When Dr Kassem Alom arrived in Abu Dhabi in 1978, he immediately started to question whether the UAE really was the right spot for a young doctor looking to start up his own business.
“There was nothing here,” he recalls. “There was one hospital - called Central Hospital - which consisted of a group of caravans. When it rained, the water just flooded inside.”
Alom’s decision to stay and carve out a niche for himself in the UAE capital was vindicated last year when Al Noor Hospitals Group, the company he founded in 1985, and which is now Abu Dhabi’s largest private healthcare provider by far, listed on the London Stock Exchange. The initial public offering (IPO) netted $342m, valuing the company at $1bn.
Along the way, Alom treated Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late President of the UAE, has been appointed to the Supreme Council of the Ministry of Health, and is one of the few expatriates to be voted onto the board of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Al Noor Hospitals has three hospitals and nine medical centres in Abu Dhabi and is looking at expanding its offering into the rest of the Gulf.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/interview-al-noor-s-dr-kassem-alom-538561.html#.UwQ9VmKSw8p
