Bachar Kiwan

Personal Life and Education

Bashar Kiwan was born in Kuwait and raised between home country Syria and Kuwait. At the early age of 17, Bashar went to France where he finished his high school studies and earned a French scientific baccalaureate at the Lycée Alphonse Daudet in 1984 and graduated from Université de Montpellier in 1987 with a degree in Economics. Bashar met a French colleague in 1983 and got married to her in 1997. He has one son born in 2002. He currently lives in Kuwait with his family. Bashar speaks Arabic, French, and English and is passionate about reading, yachts, and jogging.

Al Waseet International Company

After concluding his studies in France in 1987, Bashar, driven by an innate entrepreneurial passion, decided to go back to Kuwait to start a new business knowing that the Arab world and more specifically the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) constitute a very appealing and lucrative market with very high potential for growth as opposed to the Western market which is very competitive and difficult to penetrate. At the time, the media and advertising industry in the region was very young and inspired by the yellow pages companies he had seen in France, he found that they constituted a very interesting business model which, if replicated in the Arab, would meet a lot of success.

In 1989, after gathering investors, the Iraq war started and plans were put on hold. It wasn’t until 1992 that the first Arab classified weekly newspaper, Al Waseet, was launched in Kuwait in partnership with two Kuwaiti businessmen. This marked his major first breakthrough traces back to 1992, where in a very short period of time the newspaper attained leadership and became a recognized name in the Kuwaiti market. The next few years, Kiwan established geographical presence across the region and expanded the business both horizontally and vertically by starting a partnership with an old childhood friend and fellow Syrian businessman and entrepreneur. Together, they established Al Waseet International (AWI) and expanded it geographically significantly to cover Syria, Lebanon, UAE, Egypt, KSA and Qatar among many other countries where Waseet Classified was met with success.

Parallel to Al Waseet, they developed a new social magazine in Lebanon called Layalina and expanded it across Syria, Jordan, Dubai, KSA, Oman, Iraq, Bahrain, and Egypt. In 2003, they introduced in Lebanon a unique daily newspaper called Al Balad also under AWI. Moreover, throughout the year of 2004 and 2009, AWI Company was able to win the licenses for many international titles as Top Gear BBC, Marie Claire France, and Gala Germany.

Today, AWI, employing over than 5,000 employees in its network, has been recognized as a media empire with global presence in the MENA region, GCC, and Eastern Europe and carries leading publications and professionally serves more than 100,000 direct clients and 6,000 agencies and companies. Its expertise in publishing, printing, advertising, branding, marketing and research positions the group as a pioneer in the print industry. Bachar plans by 2016 to have 100 branches across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and other international destinations.

AWI Timeline

Waseet.net and Google AdWords

Since 2006, knowing the importance and necessity of online existence, the group wanted to reinforce the presence of their ever growing classified newspaper and made the decision to take Al Waseet online and that’s how Waseet.net was created. The big success of Waseet.net paved the way for AWI to start a strategic partnership with Google, the search engine giant. This strategic partnership was intended to accelerate the delivery of Google's AdWords advertising program to thousands of Small and Medium businesses in MENA by combining AWI's feet-on-the-street sales model and SMB-focused business model manifested by Waseet with Google's AdWords advertising program.

7AWI: Going Online

In 2007, the AWI board commissioned a plan to add an online department to AWI under the name of 7AWI. By 2012, the online unit was established and the lunch of 7awi.com followed. By the end of 2012, 7awi launched layalinamag.com. They established an online board to oversee the overall digital strategy of AWI Company. The online unit’s focus is to be on media, transactional and e-commerce opportunities in the digital arena.

Business Diversification

In the last five years, Kiwan diversified his business ventures taping in new markets and different sectors and operations included telecom, banking, tourism and real estate. After visiting the Comoros Islands and being fascinated with the beautiful scenery, the sincere nature of the people, and the simplicity of the country, Bashar saw the untapped business potential of the Islands and became one of the first foreign businessmen to invest in the Comoros Islands establishing Comoros Gulf Holding, a company that prompted economic growth and industrial development in the Comoros where he opened up with his Syrian business partner Hotel Itssandra, a construction company, a radio, and outdoor media and they had a joined stock in BFC Bank. Moreover, Kiwan is investing in his home country. In 2010, he established with Kuwaiti partners “Syria Holding”, a holding company with projects involved in real estate and development.

Additional

Bashar Kiwan is the Honorary Consul of Union of Comoros in Kuwait and Honorary Advisor of the Union of Comoros President. Additionally, Kiwan is a member of the Arab Distribution Union (ADU) and Arab Publishers Union (APU). He is also the chairman of the Syrian Business Council in Kuwait and board member of the Syrian Diaspora in Kuwait.

Associations and Memberships