![]() The bank’s leaders “decided to take a step back”, he says, becoming more stoic and asking important questions. This exercise proved futile, with the conflict ongoing more than 11 years later. “It’s easy to let the dominant feeling of impending doom take over and make you feel like everything’s falling apart, that there’s no way things could become better.” “In war and times of crisis, it’s very tempting to only think in the near-term and focus on short-term fixes,” he says. They found themselves imagining the many different scenarios that could unfold. There’s very little leeway for getting things wrong.”Īt the outset of the war, Roumani and his colleagues wondered how it would end. ![]() “You face daily challenges that make things so much harder on the ground, which need to be constantly addressed. “When you’re working in such a crisis you almost need to become both a warrior and a philosopher at the same time,” he says. Now living in London, Roumani wrote about his experience as CFO of BBSF during the Syrian conflict in his 2020 book Lessons from a Warzone. It was more gradual and as things escalated, it morphed into one of the worst wars in modern times,” he says. “The Syrian civil war differs from the conflict in Ukraine because there wasn’t a single turning point. The horrific images from the war in Ukraine bring back memories of his experiences in Syria. ![]() When conflict broke out in Syria in 2011, Louai Al Roumani found himself in this unenviable position.Īs head of finance for Banque Bemo Saudi Fransi (BBSF) – Syria’s largest private commercial bank – Roumani was tasked with leading the company through its most challenging period. Many business leaders face challenging circumstances, but few compare with running a company in the middle of a war.
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