Here we plan to post as many worthwhile and
interesting information about Shweir and people in or from Shweir... this can be
historic events, facts and achievements.
Size of Lebanon as per info of Embassy of Lebanon below is 10,452 km or 4500
square miles compared to other countries and states:
(Note discrepancy in miles conversion: One KM = 0.3861 Sq Mile
- As such: Lebanon area of 10,452 X 0.3861 = 4040 sq Miles)
Lebanon is a small and beautiful country on the Eastern shore of the
Mediterranean Sea. It is located at the meeting point of three continents
and, as such, has been the crossroads of many civilizations whose traces may
still be seen today. Its coastline is about 225 km (150 miles) in length and
is, on average, 45 km (30 miles) wide. The total area of the country amounts
to 10,452 square km (4,500 square miles). Along the coast are the five
famous cities of Beirut, Byblos, Sidon, Tripoli, and Tyre (see interactive
map under Tourism). It is bordered in the north and east by Syria and, in
the south, by Israel.
Lebanon's
beauty is illuminated by its geography (see
interactive map under Tourism.)
-- its narrow coastal plane and two parallel north/south mountains (the
mountains of Lebanon and anti-Lebanon). The fertile Bekaa valley, with its
Litani and Orontes Rivers, separates these mountains and nourishes the terrain.
Residing majestically over the valley, Qournet Assaouda in the north of Mount
Lebanon (altitude 3,083 meters or 10,112 feet) and Jabal al-Sheikh in the south
of the anti-Lebanon range (altitude 2,814 meters or 9,230 feet) remain the
highest peaks in the country.
This unparalleled natural splendor is enhanced by Lebanon's moderate,
Mediterranean climate. Lebanon enjoys about 300 days per year of sunshine.
The winter is mild on the coast and snowy in the mountains, while the summer
is hot on the coast and mild on the mountains. It is possible during the
spring months to ski in the mountains and swim on the coast in the same day!
Average Temperatures for Beirut (coastal) and Zahle (inland) in
Centigrade
MONTH
BEIRUT
ZAHLE
January
13
7
February
14
9
March
16
10
April
18
13
May
22
20
June
25
24
July
27
24
August
28
25
September
26
23
October
24
19
November
19
11
December
16
8
Government and Politics
Due to its long history, natural beauty, and rich culture, the Republic of
Lebanon has always occupied a special place in the world. Beginning with its
independence on November 22, 1943, Lebanon has been and continues to be an
integral player in the Middle East and throughout the international
community. As an Arab country, Lebanon's official language is Arabic;
however, English and French are widely spoken. Tolerance and the
encouragement of diversity, as well as its strong political culture have
confirmed Lebanon's world prominence. Lebanon is a founding member of the
League of Arab States (LAS) and the United Nations, and it has played a
major role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Upon its independence, Lebanon adopted this flag, with the cedar as a symbol
of its enduring strength.
As a democratic republic, Lebanon enjoys a parliamentary system of
government with a President, a Prime Minister, and a cabinet chosen through
an electoral process. The structure of the government is based on the
constitutional principle of separation between the executive, the
legislative, and the judicial branches. Currently, Emile Lahoud
(Photo
and bio)
serves his six-year term as President, likewise, the 128 members of the
Parliament are elected by universal adult suffrage for a four-year term.
The Speaker of the House, Mr. Nabih Berri,
(Photo
and bio)
was elected to his post in 1992. Mr. Omar Karameh serves as Prime Minister
As the region's center of trade and business, Lebanon is a host to several
foreign companies. Lebanon offers one of the most liberal investment
climates in the Middle East. The government offers incentives to attract
foreign and domestic investment, including low income tax rates for
individuals and corporations.
With the lift of the US government ban on travel to Lebanon in 1997, US
companies are now encouraged to enter the Lebanese market. While
opportunities for American investment and business are plentiful, the US
faces great competition from European and Middle Eastern companies.
At the outset of the 19th century, professors, poets, journalists, and
historians convened in Lebanese cultural institutions to revive old Arab
traditions and extol the value of modern culture. Lebanon’s seven major
universities and numerous specialized colleges were thus founded. For
example, the American University in Beirut, founded in 1866, offers a
liberal education that has trained many of the region's leaders, educators,
and scientists. A Lebanese state university was founded in 1967 comprising
faculties of law, medicine, arts, and science. Moreover, Lebanon's
nation-wide network of elementary and secondary public and private schools
lay a strong foundation for further university education and vocational
training.
Because Lebanon is a country where three languages are commonly spoken,
there are schools that teach in Arabic, French, and English. Lebanon
provides a wide variety of schools from which parents can choose, depending
on which language of instruction they prefer.
A wide variety of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) are based in
Lebanon. For example, the
U.N.
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) or the
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the
Save the Children Foundation, and Greenpeace operate in Lebanon in order
to establish sustainable economic development. A host of other influential
regional and international, environmental, women’s, and human rights
organizations have intensified their interaction with the Lebanese community
and government, thereby enhancing regional and international peace,
stability, and development.
Media
Lebanon enjoys a free press, including newspapers, television, and radio. A
wide variety of independent news sources operate in Lebanon, including
An-Nahar,
Al Safir, Al Hayat,
the Daily Star
Newspaper, Lórient le-jour
and Le Commerce Du Levant. The media presents information to the public in
the three languages most commonly used in Lebanon – Arabic, English, and
French.
********************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Eddie Beshara [ sssrd at
optusnet.com.au ]
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 12:45 PM
Subject: Submission from Australia
Dear
Anwar
Please find
attached an article on Dr. KhalilSa’adeh for consideration on
Shweir website.Regards
Dr. Adel
Beshara
Dr. Khalil Saadeh: A Nationalist
Crusader
By Adel Beshara
During the nineteenth century, a small group of writers, who were set apart
from those among whom they were living by education and experience, started a
literary revival in the Arab East. One of the leading intellectual figures in
this revival was Khalil Sa'adeh, whose ideas had a certain intrinsic inter-est.
but none of whom have been fully explored. Dr. Sa'adeh, as he is generally
known, belonged to that group of writers whose ideas served as forces in the
process of change which gave the Arab East a new lease on life. Born in 1857, in
the Lebanese mountain village of Shweir, Khalil Sa’adeh studied at the Syrian
Protestant College (currently the American University of Beirut). In those
years, young Sa’adeh gave two indications that he would not be motivated purely
by the desire for an average career. Firstly, he was elected as the official
spokesman for the "Student Movement" which formed in 1882 to persuade the
Ottoman authorities to recognize the medical degree offered by the university.
This was the first major indication of the rebellious tendency in Khalil
Sa’adeh's personality. Secondly, despite his academic specialization and work in
the field of medical science. Khalil Sa’adeh took a keen interest in the social
and intellectual issues of the day. Indeed, his first article. aptly entitled
"The backwardness of our Country and the Prospects for advancement," was
published in al-Jinan, the Beirut periodical issued by Butrus Bustani. When
political conditions in Syria suddenly turned sour under Hamid, Dr. Sa’adeh fled
to Egypt along with many other Syrian intellectuals adversely affected by
Hamid's repressive policies. At the time, the Syrians constituted a small but
highly influential community in Egypt. Many of them were successful
entrepreneurs and prominent thinkers who dominated the intel-lectual field.
