Mustafa Deeb

Director of Strategy Planning and Business Development at Zain Iraq

My experience and deep interests:

• Technology

I am based in: Ramallah

I grew up in Kuwait, I loved and still love this country so much despite the horrific summer they have there. Unfortunately, my journey with Kuwait ended in 1990 with the Gulf war and we had to move back to Palestine. As a result of the war, we were completely bankrupt and my family came up with several ideas to generate income. We worked together as a family to survive. It was not easy, but we did it. Within this time, I developed a passion for dismantling things. However, the intent was not to break, I just wanted to know how things work.

Fast forward, I got into computers, programming, and networks which basically shaped my career up until 2010, but suddenly it became boring for me and I decided to jump ship to the business world. In 2010, I started my EMBA and my new chapter in life started. It was not easy, but it helped me become who I am today.

I am now a Senior Executive at Zain Iraq, the largest Telco company in Iraq. I manage strategy and business development in the company. We are responsible for finding solutions for problems and coming up with new products. Throughout the job, I focus a lot on empowering people, knowledge transfer, and improving communications between employees, most importantly teaching people how to solve problems and cope with change.

I love playing strategy games and reading thriller novels. I do try to fit a business book between every novel, but it does it not work all the time.