Bench-mates from school days and childhood friends, Vadal Kumar and Rajesh Kumar are now equal partners in outdoor print company, Media Innovations, a free-zone organisation set up in International Media Production Zone (IMPZ), Dubai in December 2007.
"We moved into IMPZ from the day it was operational, in fact, even before it was operational, by that I mean even before the water and electricity connections were ready. The authorities however supported us with generators. We have seen the place develop from the sands, so to speak," says Vadal Kumar.
Both partners were marketing professionals, with no formal training in printing technology but with business acumen and skills honed since teenage days, when they started a small courier
Breaking the shackles of conventional printing, US-educated Hassan Dakroub, managing director of Gulf Printing Press has expanded into book binding, selling of second hand machines and starting a gifts and promotions company. "Though we are commercial printers, we want to be known as a one-stop shop in the printing industry," says Dakroub. "Interestingly, Gulf Printing was started by my father in Abu Dhabi as a trading company for paper and consumables with 3-4 employees. We still own this
A reluctant entrant into the printing industry, Bhatia is an electronics engineer by qualification. “ I hated printing when I joined my college in Mumbai. My father wanted me
"I am a mature man," says Mohammed Ardhi, managing director of Saudi Arabia based Al Ardhi Neon. "My years of experience has taught me that it is better to leave your children with the means of creating wealth, than merely leave them money as inheritance. This prompted my decision in gifting my daughter with a printing company, whose USP is that; it will be completely run by women. This is woman power."
US educated, Ardhi has a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering and a masters degree
My childhood memories are full of happy hours spent at the printing press located in the same building in which we lived in downtown Beirut. I would invent games to play with the shredded paper or use trolleys as skateboards,” says Raidy Emirates Printing Group managing director, Doumit Raidy.
“I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and went on to do my masters in printing and publishing production from the
Costing, production, customer management. A printer should closely monitor all facets of his business to consolidate his position in the market, says Ashok Nerker, owner of Sharjah-based Gulf Scan. "Our Sharjah unit is doing well," says Nerker "with a noticeable improvement on a number of fronts. The economy is growing again, prices have recovered, credit has improved, and corporate confidence has increased. Print activity has increased by 10% year-on-year. However, one has to be cautious
Born in Kerala, Mukundan moved to Dubai in 1978 after graduating in Mumbai to look “for new opportunities”.
He says: “My first job was at a company called GKN Al Gurg. I started as a store keeper and eventually moved up to a sales executive position in the stationery division. After having learnt what I could, I left the
Rajan Pillai is in an enviable position today. While stories of doom and gloom float around him, he proudly reveals a 30% growth in the last 12 months saying: "Recession has not affected the bigger, well managed printing presses in Oman, and we, at Muscat Printing Press are talking of growth and expansion."
Born and brought up in the financial capital of India, Mumbai, Pillai has been a printer for most part of his life. After graduating from RYK College of Science, in Nashik, Pillai did a
A keen athlete with no qualifications in print, managing director of the Abu Dhabi-based Al Omeira Printing and Publishing, Mohammad Ghos Khawaja admits he ran a long way to get to where is in print today.
As a student, Khawaja ran in several sports events up until state level and almost reached national level when he first left India.
Having left his family in India during his adolescence, it was “sheer determination” that led him to finishing a Bsc while also going on to build
A printer who operates his machines himself, Richard Nasraoui, owner of Modern Printing Press in Lebanon is 'happily married to his machines'. "The market in Lebanon is saturated, offset is saturated, so the only way to expand in such circumstances is to grow horizontally and add diversified solutions," explains Nasraoui. "In Lebanon, a printer cannot open another printshop or heavily invest in huge machinery, because where are the orders going to come from in a country with 3 million
Global citizen and managing director of Dubai-based Spectrum Digital Solutions, Ramzi Razian has spent most of his life observing different nationalities. Now he spends his time observing his presses and counting the number of print runs.But before heading up Spectrum, Razian worked across various sectors - from the construction business to sales and marketing to being an environmental consultant.
“I have been in the UAE for 27 years so the UAE has become home,” he says. But I
Owner and general manager of one of the oldest commercial printing presses in Fujairah and UAE, Sultan Al Kaabi proudly talks of his father starting the Fujairah National Printing Press way back in 1981 with less than 10 employees and working very hard to bring up the press to the position it holds today. "This company is 100% private ownership firm and after graduating from business school in Al Ain, I joined the family business in 2001, initially as finance manager of the group. Even before
With no experience in print, everything that Dubai-based Promotech’s managing director Nabih Fakhry learnt, was self-taught.
HIGHLIGHTSA qualified physiotherapist, the Lebanese-born Fakhry, now runs the
Father of five, Jordanian national, Nabeel Ali gainedvast experience on all aspects of printing before starting his own company, Color Mix in Dubai.
"I graduated in industrial engineering in 1993. My first job was with the National Paints factory in Jordan. My engineering background gave me technical advantage and my job experience gave me managerial skills, such that today I am able to repair my machines myself and start new companies and guide staff and employees through good and bad times
Design, colour and presentation.
These were the three words that led IMC advertising chief executive Nizamodin Can to a successful career in the print industry.
With a bachelors degree in Arts from a university in India and a keen interest in technology, Can – who is originally from Verna in Goa in south-west India – was first involved in mechanical automative engineering.
“My family has been involved in mechanical automative engineering for generations so you could say
An award-winning wrestler opening a print shop? Sounds far-fetched? Well, Haris Kauth, managing director of Master Printing Press in Dubai has done just that.
A keen sports enthusiast with no experience in print, Kauth is a self taught and an accidental printer."My very first job was radio officer with ONGC in India," reminisces Kauth. "I worked there for 2 years, quit and came to Dubai to expand my horizons. I started out in a secretarial position on a miniscule salary of AED 2,000. My next
Priding herself as a printer who thinks like a designer, Tess Abraham, managing director of the IMPZ based Dubai company, Print Central says, "I was client director for FutureBrand, world's second largest brand management company and was involved with branding in the media and collaterals of big ticket clients like DAE, DPWorld, JAFZA, TAQA, etc where digital and offset printing collaterals of world class quality had to be delivered. The creativity and finesse of the products requires deep
An accidental printer, Saad majored in communication and film making from St. Josephs University in
Graduating in business administration from Haigazian University in Beirut, AWI’s managing director, Elie Mrad set up his first prepress and graphics art house in 1992. “The shift from CTF to CTP forced print houses to have their own prepress departments
“The infighting forced our then production manager to leave the company and I took over. We took a hands-on approach and identified bottlenecks in the production process. These were dealt with individually