Their psychology bore on Khalil Sa’adeh in several ways. First of all, it
enabled him to gain some sense of solidarity with other members of his
community. More importantly, it made him more aware and appreciative of his
national background. For, according to Thomas Philipp, Syrians who had arrived
in Egypt during the last two decades of the nineteenth century had to realize
that they would remain marginal and barely tolerated in Egyptian national
politics. As emigrants in a foreign surrounding, they had, indeed, been made
aware of their 'Syrianness.'" In Cairo, Dr. Sa’adeh led a life of intense
intellectual productivity and nationalist militancy. In addition to his medical
writings (his first medical book was entitled The Prevention of Pulmonary
Tuberculosis and its ways of Treatment), he was a novelist (in English his
novels included: Prince Murad, Ceasar and Cleopatra, and Anthony and Cleopatra),
a historian (he wrote two major studies. one on the Secrets of the Russian
Revolution of 1905 and the other on the French Revolution - Mystery of the
Bastille - which he described as a turning point in modern history), a linguist
(his was the first major English-Arabic dictionary) an editorialist (he
contributed to English and Arabic newspapers including The London Times and al-Ahram
in Cairo), and a translator. The writings of Dr. Sa’adeh was a fragment of the
autobiography of his age. It embodied both the force of nationalism and the
spirit of rational socialism. Strangely enough, the most interesting aspect of
it came from an unusual source. While he was in Cairo, Dr. Sa’adeh was appointed
as a correspondent to The London Times. This enhanced both his interest and
skills in the English language and. in the long run, motivated him to publish in
1919 a two-volume Arabic-English dictionary entitled Sa’adeh's Lexicon. Although
it took only two years to complete, the Lexicon was a fairly extensive work
which introduced into the Arabic language the current terminologies in Science
and the Humanities. In recognition of this outstanding achievement the Khedive
of Egypt bestowed upon him the title of Bey. Sa’adeh 's exile in Egypt was not
free from harassment and un-certainty; yet he always looked back on it with
nostalgia. The most controversial part of it occurred soon after the appearance
of the Gospel of Barnabus which he translated into Arabic. In the introduction
to Barnabus, Dr. Sa’adeh wrote:
I started translating this book which is called the Gospel of Barnabus well
aware of the responsibility that I had undertaken. My aim was to serve
historical studies and of course our language which is perhaps the most logical
medium into which this work should be translated. This is the first time that
this hook has come out in the Arabic language. It is a gospel about which
scholars and historians have differed sharply. In these closing comments,
though, I do have to stress that in this introduction all my discussions are
purely scientific and historical in orientation and that I have been scrupulous
to avoid all religious controversies which I left to those who are better
equipped to deal with them.
Despite this unequivocal explanation, the publication of Barnabus in Arabic
was met with some skepticism due largely to religious sensitivity. The late
Rashid Rida inflamed the public by prefacing the work with a preamble that took
its entire meaning out of context. The preamble was incorporated into the book
without Dr. Sa’adeh's prior knowledge. In 1908, the year that Abdul Hamid
revived the Midhat's constitution of 1976, Dr. Saadeh returned to his native
village in the Lebanon. The resurrection of the constitution was greeted with
enthusiasm, particularly in Syria where it was mistaken for real liberty. As for
Dr. Saadeh, he found himself embroiled in a serious dispute with the French
ambassador in Beirut. In the wake of this incident, he published an open letter
to the Ambassador in Lisan al-Hal denouncing in the sharpest of terms French
imperialist policy in Syria and France's claim to be the protector of the
Lebanese Christians. Both the French Ambassador and the Maronite Patriarch
reacted wrathfully. Realizing the serious-ness of the situation, the Governor of
Mount Lebanon, Mazfar Pasha, advised his friend Dr. Sa’adeh to leave the country
until the controversy dies down. Dr. Sa’adeh returned to Egypt only to find that
he was no longer welcomed there. He was ejected by the Egyptian monarch after
his intimate association with Egypt's top nationalist leaders (Arabi Pasha,
Mustapha Kamel and Sa'ad Zaghloul) came to light. At the same time as this was
taking place, his wife passed away in Shweir, and his children were left on
their own to survive in the famine-stricken town. Unable to return to Syria due
to the outbreak of the First World War, Dr. Sa’adeh elected to go to South
America where the Syrian community was flourishing. Dr. Sa’adeh's strength lay
in his gift to adjust to any kind of situation. Soon after arriving in
Argentina, he began the same arduous work which he became accustomed to back in
Egypt. He issued a periodical called al- Majallah and established The Syrian
Press Trade Union. In 1919, he organized the First Syrian Na-tional Democratic
Conference in a daring move to unite the Syrian community in Argentina around
the cause of national independence. After the Conference, Dr. Saadeh announced
the creation of the National Democratic Party which adopted the slogan ''An
independence that we must embark upon as virtual nomads is still better than
slavery that seems to offer a civilized life. In 1920, Dr. Sa’adeh went to
Brazil where he was reunited with his children. In Brazil, he quickly acquired
prominence and became a community leader in his own right. Assisted by his
dynamic son, Antun (founder of the Syrian Social National Party) he published
two newspapers, al-Majallah and al-Jaridah, and sponsored a number of important
activities such as the outstanding project to raise a statue in memory of the
late Youssef al-Azamah, who died in the Battle of Maysaloun in 1920. To this
very day, the statue stands in front of the Syrian parliament in Damascus. As a
community leader, Dr. Sa’adeh showed considerable personal courage in opposing
the disunity and intolerable rifts that divided the Syrian community abroad. If
one were to sum up the political and intellectual position of Khalil Sa’adeh,
the following picture would emerge: (1) He was a strong advocate of the secular
idea. Like others in the same capacity, he believed in the separation between
religion and politics and in the elimination of the factors that impede social
unity. (2) He regarded socialism as the ideal form of political organization. He
was not a Marxist but a practical socialist who believed in equality and human
dignity. (3) He was a nationalist crusader for the cause of Syrian unity.
Although he was a Christian from Mount Lebanon, the idea of a separate Lebanese
nationalism never appealed to him. In his last years in Brazil Dr. Sa’adeh was
appointed chairman of the Syrian National League and editor-in-charge of its
weekly periodical al-Rabitah (The League). He passed away on April 10. 1934
leaving behind him a legacy that time has never been able to completely erase.
Collected Works of Dr. Khalil Saadeh
Novels:
- Prince Murad or the Syrian Prince: Published in London in 1893 (English)
- Ceasar and Cleopatra: Published in London in 1895 (English)
- Secrets of the Russian Revolution: Published in Cairo in 1905 (Arabic)
- Anthony and Cleopatra: Published in Brazil, n.d. (Arabic/English)
- Secrets of the Bastille: Published in Cairo in 1906 (Arabic)
- The Elegant Circusion: Published in Cairo in 1908 (Arabic)
Books:
- The Prevention of Pulmonary Tu-berculosis and its ways of Treatment:
Published in Cairo in 1905 (Arabic)
- Saadeh's Lexicon: Arabic-English lexicon published in Cairo in 1911.
- Nublah fi Kannana: Istanbul 1883 (Arabic)
- Arabic Literature: Published in Cairo in 1886 (Arabic - al-Rabittah: A
Collection of Articles published in Brazil in 1971.
Translations:
- The Gospel of Barnabus: Published in Cairo in 1908 - Appathia, Published in
Cairo, n.d.
Basic References
- Ali Hamie, Khalil Saadeh: L'homme et L'oeuvre 1857-1934, PhD Dissertation,
University of Paris, Sorbonne, 1986. - Nawaf Hardan, Al-Rabittah, Sao Paulo,
1971.
- A. Saadeh, Complete Works, Vol. 2, Beirut, 1982.
- Badr el-Hage, The Unknown Works of Khalil Saadeh, London, n.d. - Adel
Beshara, "Khalil Saadeh: Nationalist Crusader," Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 3,
Number 9, 1996.
Mansur
Jurdak
-----Original
Message----- From:
Samira Nawas-Plesman Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 9:52 AM Subject: RE ANGELA JURDAK KHOURY Hi Anwar, I just received a
Bio prepared by Philip my cousin about his mom. I am sending it to you as an
attachment. Thanks,
Samira
ANGELA JURDAK KHOURY:
LEBANON’S FIRST WOMAN DIPLOMAT
Angela Jurdak Khoury was Lebanon’s first woman diplomat. The eldest
daughter of the late Mansur H. Jurdak, a distinguished professor of mathematics
and astronomy at the American University of Beirut, Dr. Khoury was born in
Choueir, Lebanon on September 24, 1915. She began her career as an instructor
of sociology and administrator at the American University of Beirut in 1938.
During World War II, she was also assistant director of the Allied Powers Radio
Poll for Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.
