A year after celebrating the first decade in business for Chedid Capital Holding, a Dubai headquartered solutions provider in the insurance and reinsurance industry, and nearly two decades since founding Chedid Re, an insurance provider and registered Lloyd’s broker, Farid Chedid, the Group’s Chairman and CEO, believes that his enterprise’s strength is in the ability to cater for the changing needs of clients, businesses and markets in which they operate. This agility has been demomstrated on numerous occasions by forming and successfully developing separate strategic business subsidiaries, including Chedid & Associates, an authorized insurance broker, as well as Chedid Corporate Solutions, a consultancy service provider that caters for growth-focused companies. Furthermore, Chedid is the Chairman and CEO of Chedid Insurance Brokers network, which has offices in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the region.
“We managed to institutionalize our first company, Chedid Re, and lead it to become one of the top 20 reinsurance brokerage groups in the world, and the only Arab company to be registered as a Lloyd’s broker,” he says. “The second achievement is that we have created and reinforced our direct brokerage business, Chedid Insurance Brokers, by establishing one of the biggest networks in the Middle East, Africa and some parts of Europe, through startups or acquisitions. All of this has been done by implementing the vision of our holding company which rests upon the pillars of transparency, corporate governance, and customer service. Last but not least, because we care to have the best team, and we always hunt for the best people, we have established the Chedid Academy, which is aimed at training our people to be experts in the field. However, we also train the people holding key positions at our clients’ companies which is our contribution to the insurance industry and to the markets we proudly operate in.”
Yet, the decade-long entrepreneurial journey was not smooth sailing. Chedid recalls the biggest business crisis the group experienced. “It was back in 2006, just two years after we had established the holding company in Lebanon,” he says. “The war in Lebanon started, with the Israeli army bombarding the south of the country as well as its capital Beirut. The airport was closed. The team abroad was cut from the headquarters. We immediately decided to move the headquarters to another region and to have the rest of the team move to Cyprus, where we had an operation unit, and to Dubai. Our operations started to recover, the team adapted themselves to the new reality, and soon enough the business was back to usual. From that day, I promised to myself and to my team that nothing in the world would ever stop our long journey. This has made me go to new places, new markets and new continents to secure my business and the income of the employees working for me. The first of the two pieces of advice I would give to myself and to others who wish to hear it is to always be ready for the worst and to plan ahead of time…