MEET THE PROFESSIONAL
April 2018
Ramy Ballout
Ramy Ballout is the founder of the AirLinked, a mobile platform that creates in-person professional networking opportunities for frequent travelers exclusively while waiting at the airport.
We are very excited to feature him this month in our “Meet the Professional” series.
Below are a few questions to help facilitate this interactive connection. At the end of the page you will have an opportunity to post your own questions for Ramy.
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Describe your current Occupation & Degree/s and Universities.
- BA in International Studies, emphasis Global Economy from the University of California – Irvine
- Global Executive MBA from INSEAD
A list of any awards/recognitions:
- INSEAD Class Valedictorian
Discuss a moment or turning point in your life that led you to your career path:
I started my career in retail technology and business consulting in the Bay Area (California) working for global companies like Accenture, Cisco, and Oracle. I later moved to Los Angeles to join the most popular social technology startup of the time called “Myspace,” which a few us may still remember today! During the latter of my time there, I felt unfulfilled in the work that I was doing after coming to terms that, another company called “The Facebook” was rapidly taking over market share partly due to poor executive decisions being made with regards to the “Myspace” platform.
When making the decision to leave MySpace, I felt compelled to have the next step in my career be something that would challenge me exponentially, if not outlandishly, and that was joining forces with my father in Lebanon to further establish, operate, and manage Pineland Hotel and Health Resort in the Metn. Our overwhelming success there solidified my confidence and ability to transition into a career aligned with “what I was good at.”
At Pineland we were the first resort in Lebanon to ever achieve the Top 25 Hotels in the Middle East category through TripAdvisor in addition to being the #1 Hotel in Lebanon during four years of my tenure. This success was attributed to the entire team, and certainly not just to one person. I learned, applied, and saw for myself the power of the human spirit to reach heights, not based on what we had, but what we could do with what we had. Our aspirations were revealed in direct correlation to the belief that if others could, then so could we.
Pineland was one of the highlights of my career and led me straight to INSEAD, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world. There, my mind expanded even further and my ambitions through the support of my classmates and professors pushed me towards a new path in my professional life.
At INSEAD, AirLinked was born. It started as a concept at INSEAD and went from concept to the creation of what it is today – matching travelers at 24 supported airports in real time with professional networking opportunities before their flights. My idea of providing a productive alternative to waiting at airports has thus far been proven with our first contract at Silicon Valley Airport in San Jose, CA. Our partnership there has provided analytics to the airport on increases in passenger engagement, more interaction with airport facilities and of course, money-spent at the airport. We’re still in the early stages of our startup but have come very far in the last 2.5 years.
In summary, I like many, have had several inflections and turning points in my career. I also expect to have many more. From working at a failed tech startup, to the successful establishment of boutique resort with my father, a global business school degree, moving in between Lebanon and the U.S., these events have all played major roles in how I’ve viewed myself and how I viewed the world. More importantly, what I wanted to do and how I felt I could add value to the environment I was a part of can only be contributed to the environment itself that impacted me personally.
Discuss a role model or mentor who influenced your career choice:
I’d easily say Tony Robbins after being given one his first books, “Awaken the Giant Within,” by my father sometime in the spring of 1993. Reading that book over the course of a year at 12 years old probably changed my life forever. I was obsessed with the concept of diminishing limiting belief systems and Tony Robbins gave me the sort of confidence at that age to believe that hard work and good people get rewarded. Above all, that constant “practice” was the single most important mechanism to readiness for the unexpected things in life. So when I went through all the turbulent times a young teenager could go through moving from San Francisco to Lebanon, Tony Robbins was there through his books and cassette tapes to help me along. He’s certainly my biggest hero and mentor. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him on two occasions, one in London and the other in Fiji where I gave him recommendations on how to run his own resort more efficiently.
The take away here is the importance of having a mentor and a coach in your life—someone that you have good chemistry with, but also someone you can learn from and respect. I was lucky to get that by chance through the author of a book and I am so fortunate I did.
Do you recall any specific challenges you encountered and overcame?
When you do something crazy and you fail, people are quick to call you crazy. However, do something and succeed, those same people will be quick to respect you. This is life and the tough world of business I’ve endured for 10 years now. There are several challenges, but the biggest by far was overcoming my own limiting beliefs. As the head of a company, people constantly look to you for guidance, direction, and skills – I found it so hard to keep up with making people believe in the greater good of whatever it was that I was doing knowing that if their hearts weren’t in there with me, I would risk having to close our doors and shut down.
Managing emotions is another one, especially when I’ve been cash strapped building a business on several different occasions. People don’t like to talk about hardships because hardships are hidden from the mainstream public eye – but it’s the hardships that are actually more important than the success! You’ve got to keep your eye on the target and believe down to your core that what you’re doing is going to add enough value to people that they will pay you for it one day. It’s tough!
Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?
I’m already ahead of myself here. My future is professionally coaching others in and with their businesses and their careers. In fact, I’ve been coaching prior to and alongside AirLinked because it’s lonely when you’re an entrepreneur and it’s lonely when you’re doing the same thing every day and not feeling like you’re getting ahead.
Managing people in a startup made me realize that my main mission was not making sure we all put in extra hours to get the job done, but making people (including myself) feel truly utilized with what we could and were giving to the organization.
My activities all this while have aligned with connecting people and creating opportunities for them. This has been my driving force and my joy all along.
Now and for the foreseeable future, AirLinked will be there so long as it is used and needed, but market forces will decide on that. I view my true value of scale to be a coach and confidant to others.
Using my experience of working for the best companies of the world, attending a top business school, creating a successful business with the management of hundreds of people and fast forward to where I am, the best thing I could do is create the most rewarding career – the career of giving the knowledge, motivation, and real life (little theory) advice of what it takes to have a better chance of being successful.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?
“All men dream: but not equally. Those that dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was in vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” This is a quote by T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia).
Of course, this quote is not limited to men by all means! It’s the exact quote of its time but it resonates with me very much.
My advice is to get a mentor, create a plan, and identify early on, what you’re good at, but more importantly, what excites you. What kind of contribution do you want to give to your workplace, your family, and your society? Even if it starts out with an emotion, you may be onto the biggest discovery of your life yet!
Lastly, invest in a whiteboard. The best investment you’ll ever make!
Tell us a little bit about your hobbies outside of your field:
I love to read with a passion. I also love to blog, adding value to people’s personal and professional lives (I’m active on LinkedIn most of the time). I’m in love with cultures from all around the world. Indie movies are my favorite. I love to meet random people at airports – no surprise there!
A Q&A form will be uploaded shortly. In the meantime feel free to send any questions you would like to ask Mr. Ramy Ballout to admin@network1017.com
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