In 1945, the newly independent government of Lebanon appointed her
as a delegate to the opening General Assembly of the United Nations in San
Francisco and assigned her to the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. She was
to represent Lebanon in the United States for the next 21 years. In its early
years, she also served as Lebanon's representative and rapporteur to the U.N.
Commission on the Status of Women. After her resignation from the Lebanese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1966, she resumed her teaching career, as a
professor of government at George Mason University in Virginia, until her
retirement in 1982. A long-time resident of Washington, Dr. Khoury was a
prominent figure among Arab diplomats and in the local Arab-American community.
Dr. Khoury was educated at the American University of Beirut and the
Geneva School of International Studies in Switzerland, and she received her
doctorate from the American University in Washington. Her husband of 36 years,
Shukry E. Khoury, died in 1985. She has two sons Philip S. Khoury, Dean of
Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Professor of History at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and George S.
Khoury, a businessman in Darien, Connecticut and two grandchildren. She also
has a brother, George M. Jurdak of Montreal, Canada, and two sisters: Salma
M.Jurdak of Washington, D.C. and Salwa Nawas of Atherton, California.
Thank you Phillip Khoury for writing
this and to Samira Nawas Plesman, Salwa's daughter, for sending this
information.
Courtesy of Riad Khuneisser & the staff at Nameh Jaffet Library archives at
AUB. Thanks to all who helped.
Great
writers & poets:
Amin Daher Khairallah, Najib &
Faris Mushraq, and Ibrahim Rahbani
**********************
From the book "Mushraquiat" by Najib Mushraq
Another well-known Shweirieh. Amin Khairallah, the son of a
great Shweirieh Daher Khairallah. The wordings and the poem are for Najib
Mushraq.
Amin Khairallah
This picture is for Shweir in 1930. The poem and the picture
is for Najib
Mushraq in his book "Al Mashraquat", published in Harisa 1931.
******************************
Ibrahim Rahbany
The attached are picture of Ibrahim Rahbany and the poem
by Najib Mushraq.
To read about Ibrahim
Rahbani's work, click on Ibrahim's name to go to the "Books" section of
Shweir.com
Thank you Riad Khuneisser for sending this info.
As you Know, the well known Shweirieh are more than can be
counted. From time to time I will send you pictures and info or poems for a
Shweiry or about him.
Faris Mushraq
When we talk about Dhour we shouldn't forget the name Faris
Mushraq, (a
Shweiry from the Rahbani family).
If he is not the first, for sure he is between the first who founded Dhour.
The Dhour that your parents and some of you knew. I am not going to write
about Faris Mushraq but I am sending you three images, his picture, some
information and a poem (1931), by Najib Mushraq from his book "Meshrikiyat"
that might give you an idea about the man.
-----Original Message-----
From: rodosomer@shaw.net [mailto:rodosomer@shaw.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 2:14 AM
To: gematar@sbinfra.com
Subject: New Entry in Shweir Guestbook
------------------------------------------------------
Name: Ronald W. Somerville
Email: <rodosomer@shaw.net>
Location: Kelowna, B.C. Canada
Time: Saturday, February 16, 2002 at 02:14:05
Comments: My Father James's Uncle was Dr. William Carslaw. My fathers
Grandfather Richard came to the Lebanon in 1846, his daughter Isabella became
the wife of Dr. Carslaw. I was born in Broumana, but the 'family' home was
Carslaw House. Dr. Carslaw established a school there (from which Dad graduated
before attending AUB. Isabellas sister was Jeanette (Nettie to all)
Somerville,who later lived at 48 Rue Jeanne d'Arc,until her death in '52. Dad
married my mother, Sadeeca As'ad, in '21, worked in Iraq till '33 and Palestine
till '48, then moved to the Nazarian Bldg on Sidani St. He worked at rthe AUB
till his retirement.I emigrated to Canada in '54, revisiting several times until
I returned with Donna my wife and David and Richard my sons for nearly 3 years,
from Jan. '73 till Oct. '75. We naturally visited Shweir many times in drives
over the countryside. My Great Grandfather Richard was the engineer who in 1846
installed the first automatic weaving looms for the manufacture of silk brocades
in the Lebanon. My sister Agnes Shamma'a married Michel Shamma'a,who also taught
at the AUB, still lives in Beirut, on the 4th floor of the building on the
corner of Bliss and Jeanne d'Arc.
I travelled extensively for Carrier Int'l over Africa and the Middle East,
then Latin America and the Carribbean till ,84, then as a consultant in
Cleveland OH, Atlanta GA, New Orleans LA until I retired here in '94. My sons
are married, living in South Carolina and Tennessee respectively. My very good
friend here is As'ad Farrah, who was raised in Shweir,even to attending school
that Dr. Carslaw established. Agnes and my cousin Elizabeth had the Testimonial
Marble Plaque in front of Carslaw House ( damaged during the war) replaced (from
a picture that my cousin Carlene in Phoenix had, taken by her Father when he and
her Mother Olive spent their Honeymoon there. All in all, we have so many happy
memories of Shweir and Lebanon. If we can, we would like to return this summer
for Agnes' 50th Wedding Anniversary. 'In Allah Rad' Those who know of me or my
family, PLEASE e-mail me. Memories are made of this. A
wonderful surprise for me to find your website!! I read every entry!
------------------------------------------------------
Hello Ronald and Ahlan wa Sahlan to the Shweir.com Family. Sorry for the
delay in my response, I just returned from a business trip to Aruba, and now
trying to catch up on 207 emails in my in-box. I could not re4sist but
answer yours as I finished reading it. Wow, this is absolutely a great
morning. Dr William Carslaw who in Shweir could not know that name, I
doubt any.
I visited the Center this summer and I tell your it is been beautifully
restored. The Carslaw Building is just breathtaking, I don't know if you
notice but there is a link on the front page called "Ain Assis" that
will take you there, and you can view many of the pictures, including the
restored Testimonial Marble Plaque.
So many Questioned to ask, and I could write for a long time but please forgive
my short message I have so much catch-up work to do. But I can't tell you
how happy and proud to welcome you to our Shweir.com Family, we
would be honored to have you consider us your hometown web page.
George Matar
A Chat with Mansour
Rahbani, courtesy of Arabia.com - Chat to read more go to
http://www.arabia.com/chat/transcripts/english/0,10384,57,00.html
Thanks ya Mukhtar bil Mahjar for the tip.
Guest: Mansour
Rahbani Date : Sat, Mar 10 2001 Time: 02:00
PM GMT Place: Mansour Rahbani Room (mydsf Live)
In cooperation with Dubai Shopping Festival, we present a live
chat with Mansour Rahbani
Start
time: 02:00 PM End time : 03:05 PM
Mansour
Rahbani: I
am waiting for your questions. I hope we can be honest. I might
not be able to answer some but let's be very open & honest..
Feel free to ask.
Obscured
by clouds:
We heard that the idea of AL Mutanabbi was there 20 yrs ago why
did you have to wait that long?
Mansour
Rahbani: Al
Mutanabbi wasn't old but there was a program on TV, which had the
idea of Al Mutanabbi. We used his poems in that program but that
wasnt a Rahbani work. Rahbani had nothing in composing that.
But Mutannabi is a 5 months idea only I had to read & dig in
history, to avoid errors when making it.. I composed music but
some parts were by Elias & Ghady Rahbani & Osama Rahbani.
*katkot*:
Some
people from Dhoor shweir say that you are from there while in the
booklet of Mutanabbi it said that u were born in Antileas.. where
r u from?
Mansour
Rahbani: The
Rahbani Family is very big, all are from Dhoor Shweir.. But my
brothers & I were born in Antileas. So I am from both Antileas
& Dhoor Shweir. With sorrow I say, Antileas has lost its
beauty Dhoor shweir Is more beautiful than Antileas I admit.
Bloody:
That work is Rahbani work.. u, Marwan, Elias, Ghady, & Osama R
involved.. That goes for most of ur plays.. Why Not Ziad?
Mansour
Rahbani: We
are close to each other that is why we are working together. I
have worked with Ziad before in many programs. Those Rahbanis are
close to me, live next to my house and such work needs
hour-to-hour communication.
