Saleh Jallad ’67 is a busy man. He is the group vice president for treasury, insurance and governmental relations at Consolidated Contractors Group, a leading construction company in the Middle East. He chairs and is the major shareholder of two Arabic and English publishing houses, and is the publisher of Middle East Economic Survey, a 50-year-old weekly journal covering the region’s oil, gas and finance issues. Jallad also owns a controlling interest in Melisende and RiMal, publishing houses in the United Kingdom and Cyprus, and is the deputy governor of the Arab Monetary Fund for Palestine. In addition, he is a writer, translator and political theorist.

Jallad’s propensity for diverse interests all started at AUC, where he was involved in a myriad of activities.An economics and political science major, Jallad was the first Student Union president to win an election in which four candidates ran in the first round. He participated in several clubs and was an avid sportsman.“I spent a lot of time in tennis shoes and shorts,” he recalled. As the right wing for AUC’s varsity soccer club, Jallad still made time for variety in his life. “I could easily play soccer and basketball on the same day,” he noted, remembering with a laugh that he was “the shortest basketball player at the university.”

After graduation, his various interests led him to a life in which numerous careers took him around the globe. He worked as a teacher, foreman and broadcaster, and had a stint with the airlines in Kuwait. After receiving a doctorate in banking and economics from Notre Dame, he worked at the First National Bank in Chicago and New York. This whirlwind tour finally brought him to Greece, where he currently lives.“Since then,my main work has been to be on a 24-hour alert,” he said.“All banking relations for all projects worldwide come through my office. I’m responsible for the movement of more than $5 billion.”

Since his time at AUC, Jallad said that one of the secrets to success has been his ability to learn by reading.“At AUC, I read anything I could get a hold of. At the company today, if I do not know something and it’s a matter of discussion, I go out and research it genuinely and intelligently, and then share it with others,” he said.

This sort of research has led him to broaden his interests even further, publishing a literary work titled Kalilah and Dimnah, which he translated from an eighth century Arabic text with an introduction that he presented at Georgetown University immediately after 9/11. He is working on a second translation called Pedagogy of Leadership, which will be published soon. It will contain an in-depth analysis and logical alterations of the old Arabic manuscript, and will also be published in Arabic. For those wondering where he finds the time to write with all of his other commitments, Jallad has a ready answer: “I do that on the plane.”

With his accomplishments piling up, Jallad said he wouldn’t trade his story for any other, especially when it comes to his alma mater.“AUC had a lot of influence on my thought and development,” he explained. “It is a multiethnic environment. Everyone at AUC, from the doorman to the people from overseas, taught me important lessons. It is a small place, but extremely potent.”

By Peter Wieben