16
Medhat
Yousef Fayez Yassa
General Manager – Credit
How long have you been with
the company?
I started with Habtoor in 1983 – just
one year after Al Habtoor Motors
secured Mitsubishi. I was the only
one in the Credit Department at that
time. Mr Khalaf Al Habtoor was very
busy with Habtoor Engineering, but he
would come every evening to check on
the business. Al Habtoor Motors at that
time was like the baby of the Al Habtoor
Group. Look at it today. We are number
one for many of our brands.
How have the demands of the
job changed as the company
has grown?
We have worked with many global
brands at Al Habtoor Group; Mitsubishi,
Saab and others. We then got Bentley
and Rolls Royce, Auston Martin,
McLaren, Bugatti. The company has
grown so much. As the business grew,
we grew in terms of people too. We
started with one branch and now we
have multiple branches and workshops.
Tell me about your department?
Our job is to minimise risk. We have to
work hard to investigate each customer
and look at the fine details to ensure we
don’t carry any risk. We don’t just deal
with sales, but after-sales too. We are
the central department for credit. We
need to ensure we don’t give money
to crooks. There is difference between
an honest man who can’t pay for one
month for some reason and another
man who takes the money and runs.
With experience we can smell the good
clients.
How has the department
evolved?
We started the business in 1983 when
I was very young. We used to sit in the
coffee shops and talk to people, build
relationships; that’s how business was
done in the early days. We knew all our
customers personally. Communication
was very easy. It is much more
complicated these days.
How do you balance assessing
risk and not turning away
business?
Reputation is very important. We don’t
want to risk tarnishing our reputation.
We have a 100 per cent success rate
in our department. We have to ensure
that when we give credit to anyone we
are going to get it back. Experience
and due diligence are very important
factors. We don’t believe in risk in this
department, because if we did there
would be millions in bad debt. I always
think like a creditor no matter what I
do!
What is unique about working
for the Al Habtoor’s?
The Al Habtoor’s have always been
supportive of all their staff. They make
us feel empowered. It is like one big
happy family.
Who inspires you?
Mr Khalaf Al Habtoor and Mr Sultan Al
Habtoor are my idols. But Mr Ahmed
Al Habtoor is the new generation Al
Habtoor; he has a new way of thinking.
He is very smart. He doesn’t want to
lose any business. He has helped the
company gain market share and he
wants to be number one always. If
you look at Ahmed Al Habtoor he is a
younger version of his father.
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