Dr:
How much time did it take to train all the team involved, find the
actors & actresses......Etc..
Mansour
Rahbani: Al
Mutanabbi is an Exclusive work. We agreed to make this play. I
always ask for more time in my works except for this one. I had to
work with great effort and energy. The whole team was our team we
didn't need to seek any one. It took 5 to 6 months. we worked
really hard & our training was intensive on daily bases.
Saif
Al Dawla: Will
we c that play on TV?
Mansour
Rahbani: That
Play needs a lot of time to be on TV and we maybe film it, but
after this play achieves its goal.
Masri: What
do u of Egyptian Screen plays?
Mansour
Rahbani: I
don't give opinions except in Rahbani Works & I apologize to u
all. With all the respect to all of you here & all the
directors there's no stage except for Rahbani.
Lebneny:
Hows
ur relation with Fairooz?
Mansour
Rahbani: Fairooz
& I are very CLOSE friends. We always visit each other &
nahna ahl w mndal Ahl. (We are one family & we'll remain one
family).
KIKI:
HOW
MANY STORIES HAVE U MADE?
Mansour
Rahbani: Asi
& I as Rahbani Brothers have made about 24 or 25. After Asi
had left us, with all the sorrow, we made 5.
Nataly:
R
the actors in Al Mutanabbi Syrian & Lebanese only?
Mansour
Rahbani: The
Actors in Al Mutanabbi were from Lebanon, Syria and the police
force were from Dubai. There was also quiet a good group from
Dubai backstage.
KIKI:
WHAT DO U THINK OF THE ACTORS THESE DAYS?
Mansour
Rahbani: In
General the actors are very good. They are specialists because
nowadays they study Art. But there's always a talent, and this
talent is a gift from god, As well as a persons presence. But
they should be educated as well.
KIKI:
DO U THINK THE MOVIES THESE DAYS HAVE NO MEANING?
Mansour
Rahbani: Gladiator
& Titanic are great movies. They are meaningful and contain
many feelings & they are worthy movies.
Noor:
do you like GCC songs ?
Mansour
Rahbani: Yes..
I do.
!! Dragon.:
Who sponsored the Mutanabbi?
Mansour
Rahbani: Dubai
Media City & Dubai Shopping Festival, under the Patronage of
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoom & I thank
his highness a lot because if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have
succeeded that much.
Obscured
by clouds:
Do you have anything made for TV production?
Mansour
Rahbani: Yes,
I had many when we were Rahbani Brothers, we had series &
films. But our works COST a lot & TV right now doesn't produce
expensive works. This is really sad because our TVs are competing
for going down the drain & so are their governments.
AlMutanabbi:
How old were you when you started your career as a composer?
Mansour
Rahbani: I
think I was 14, or maybe 13 or maybe 12 I am really bad in dates.
Rifraf:
I have ticket for your play tom nite but I am a non Arabic speaker
but I enjoy all plays will I need to understand or is the play
very visual?
Mansour
Rahbani: We
might have translation in the future.. It's visual & clear but
you need to understand to hear the lovely poetry & words.
Obscured
by clouds:
Who inspires you most?
Mansour
Rahbani: The
subject & the story inspires me.. A female might be one of the
reasons but she doesn't make a person a poet or talented.
Stink
Fist:
Did you choose Al-mutanabbi for your play because you personally
like his poetry, or do you think that he's an interesting person
who lived an interesting life?
Mansour
Rahbani: Al
Mutanabbi is mentioned every day for 100 years now. We recite his
poems everyday He has an unusual personality. He has is a knight,
a poet, and an interesting character to dig into his life. All
these aspects drive us to be anxious to learn more about that
character & want to represent his person.
!!!
Al Malika:
How old are you?
Mansour
Rahbani: I
am 75 years old.
UNDERTAKER:
what do u hate about your job and what do u like?
Mansour
Rahbani: I
never hate I like.. & I like alllllllllllllllll about my work.
But I prefer some aspects like laziness. Laziness is the secret of
talent & falling in your dreams as well as enjoying them.
!! Dragon.:
How did u feel when the Mutanabbi came live & all the people
were clapping the first day?
Mansour
Rahbani: I
was really happy & proud of what we achieved. But that to be
afraid of the next work & that I have to come out with another
great work.
KIKI:
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ACTOR?
Mansour
Rahbani: All
are great. But Fairooz & Nasry Shams Dein are special &
unique in presence, intelligence & talent.
UNDERTAKER:
will the play be aired on TV in the future?
Mansour
Rahbani: After
it achieves its purposes & publicity yes maybe.
!! Dragon.:
do u have to plans to direct for movies or cinema?
Mansour
Rahbani: No
Not at all.. My son Marwan may do that & he is now preparing
for a Gibran Khalil Gibran Film.
AlMutanabbi:
What does Beirut mean to you?
Mansour
Rahbani: Beirut
is my city & I love it. It has a presence in History &
there are presses, Universities, & many interesting things but
I feel afraid for Beirut to loose its Freedom from Beirut rulers
who may put limitations on freedom there. Freedom is easy we ask
for Freedom in work, life, family.... etc but since we are
poisoned by death, then our freedom is limited.
Mansour
Rahbani: I
am sorry I have to leave now. Thank you all I hope we meet again
through Dubai Media City & with Arabia.com & all the
others here. Thank u all and good bye.
*******************
Congratulations to Carlos
Ghosn, CNN & Time Magazine #1 most influential person in the
world...
1.
Carlos Ghosn, Nissan
CEO
They said a foreign CEO could never survive the
insular culture of Japanese business. Then this
quintessential global leader—born in Brazil of
Lebanese parents and educated in France—was
dispatched by Renault to rescue its stake in
Nissan. Ghosn, 47, briskly closed plants, shed
workers, hired stylish new auto designers—and
took the company from a $5.6 billion loss in
2000 to this year's $2.5 billion profit. Ghosn's
methods are openly copied, the story of Nissan's
revival is a best seller in Japan, and Ghosn was
named that country's "Father of the
Year."
Below is a list of the top 25 most influential
people in the world and their profiles, click on the drop down arrow to make
your selection... v v v
Voulez-Vous Completely Overhaul This Big, Slow Company and Start Making Some
Cars People Actually Want Avec Moi?
Nissan, Japan's third-largest automaker,
was stodgy, insular, debt-ridden. It was exhibit A in what was wrong with
Japanese corporations. Then it brought in an irrepressible French Lebanese guy
named Carlos Ghosn.
At the 2001 Tokyo Motor
Show in October, several hundred reporters, photographers, and car enthusiasts
cram inside the Nissan booth. They're standing on chairs, stairways, tippy-toes
-- anything for a better view. A house-music beat thumps as the audience watches
a door slide open behind the all-white stage. Then, through a cloud of fake fog,
emerges a silver vehicle, a redesign of Nissan's flagship domestic sports car,
the GT-R. Flashbulbs pop, and the crowd oohs and aahs. But the car is not
the main attraction. The reason for those craned necks is instead the man
who walks onstage seconds later, Nissan president and CEO Carlos Ghosn. Intense
and upbeat, the 47-year-old Ghosn looks a little like a slimmer late-career
Peter Lorre, and there's not much he will tell the people in this audience that
they don't already know. They've already seen Nissan's eight new concept cars at
the booth. They've had a chance to inspect a production version of the
much-anticipated new Z sportster. But when you have a chance to glimpse the
gaijin who saved Nissan (NSANY),
you listen anyway. "Our challenge and vision is to enrich people's life through
attractive, accessible products and technology," Ghosn tells his Japanese
audience through a simultaneous interpreter.
It's not the most electrifying message, but for a company whose challenge
three years ago was simply staying alive, it's exciting enough. In March 1999,
French automaker Renault (RNLTFM)
bought 36.8 percent of Nissan for about $5.5 billion. One of the great icons of
Japan's proud industrial tradition, Nissan had become a symbol of the country's
bleak economic present: Cash-strapped, loss-ridden, and staggering beneath $17
billion in debt, Nissan had seen its domestic market share erode steadily for 25
years. It had churned out a procession of fatally boring cars. Many auto
industry veterans considered Renault crazy for taking Nissan on, but Renault had
its reasons. It saw Nissan as a last chance to compete with merged transnational
giants like DaimlerChrysler (DCX).
