When Ahmed Abou Doma, the new CEO of Orascom Telecom (OT), spoke with Business Today, he had only been on the job for a little over six hours. A hardened veteran of the telecoms industry, Abou Doma was tapped as the CEO of one of Egypt’s biggest companies in May, illustrating that sometimes homegrown talent is appreciated and that hard work does pay off.

Abou Doma has built his reputation throughout his career by focusing on getting the job he likes instead of worrying about a title. And that, he says, is the secret to success.

“I have never been one to focus on what title I have,” he says. “The focus for me has always been what job I would really enjoy because ultimately if you enjoy the job, you will succeed and the titles will follow you as opposed to you following them. If you don’t enjoy what you do, then you should just walk away.”

Abou Doma had already built a reputation for himself as Mobinil’s marketing director when he was offered the job of CEO of OT’s Bangladesh subsidiary Banglalink. At the time, he says that OT’s expectations of him were simple and rather humble, not due to his abilities but because of Banglalink’s problems making a profit.

“The company was losing money and at the time I was told to ‘just keep the company running’ without really exerting much effort to change it.”

But Abou Doma had other plans. He saw the lower expectations as a carte blanche to take calculated risks and turn the company around, the exact opposite of what most CEOs traditionally do.

“Being a CEO is a very strange position to be in — in any company. Usually when anything goes wrong with the company, the first reaction is ‘off with the CEO’s head.’ In turn, few CEOs are willing to make the decisions that need to be made.”

That willingness to push boundaries drove Abou Doma to do whatever it took to revitalize Banglalink. He began by repositioning Banglalink’s place in the market, trading basement-bottom prices for quality service.

“There was this long policy that in order [for] us as a brand to succeed we had to be the cheapest […] and I fully disagreed with this notion. I revisited the issue of pricing and branding, realizing that even though Bangladesh had one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, [Bangladeshis] would be willing to spend for good service and products that served their needs. It was a risk, but I was willing to take it.”

And his risk paid off. In the span of a little over two years, the company had doubled its number of subscribers to 20 million from 10 million. It had also returned to the black, doubling its revenues. Suddenly, Banglalink was making a 45% profit margin.

“It’s not about taking blind risks, it’s about understanding your company, understanding your market — the social, political and economic environment — and having the guts to take the risk. It’s vision and guts, that’s the perfect mix.”

Another important factor is having a team on the ground that is willing to stand behind you. He argues that no matter how much you plan and how willing you are to take risks, success will remain elusive if your team is unwilling to go that extra mile to make the transformation happen. “That is what I had in Bangladesh — the team wanted the change and they were willing to be creative with the ideas and exert the effort to see their ideas through.”

Turning a losing subsidiary into a profitable firm made Abou Doma’s name synonymous with the word ‘challenge.’ So it was no surprise the parent company turned to him when OT was shopping for a new CEO as it embarked on a merger to become one of the world’s biggest telecom operators.

Heading OT will likely mean facing numerous challenges from day one. Over the past few years, OT has been at the center of a perfect storm. The company initially made a name for itself by managing telecom operators in Africa, later expanding to managing operators in Italy, Greece, Canada and North Korea. However, it seemed that with every step, a new obstacle cropped up. Perhaps the biggest of which is the ownership dispute with the Algerian government over Djezzy, OT’s highest revenue-generating subsidiary.

Problems cropped up at OT’s Pakistani operations as well as increasing liquidity troubles and the public spat between OT and France Telecom over its Egypt operation Mobinil. There were also shareholder delays for the merger with Russia’s telecom giant VimpelCom before the deal was finally signed a few months ago. This is also the first time in nine years that OT has not held the top spot on the bt100 rankings. (It’s now at number 2 behind Orascom Construction Industries.)

But Abou Doma isn’t letting these issues cloud his resolve or enthusiasm. “Well, this is my first day on the job so I’m definitely very positive,” he says jokingly. “No seriously, I’ve learned to look at everything as a challenge and [to] approach solving it with a positive attitude. And that’s what I’m doing.”

He says his first task is getting fully briefed on OT’s businesses, adding that some of the major challenges the company is facing could soon be solved. Even the long-standing feud over Djezzy may find some resolution.

“We seem to be making progress on this issue,” he says with cautious optimism. “I have full confidence that the progress will continue because we have faith in the Algerian market and we are willing to either sell the subsidiary to the Algerian government at a fair price or to continue to work within that market because we were there to see this market grow and develop. So I believe that progress will continue there.”

As for the merger, the deal between OT and VimpelCom is coming together smoothly. OT is set to become part of the sixth largest telecom operator in the world and function as the company’s regional hub. Moreover, some of VimpelCom’s operations — those in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos — will now come under the OT management umbrella, which creates an opportunity for growth in brand new markets for OT.

However, any major decisions will have to wait until Abou Doma is up to speed.

“But right now, the first step for me is not to run with placing strategies,” he says. “The first step is for me to understand exactly where everything is with all the various portfolios, understand what is going on with every subsidiary, understand and get to know more about the team we are [joining] in VimpelCom and then start strategizing. Before you know what your next step is, you need to know exactly where you stand. Only then should you plan your next move.”

He sees OT’s merger with VimpelCom as a great opportunity for knowledge and expertise to be exchanged, pointing out that the newly formed company will have largest number of operators in terms of time zones.

Abou Doma says OT will continue to be active in the Egyptian market as a company listed on the Egyptian Exchange, despite the new ownership structure.

“We will continue to serve our investors here — it’s just that we will do so through our operations out of Egypt. But we will continue to be strong performers on the market and we will come back even stronger.” bt