your goals for your YAL chapter as you move forward into the future?
We want to increase our communication and to build bridges between YAL and universities. We are participating in the job fair of AUB to present our initiative. Ideally we have ideas about bringing some members to universities and lecturing students about how to approach their career. And if the students have a business idea, we can teach them how to build a business plan, how to approach investors through lectures at universities. And of course, the internship will go on, the mentorship will go on, and we have a couple other ideas we are working on.
“The initiative was basically to open the students’ horizons and widen their opportunities”