Renault also had Ghosn. Born in Brazil to parents of Lebanese descent, and an
engineer by training, Ghosn had risen meteorically through the tire industry
before landing in 1996 at Renault, where he so furiously carved fat out of
manufacturing and other operations that he became known as "le cost killer."
Ghosn hates the nickname, but when Renault dispatched him to Japan to run
Nissan, he heard worse. Some in Japanese business circles grumbled about Nissan
becoming a French colony. Ghosn's prescriptions for overhauling the company were
measures long seen as anathema by Japan's entrenched corporate interests:
closing plants, imposing merit-based pay, selling off assets. He even vowed to
wipe out the keiretsu tradition of back-scratching between the company, its
suppliers, and its banks.
For years reformers have called for subjecting Japan to just those kinds of
correctives, but those who actually tried usually wound up crushed by the
Japanese business world's internal cult of the status quo. It seemed
particularly unlikely that a foreigner like Ghosn could make much headway. But
the extraordinary happened: Carlos Ghosn has won over many of the key Japanese
line managers within Nissan critical to implementing his plan -- and some of the
suppliers and labor leaders who might have been expected to resist most
fiercely. He has slashed debt and costs. In the fiscal year that ended in March,
Nissan posted a profit of $2.7 billion. It was Nissan's first annual profit in
four years, and the largest in its 68-year history.
Now the man who might have become a national villain for torching cherished
Nissan practices is celebrated as a symbol of corporate change. Ten books have
been written in Japan about Ghosn. He was recently named Japan's Father of the
Year by a fashion association. Japanese publishing house Kodansha is negotiating
for the right to do a comic book series about Ghosn's exploits -- a high honor
in a country where comics are read by all ages and where the last business
figure so lionized was technology entrepreneur Masayoshi Son. Ghosn
is the first to say there's still much to be done. "I will not leave Nissan
until there is total, indisputable revival of the company," he says. Still, the
implications of his progress to date are potentially far-ranging -- particularly
if it signals the stirrings of a new Japanese acceptance of radical business
reform. How Ghosn pulled it off has much to do with technology transfer -- not
of computer or car-building technology, but of the tools of modern management.
Those tools, as Ghosn will tell you, aren't Western or French or Lebanese. "If
there is any lesson in this," he says, "it is that management is a craft. You
have to take a look at problems you're facing in a very objective way, and try
and adapt a solution that will be the most effective."
Ghosn has had top jobs on four continents, and he speaks five languages. He
is a man in a hurry and expects others to keep pace. When he learned he was
heading to Japan, he recruited Renault managers -- and gave them all of 48 hours
to decide whether they would follow him from Paris to Tokyo. Seventeen heeded
the call. Two weeks after arriving at Nissan, Ghosn set up nine
cross-functional teams to scrutinize Nissan's businesses; each team's members
came from different departments and were picked on the basis not of seniority,
but of their fervor for reform. The teams generated more than 2,000 proposals,
which Ghosn milled down into what he called his Nissan Revival Plan, or NRP. It
gave the company until March 2003 to cut debt in half, slash purchasing costs 20
percent, boost operating margin to 4.5 percent from 1.7, halve the number of
suppliers from 1,145, and close five domestic plants.
Ghosn had organized cost-cutting initiatives before, as head of North
American operations for Michelin, the tiremaker, and as the number two man at
Renault. But this was Japan. To many of the longtime managers of Nissan, the NRP
sounded impossibly brutal. Ghosn countered any objections with the simple
response that deviating from the plan meant the death of the company. To signal
his commitment, Ghosn promised to resign if Nissan didn't become profitable by
2001. Itaru Koeda, Nissan's executive vice president for purchasing,
is the man Ghosn charged with making good on the NRP's commitment to reduce
procurement costs by 20 percent. Koeda put together a team of buyers and
engineers to draft cost-reduction targets and tactics. He still gets a kick out
of how Ghosn invited 35- and 45-year-old managers to participate. "That might
not sound so young in the scheme of things," says Koeda, who is 60 and who
joined Nissan straight out of college in 1965, "but for us it was new to have
the young people in the company debate things and propose what we should do."
In the pre-Ghosn Nissan, Koeda recalls, cost-cutting efforts consisted of
little more than Koeda asking his buyers at the start of the year to seek 20
percent discounts from suppliers. Koeda would look at the numbers at year's end.
Nothing had changed. Nissan's buyers, Koeda explains, were locked into ordering
from keiretsu partners, suppliers in which Nissan owned stock. The guaranteed
stream of Nissan orders insulated those suppliers from competition. "The company
placing orders is obligated to order from the supplier," Koeda says. "The
supplier can't specialize and can't sell excess capacity elsewhere."
Another obstacle was the way the purchasing department was organized. Each
supplier was assigned a shukotan, Nissan-speak for a relationship manager. It
was the shukotan who would negotiate price discounts. But favors often got in
the way. Koeda says, "Manufacturers would say to the shukotan, 'We gave you a
break on that last part, how about you give us a good contract for this one?'"
Meanwhile, suppliers complained that Nissan turned a deaf ear to suggestions for
cost-saving design changes
Ghosn gave Koeda authority to place orders without regard to keiretsu
relationships -- and, more important, insisted that he use it. Ghosn also tapped
Renault's Bernard Rey to develop Nissan's purchasing strategy. Rey and Koeda
dumped the shukotan system, instead assigning buyers responsibility by model and
part. They formed a sourcing committee to review vendor price quotes on a global
basis. So if a European supplier can deliver a part faster and cheaper, that's
where the order goes. "This is the best change in our process," Koeda says.
Nissan's new purchasing mentality means a painful new world for suppliers. "We
used to be part of them," says Takashi Matsumoto, general manager of sales at
Calsonic Kansei, a Nissan keiretsu manufacturer of dashboard instruments. "When
they developed a new car, we developed it with them. Now we have to submit an
estimate, and if we don't meet their requirements, they don't buy from us."
For Nissan keiretsu supplier Unisia Jecs, a maker of engine and brake parts,
the changes mean that Nissan buys a narrower range of part types but in higher
volumes. Nissan's Koeda says this means that suppliers are specializing in what
they do best, making them more efficient. Unisia engineer Hiroaki Hamada agrees.
"Short-term, we'll lose some sales," Hamada says. "But long-term, we'll be
competing with global players, and it will make us stronger."
Suppliers that couldn't compete on price have been cut loose by Nissan, and a
few have gone out of business. More than one company president has visited Koeda
at his office. "They talk about the mutually beneficial relationship we had for
so many years," Koeda says. "That stuff doesn't fly with Ghosn."
Nissan is on track to cut purchasing costs by 18 percent from pre-NRP levels
by the end of March 2002, and Koeda's buyers are ordering from 35 percent fewer
vendors. About a third of the cost reduction is thanks to a new cross-functional
team of more than 300 engineers and purchasing controllers, who work with
vendors on cost-savings ideas. To date, the team has received more than 50,000
vendor proposals. Ghosn likes to say that the person who owns responsibility for
results needs authority to achieve them, and Koeda finds him true to his word.
When Koeda decided to reduce Nissan's tire orders from Michelin -- Ghosn's old
company -- Ghosn backed him up. "You call that 'empowerment,' right?" Koeda
says, using the English word. One of the thorniest problems Ghosn
confronted was the need to shut down factories, still a fearsome step for
Japanese companies. Before Renault bought its stake, Nissan operated at 51
percent of capacity, far below the 70 percent widely regarded as the break-even
point for auto plants.
In the summer of 1999, one of Nissan's teams debated which plants to close
and how to reallocate capacity. Thierry Viadieu, a lanky, 40-year-old Frenchman
who was on the 25-member team, learned on a September 1999 visit to a Nissan
manufacturing affiliate just how politically sensitive plant closings would be.
