Issam Darwish is a Daring Telecom Investor
Where many see challenges, the bold and courageous see the opportunity and cease it. Of course, the success stories of such people have given credence to the thought that great opportunities are wrapped in challenges for those who have the inner eyes to see and take it.
And one man that has proven that again is Mr Issam Darwish, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of IHS Towers, who sighted the opportunities in Nigeria’s telecom sector that was then a desert and came to establish a telecom infrastructure company in 2001.
Today, IHS is the largest independent mobile telecommunications infrastructure provider in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, through the efforts of a man that saw the future. Issam Darwish is a Lebanese-Nigerian entrepreneur who is reputed to have been in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years.
Darwish began his professional career in 1992, in Beirut, after joining MCI as an executive. At the time, the company was one of the world’s largest telecoms carriers. He then joined Libancell, now known as MTC Touch, where he assumed a leading role in establishing the first Lebanese mobile network. Subsequently, in 1998, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director of Motophone, Nigeria’s first GSM operator.
As a shrewd businessman and entrepreneur that he is, Darwish acted on the Nigerian government’s plan to privatise its telecommunications industry in 2001 by setting up a mobile infrastructure company, IHS Towers, which he has led since then. Under his tenure as CEO, the company has been named one of the largest equity fundraisers in Africa, as well as one of the overall largest fundraisers of the past decade. Moreover, IHS Towers has won a series of awards and nominations for its rapid growth and high-profile tower transactions, such as the 2015 African Company of the Year at the CEO Forum Awards and Africa Investor’s 2015 ICT Project Developer of the year, as well as the Middle East and Africa Deal of the Year at the Telecom finance Awards in 2013 and 2015, and 2014 EMEA Finance’s prize for the Best Telecommunications Deal in EMEA region. In 2015, Darwish was nominated Business Leader of the Year for West Africa as part of the All Africa Business Leaders Awards in collaboration with CNBC Africa.
A look at his humble beginning in life, Issam was brought up and educated in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. He went on to graduate with distinction from the American University of Beirut, where he majored in Computer and Communications Engineering. He also holds a Certificate in Quality Control from SONERA (previously Telecom Finland) and one in Network Management from Mobilcom, Austria.
Interestingly, apart from IHS, Darwish has founded additional businesses in the US and Middle East such as Vorex, a software provider for small enterprises across the US. He is also the Founder and President of Singularity Investments, Dar Properties and Dar Telecom. He is also involved in setting up incubator programs for aspiring tech entrepreneurs in Lagos and oversees local community projects throughout Nigeria. He has been a financier behind the establishment of educational facilities in underserved areas throughout Africa and is a believer of the fact that increased employment opportunities is the key to boosting Africa’s economy.
In September 2015, he served on an entrepreneur judging panel for She Leads Africa, a venture which invests in promising women entrepreneurs from across the continent. In the same year, he was asked to join the Africa 2.0 Advisory Board alongside individuals such as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Joaquim Chissano, the former President of Mozambique, and Samba Bathily. Africa 2.0 is a pan-African project aimed towards driving sustainable growth throughout the continent.
Issam is a member of New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum’s Anchor Society which is focused on sustaining and expanding the Museum’s innovative education programs, exhibitions and collection of historic artefacts. Issam is married to mechanical engineer and Southern Methodist University MBA holder, Hiba Darwish, and they have two sons Samo and Jason.
What more? Here is a man who believes so much in the African continent and put it into practice by ensuring that over 95 per cent of IHS’s employees are African and this is a company that employ close to 40,000 people directly and indirectly through its exclusive subcontractors. Not only has Darwish led IHS to excellence with proven track record in telecom infrastructure services, he has helped to bridge the infrastructure gap in a country like Nigeria. Certainly, he is one of the people that make the Nigerian telecom revolution a success and we cannot appreciate him enough for his efforts, belief in the country and foresight