The affiliate proposed cutbacks that fell far short of what Viadieu thought
necessary. In front of 15 of the affiliate's top managers, Viadieu grabbed the
pointer from the presenter. "I said, 'No, this is what you should do,'" he
recalls, waving his hands. Viadieu's Japanese audience sat in silence.
It was months before Viadieu was allowed back into meetings at the affiliate.
Meanwhile, he found that managers wouldn't propose all the capacity cuts they
should "because they couldn't think about closing so many plants," Viadieu says.
"I had to say, 'That is a political issue -- put it aside.'" He also found many
of his Japanese colleagues unskilled at presenting information in ways that made
their case. Viadieu thinks he knows why: "Previously, middle management didn't
impact decisions. Decisions were already made."
At Renault, Ghosn had preached running a plant at maximum capacity as much as
possible and producing as geographically close to your market as possible to
reduce foreign currency exposure. And indeed, the manufacturing overhaul Ghosn
chose involved not only closing plants in Japan but also adding capacity in the
United States. Nissan is building a plant in Canton, Miss., that will assemble
SUVs and pickups, and is spending $1 billion to triple capacity at its engine
factory in Decherd, Tenn. Viadieu says this was the strongest signal to the
outside world that Nissan is changing. "I think if Nissan prepared its
manufacturing plan alone, the conclusion would have been to close the plants
outside Japan, reallocate production here, and ship the vehicles back to
America," he says.
In March, Nissan closed its plant in Musashi Murayama, a Tokyo suburb. Nissan
offered most of the workers jobs at other factories, but the hardships of those
who couldn't leave Murayama made headlines in Japan. For the most part, though,
people seemed to understand that Nissan had little choice. Moreover, Ghosn had
worked to show Nissan's unions that what was good for Nissan, however painful,
was good for workers as well. In the shunto -- the labor negotiations held each
spring throughout Japan -- just before the first plants were closed, Ghosn
granted a Nissan union's request for a one-time bonus worth 5.2 months' pay. One
newspaper's headline read, "Carrot and the Stick, Ghosn Style."
Nissan's domestic plants are now running at about 76 percent of capacity.
Viadieu believes that the reason Nissan never addressed inefficient plants goes
back to a management culture in which taking the initiative was an alien
concept. "Nissan people knew what needed to be done, but they were missing
somebody pushing the button," Viadieu says, pressing his thumb into the table.
"Mr. Ghosn pushed the button."
Savings from plant closings, transformed purchasing practices, and asset
sales that brought down debt costs all helped move the company toward
profitability with surprising speed. And once Ghosn had the company in the
black, he moved on other fronts to make it clear that the old Nissan ways were
history. In May, Nissan employees received bonus checks ranging from 3 to 15
percent of a year's salary. It was the first time Nissan workers had seen a
noticeable gap in compensation between good and bad performers at the same
level. "There were some very happy people, and some not-so-happy people," says
Kuniyuki Watanabe, Nissan's senior vice president for human resources.
Watanabe, 52, says some of those not-so-happy people came to his office to
demand an explanation. He was ready: He had done a stint at Nissan's U.S.
research-and-development unit, where he'd been introduced to the concepts of
performance-based pay and blunt reviews. "Giving your personal appraisal
directly to the individual is not a job Japanese are used to doing, and I hated
it," Watanabe says. "But it was great training for me. I'm fine with it now."
Ghosn is also phasing out the traditional Japanese promotion system, in which
you rise pretty much by having birthdays. Every month he chairs a meeting with
Nissan's six executive vice presidents, one overseas representative, and
Watanabe. The officers nominate promising managers who are younger than 45; the
30 or so chosen each month get priority for promotions and training. "It's a
formal way of getting a handle on who in the company, both here and overseas,
will be our future leaders," Watanabe says.
Nissan's recruiting practices are also changing. This year, for the first
time, outside, midcareer hires (400) will outnumber college recruits (280).
Watanabe says hiring outside managers, often at higher pay, sometimes stirs
animosity in the ranks. But he believes that Nissan had no choice. "We're moving
to a system where it doesn't matter if you've been in the company 10 years or 40
years," he says. "If you contribute, there will be opportunity and reward."
To some degree, reforming basic business practices was the easy part for
Ghosn. Now he must fix what Nissan should really be all about: selling hot cars.
Nissan's share of the Japanese market, which reached a peak of 33.7 percent in
1972, had fallen to 17.8 percent by 2000. U.S. share sits at about 4 percent.
Nissan projects sales for fiscal 2001 to stay flat at about $50 billion. Ghosn
vows not to get caught up in the incentive game to goose sales, but he knows
that without sales growth, Nissan's turnaround will stall. "When we get top-line
growth," Ghosn says, "that's when people's impression of Nissan will change."
Ghosn began visiting Nissan showrooms almost the day he arrived in Japan, and he
got an earful. Nissan cars were well engineered, he was told, but customers
found them ugly. In truth, Nissan hadn't made many cars that quickened drivers'
pulses with pure styling and performance since the glory days of the old 280Z in
the 1970s.
To attack the problem, Ghosn lured design star Shiro Nakamura to Nissan from
Isuzu. Nakamura had made a name for himself with the Vehicross, Isuzu's SUV-car
hybrid. At Nissan he has committed to introducing 13 new models globally in
fiscal 2002 -- including the new Z, the long-lost relative of the old sports
cars. The Z will be sold for less than $30,000 in the United States. Nissan also
began selling a new version of its midsize Altima sedan in the United States in
September; in October, the new model's first full month on the market, Nissan
sold 13,961 Altimas, compared with 9,597 in October 2000. Nakamura promises to
roll out an average of seven new Nissan models annually for three years
beginning in 2003. "There is no problem at a car company that good products
cannot solve," Ghosn says.
Nissan's new models come factory-equipped with something long missing from
its cars: buzz. "We're seeing Nissan reach out for designs that actually take
some risk, and display more style than most of the volume Japanese carmakers,"
says Csaba Csere, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine.
One of the largest lessons of Ghosn's work at Nissan is that his status as a
foreigner, far from being a liability, has turned out to be a crucial asset.
Japanese management guru Kenichi Ohmae writes that 99 percent of Japanese
companies face problems similar to Nissan's, and that few have the power to heal
themselves from within. Ohmae praises Ghosn for his discipline and hardworking
ways -- Ghosn has picked up the nickname "7-11" in Japan for the long hours he
keeps -- but Ohmae also figures that just about any ax-wielder with no ties to
the old order could have gotten Nissan going in the right direction. And Ghosn
still has doubters, particularly as to whether he'll be able to get Nissan's
sales back in high gear. But Ghosn clearly has the engine revving.
In October, on the second anniversary of Ghosn's unveiling of his four-year NRP,
he stood before reporters and ticked off an impressive scorecard: automotive
debt down 40 percent, operating profit on track to grow at least 20 percent in
the fiscal year ending in March 2002, 18 of 38 models profitable (compared with
4 of 43 in 1999). Nissan's operating margin is projected to hit 5.5 percent for
the year, which would draw it closer to industry leaders. (Toyota headed the
pack last year with a margin of 6.5 percent.) "Just two years after having a
near-death experience," Ghosn says, "Nissan is finding itself not very far from
the highest level of profitability among global volume players in the industry."
Nissan and Renault recently deepened their financial ties, with Nissan buying
15 percent of Renault and Renault increasing its Nissan stake to 44.4 percent.
After a good run in the late '90s, Renault has been hurt lately by an aging
product line. Renault chairman Louis Schweitzer has said he sees Ghosn as his
"natural successor" to head Renault, probably within five years. Ghosn won't
discuss his career plans. But he does say his Nissan successor will likely be a
Japanese executive, one who has absorbed the management craft Ghosn brought to
the company. It will be a tough act to follow, but if things go the way they're
going, Nissan's next CEO will inherit a company that knows how to build cars and
make money at the same time. More important, it will be a company where people
know what it feels like to make bold commitments and deliver on them.
Ghosn understands what a transformation that would be. "One of the greatest
successes in business," he says, "is to do what people say you cannot do."
We are very proud indeed of Carlos Ghosn Achievements and that he is from
Lebanon... and it would be doubly proud to know that he is from Shweir...
OK, people of Shweir and of the Ghosn family... can you shed more light on this
star* * * ?
The Way Of Carlos Ghosn
Soon after Ghosn took over Nissan, he was receiving hate
mail. Now he's revered in Japan, and considered a national hero. Here's how
he got there:
1954 Born in Brazil to
Lebanese immigrants.
1960 Family moves to Beirut. Young Ghosn attends a Jesuit high school
where he quickly picks up French and Arabic as well as Portuguese.
1974 Graduates with engineering degree from the elite Ecole
Polytechnique in Paris.
1978 Recruited by tiremaker Michelin.
1990 Michelin merges with B.F. Goodrich, and Ghosn oversees a
grueling overhaul as CEO of U.S. operations.
1996 Joins Renault as chief of research, manufacturing, and
purchasing. He's soon lionized by shareholders as "le cost killer"
for slashing budgets by $3.6 billion but reviled by workers for job cuts.
1999 Renault shocks the industry by offering $5.4 billion for a stake
in struggling Nissan. Ghosn is named chief operating officer.
2000 Nissan posts $6.2 billion loss. Ghosn appointed president
and pushes revival plan that calls for eliminating five plants and 20,000
jobs.
2001 Ghosn moves up to Nissan CEO as the auto maker returns to
profitability.
MAY 2003 Production starts at Nissan's $1.4 billion plant in
Canton, Miss.
JULY 2003 Nissan sets up joint venture with Chinese auto maker
Dongfeng.
APRIL 2004 Glitches with vehicles made in Canton hurt Nissan's
ranking in quality surveys.
MAY 2004 Ghosn announces an initiative that aims to launch 28
new models by 2008 and take the Infiniti luxury brand global.
APRIL 2005 In an industry first, Ghosn will assume the title of
CEO at two global auto companies: Renault and Nissan.
Data: Company reports, BusinessWeek
Business
Week
INTERNATIONAL COVER STORY
Nissan's Boss
Carlos Ghosn saved Japan's No. 2 carmaker. Now
he's taking on the world
Carlos
Ghosn is flat out the hottest automotive talent on the planet right now, and
he enjoys the kind of street cred that execs from Detroit to Stuttgart can
only dream about. In Japan, a full five years after arriving from France's
Renault to run Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY
), CEO Ghosn is still feted in manga comic books, mobbed for
autographs during plant tours, and generally heaped with national adulation
for saving a car company once given up for dead. At glitzy auto shows from
Paris to Beijing, his cosmopolitan air -- Ghosn speaks five languages -- and
sterling track record for turnarounds make him a star attraction. He's as
smooth as Thai silk in public, and his colleagues marvel at his personal
magnetism, his 24/7 work ethic, and his rigorous attachment to benchmarks
and targets. Heck, in Lebanon, where he is a citizen, Ghosn's name was
floated a few weeks back as a potential candidate for President.
But Nissan insiders will also tell you there is another
side to the 50-year-old car exec: If you miss a number or blindside the boss
with a nasty development, watch out. "To people who don't accept that
performance is what is at stake, he can be ruthless," says Dominique
Thormann, a senior vice-president with Nissan Europe. Just ask managers at
Nissan's 16-month-old, $1.4 billion assembly plant in Canton, Miss., where
sloppy craftsmanship marred the launch of the 2004 Quest minivan, the Titan
full-sized pickup, and the Armada sport-utility vehicle. Car enthusiast Web
sites are full of rants about loose moldings, water leaks, and noisy cabins.
This spring, Nissan dropped from 6th to 11th in an annual quality survey by
J.D. Power & Associates Inc. that tracks complaints in the first 90 days of
ownership. Consumers quickly got wind of the troubles, and Nissan will have
a tough time meeting its sales target of 80,000 Quests this year. In the
first half, fewer than 26,000 moved off dealer lots. In July the company
mailed recall letters offering to fix any defects for free. "We've been
surprised by the level of degradation," concedes Ghosn, whose own stress on
speedy execution contributed to the quality woes. "We recognize it is a
problem, and we will fix it."
Ghosn is fixing the Canton debacle in his characteristic fashion -- that is,
with the subtlety of a chain saw. In May, he flew in 220 engineers from
Japan and Nissan's older Smyrna (Tenn.) plant. The damage-control team
searched every inch of the assembly line for flaws. Some were obvious:
Factory hands, many of them newcomers to carmaking, wore rings and studded
jeans that scratched freshly painted trucks. Other glitches were maddening:
Power window switches and reading lights on the Quest often seemed possessed
by gremlins, and its sliding doors didn't close quite right. So the team
worked with suppliers to reengineer parts, while robots were reprogrammed to
weld car bodies more tightly, and better insulation was added to the roof of
the Armada. Then Ghosn shook up management, even raiding archrival Toyota to
hire troubleshooter Douglas G. Betts as his new vice-president for assembly
quality. As the 2005 Nissans enter dealerships this fall, buyers will learn
firsthand whether Ghosn's personal intervention has paid off.
LOFTY
TARGETS It's the Ghosn way: detailed planning, speedy execution, and
a laser focus on what needs fixing. Since 1999, when Renault paid $5.4
billion for a controlling stake in Nissan and dispatched Ghosn to Tokyo to
run it, he has set -- and met -- sales and profit targets that have
stretched the auto maker to the limit. That pattern appeared in 1990, when
Ghosn turned around Michelin's North American division, and in 1996, when as
chief operating officer of Renault he kicked off a program to cut $3.6
billion in annual expenses. Such acts earned Ghosn the overused sobriquet
le cost killer. It is a name he loathes and hopes to banish for good by
building an enduring car company based on product excellence, not painful
restructuring.
The question is whether Ghosn is going too far, too fast. Today, he runs
Nissan in Japan, where executives are battling for share in a soft market by
launching six new models, and where preparations for a major expansion into
China are under way. Since last spring, Ghosn has also taken charge of North
America. And in April he starts his new job -- replacing his mentor Louis
Schweitzer as CEO of Renault, a $46 billion giant in its own right and the
controlling shareholder in Nissan, with a 44% stake. Incredibly, Ghosn will
continue to run Nissan from Tokyo headquarters even as he maintains
oversight of U.S. operations.
Will this guy have to clone himself? Running two such complex organizations
is a fiendishly difficult task, but Ghosn insists that he's ready -- and
that he needs to stay on at Nissan to keep the company headed in the right
direction. "I won't be a part-timer, but one CEO with two hats," he says.
One CEO, as well, with an audacious plan to create what Daimler Benz and
Chrysler Corp. could not -- a successful global auto group from two very
distinct companies. Renault and Nissan have been quietly cooperating on
technology and parts buying for years. But this Franco-Japanese
collaboration is set to expand significantly shortly after Ghosn arrives in
Paris, in everything from parts purchasing to wholesale platform-sharing to
engine design. Already, Nissan and Renault sell a combined 5.4 million
vehicles a year and control 9.3% of the global market. If they were one
company, it would be the fourth-largest auto maker on earth, ahead of
DaimlerChrysler (DCX ) and
right behind Ford (F ). Ghosn
says no full-fledged merger is coming -- but his accession to the double
thrones of Renault and Nissan signals that far deeper ties lie ahead.
TOP SPEED At this crucial moment, when Ghosn
can't afford a slipup, the Canton problems highlight the perils of his
turbocharged management style. Carmakers know that doing too many new things
at once is risky, so new plants typically make tried-and-true models, while
fresh designs are usually built by seasoned workers at established
factories. In Canton, though, Nissan launched five new models in less than
eight months. "There was a need to get the products to market as soon as
possible," says Dave Boyer, vice-president in charge of Nissan's U.S.
manufacturing operations and head of the Canton plant. Ghosn today
acknowledges that he may have stretched too far. And one Nissan executive,
who asked not to be named, grouses that the company's cost crackdown on
suppliers may have aggravated the problems. "So much effort was spent
getting costs down that the quality issue went unnoticed -- until it was too
late," this manager says.
Ghosn says he's starting to get a handle on the quality woes. Yet at the
same time he's upping the ante for Nissan's U.S. operations, which continue
to grow thanks to the revamped Altima sedan and Pathfinder SUV. "I can
already commit that our [quality] scores will be much better," he says. On
Sept. 2, he boosted his 2004 sales target for the U.S. to make up for soft
results in Japan and Europe. Ambitious, yes, but necessary if Ghosn is to
reach a goal he set two years ago of annually selling 1 million more cars --
an increase of 38% over three years -- by September, 2005. And forget about
goosing sales with rebates. "We spent five years reining in incentives, and
we're not going to give it back in five months," says Jed Connelly, chief of
U.S. sales. Indeed, Nissan incentives in August averaged $1,559 a vehicle,
compared with nearly $4,000 at Ford and General Motors Corp. (GM
), according to auto data Web site Edmunds.com.
Can even a superstar such as Ghosn stay on top of industrial operations as
vast as Nissan and Renault? Plenty in the industry would love to see the
brash Ghosn stumble. The truth is, though, Ghosn has built a powerful
machine. "It's tough to keep" a turnaround going, says GM boss G. Richard
Wagoner Jr. "But it would be foolhardy to underestimate Nissan."
As turnarounds go, the Nissan saga is in a class by itself. In 1999 the
company was straining under $19 billion in debt and shedding market share in
both Japan and the U.S. Ghosn was also being undermined by Nissan insiders
who wanted his reforms to fail. So when he was about to announce the closing
of five factories, he didn't tell his own board of directors until the night
before, recalls Jason Vines, who served as Nissan's North American
public-relations chief early in Ghosn's tenure and now heads PR for Chrysler
Group. And to ensure those in the know wouldn't spill the beans, Ghosn
threatened: "'If this leaks out, I'll close seven plants, not five,"' Vines
says. That boldness -- and the factory shutdowns -- led to menacing hate
mail, and Ghosn began to travel with a bodyguard.
These days, though, Ghosn is more hero than target. Last year, Nissan
reported profits of $4.6 billion on $68 billion in revenues, up 8%. It looks
set to boost earnings by another 6% and sales by 9% this year, brokerage
Morgan Stanley (MWD ) says.
Nissan's $49.7 billion market capitalization is the second biggest in the
industry, after Toyota's (TM
). It has overtaken Honda as No. 2 inside Japan. And Nissan leads the global
pack in operating margins (11.1%).
Despite the problems with Canton, the brand is hot again. Nissan is turning
out daring designs such as its sleek-but-muscular 350Z sports coupe, the
curvaceous Altima sedan, and the round-backed Murano crossover. And in
Japan, stylish numbers such as the March subcompact and the boxy Cube
micro-van are driving sales. That's part of Ghosn's push to create what he
calls "segment-defining" models. "Consumers either like a car or they don't,
but that is O.K.," says Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamura. As long as a
model isn't a bore and hits profit goals along the way, Ghosn gives his
designers pretty free rein.
Yet the detail work needs to come up. The quality problems at Canton aren't
the only difficulties the company has faced. Take the Quest minivan. First,
Nissan underestimated demand for popular features such as snazzy skylights.
What's more, the beige interior on the entry model turned off family buyers
fearing spills from toddlers. Now, the Quest is getting big design changes,
including darker interiors and sunroofs even in the cheapest versions. "You
will see incredibly different results this fall," says Walt Niziolek,
manager of Visteon's Mississippi plant, which makes many Quest cockpit
parts.
Nissan still has some gaps in its lineup, too. It won't have a sub-$15,000
compact -- a growing segment critical to brand loyalty that Toyota has
exploited with its Gen Y Scion brand -- until 2007. Ghosn continues to be
skeptical of environment-friendly hybrid cars. So Nissan's first hybrid, a
gasoline-electric Altima, won't hit showrooms until 2006. And even where
it's filling gaps, Nissan needs to work out some kinks: The Titan, the first
full-size pickup truck out of Japan, has been a disappointment. Consumers
haven't been flocking to this monster as Detroit's Big Three kick in
incentives on their models that are worth roughly twice the $1,500 Nissan
offers on the Titan.
Ghosn, though, isn't postponing his return to the CEO's job in Paris. One
factor in his favor is that Schweitzer -- who will remain chairman of
Renault -- has done a good job spiffing up the French auto maker. Renault is
now the top-selling brand in Europe and, after tough restructuring, is light
years away from its days as an industrial basket case. Quality still needs
to come up. But thanks to rising profits and a deserved reputation for
inspired design, Renault is on the offensive. It plans to hire 10,000
workers in 2005 to raise production in emerging markets such as Turkey,
Slovenia, Russia, and Romania, where it has opened a plant to build a $6,000
sedan called the Dacia Logan. Renault has profited handsomely from Nissan,
too: Its initial $5 billion stake has more than tripled in value.
More important for the company's global ambitions, Schweitzer and Ghosn have
a stealth vehicle to drive integration. Early on, Schweitzer set up an
Amsterdam-based company, Renault-Nissan BV, as a neutral forum where both
sides could map out a common strategy for product engineering, model
development, and computer systems, and leverage their combined size to
squeeze suppliers for better deals. Once a month, Renault-Nissan's eight
board members -- four from each side -- meet to make medium- and long-term
decisions based on proposals by a dozen cross-company teams. Already, about
70% of the parts used by the two auto makers are jointly purchased by the
alliance.
The integration has been surprisingly smooth -- in sharp contrast to the
tumultuous marriage of Daimler and Chrysler. Renault today builds its Clio
compact and Scenic minivan at Nissan plants in Mexico, while Nissan makes
its Frontier pickup at a Renault factory in Brazil. The ultimate goal is to
reduce the number of platforms, or chassis, the group uses to 10 in 2010
from the 34 it had in 2000. The goal is in sight: Nissan had 24 individual
platforms in 1999, but uses only 15 today. That's important, because every
shared platform can add $500 million-plus in annual savings for each
carmaker, estimates Commerzbank. Renault will also share eight engine
designs with Nissan.
When conflicts do arise, Schweitzer and Ghosn usually hash things out before
alliance board meetings. After Renault acquired South Korea's Samsung Motors
in 2001, the French company wanted Nissan to design the next large 4x4 sport
utility for the Korean company. Ghosn resisted, but was finally swayed by
Schweitzer's logic: Nissan had the best know-how in SUVs, so it should take
the lead. It wasn't altruism on Ghosn's part, mind you: Nissan will get a
royalty from Renault on each of the SUVs that is sold when it launches in
2007. "Every
Lebanon's
beauty is illuminated by its geography (see
interactive map under Tourism.)
-- its narrow coastal plane and two parallel north/south mountains (the
mountains of Lebanon and anti-Lebanon). The fertile Bekaa valley, with its
Litani and Orontes Rivers, separates these mountains and nourishes the terrain.
Residing majestically over the valley, Qournet Assaouda in the north of Mount
Lebanon (altitude 3,083 meters or 10,112 feet) and Jabal al-Sheikh in the south
of the anti-Lebanon range (altitude 2,814 meters or 9,230 feet) remain the
highest peaks in the country.
Carlos
Ghosn is flat out the hottest automotive talent on the planet right now, and
he enjoys the kind of street cred that execs from Detroit to Stuttgart can
only dream about. In Japan, a full five years after arriving from France's
Renault to run Nissan Motor Co. (
LOFTY
TARGETS It's the Ghosn way: detailed planning, speedy execution, and
a laser focus on what needs fixing. Since 1999, when Renault paid $5.4
billion for a controlling stake in Nissan and dispatched Ghosn to Tokyo to
run it, he has set -- and met -- sales and profit targets that have
stretched the auto maker to the limit. That pattern appeared in 1990, when
Ghosn turned around Michelin's North American division, and in 1996, when as
chief operating officer of Renault he kicked off a program to cut $3.6
billion in annual expenses. Such acts earned Ghosn the overused sobriquet
le cost killer. It is a name he loathes and hopes to banish for good by
building an enduring car company based on product excellence, not painful
restructuring.