As a serial entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience, Ali Kassab has grown multiple start-ups and tech companies from ground zero to multi-million-dollar businesses. He has built his corporate expertise across multinational cloud software companies, digital payment and blockchain companies by nurturing and building entrepreneurship ecosystems globally. To put it another way, Ali Kassab has always been driven by a desire to create creative solutions that enhance people’s lives in a sustainable environment and economy, while also enabling employees to work toward a shared goal.
Ali Kassab created Centurion & Co to be the leader in transformative technology with a dedication to harnessing and boosting market concepts through the adoption of Blockchain, Digital and Fintech solutions. Ali is the Chairman of Centurion and drives entrepreneurial development and thinking while constantly looking for new opportunities throughout the sector.
Centurion & Co is a very active and dynamic management and investment firm based in Dubai, with investments and businesses in Singapore, Cyprus, France, Tunisia, and Lebanon.
The manufactures, invests and incubates innovative ideas and startups in the EMEA region, focusing on use cases leveraging Digital, Fintech & Blockchain Transformation for corporations and governments. He asserts, “Our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to reach leadership and scale their businesses by benefiting from centurion all-in-one business kits such as marketing, technology, processes, methodology, etc. “
The Journey to Becoming a Serial Entrepreneur
Mr. Kassab launched his first startup at 25 years old, a software company in France that was sold a couple of years later to a multi-national CRM Editor in 2008, where he was in charge of developing the MEA and GCC regions as a partner and CEO. After covering a couple of countries in Africa and MEA, he reached Dubai, where his company’s work has successfully impacted smart governments and large institutions between 2011 and 2015. Within that period, they had interested some private equity to invest in the company to grow its footprint and venture into other digital projects.
In 2015, he launched Sky telecom in the UAE to become a leading digital distributor for Etisalat and DU, organizing the sales and reaching consumers. Sky Telecom became the leader in digitalizing telecom consumer services in a couple of years.
In 2017, he, with partners, took over MBME (under Centurion management), which was an under tapped company aiming to digitalize self-service and payments for governments and large corporations in the UAE. After restructuring this company, which was experiencing heavy losses due to lack of operations and vision, they were able to expand its portfolio and footprint with more than 800 digital-kiosks and more than 70 government services (police, transport, courts, etc), efforts that have been awarded by the government of Dubai as CEO of the Year 2018.
Centurion & Co
Centurion & Co is a revolutionary Venture Capital firm, Incubator, and Technology Enabler with successful investments in the Software, Cloud, Telecom, Payment, and Blockchain industries, as well as its own incubations and platforms: Centurion Network, adnetwork, wenext, skytelecom, and others.
Over the last four years, the group has used both human capital capabilities and high-tech know-how to become an effective operator and leader in the financial and digital era. With an emphasis on digital banking, ecommerce acceleration, and payment service processing, the firm is growing its fintech portfolio.
The firm functions as a parent company and offers services through its subsidiaries, allowing it to efficiently serve different industries. It launched several platforms and operations in the region:
- Centurion Invest: Centurion Invest offers high-liquid, secure, and decentralised investing and trading platforms, as well as investment programs, to help consumers improve their net worth and earnings.
It provides investors with a one-stop-shop decentralised trading and exchange platform that increases their wealth by providing in-depth information, extensive knowledge, and innovative investing technique that taps the future of digital.
Centurion Invest’s mission is to bring cutting-edge investment tools and instruments together on a single platform, bridging the gap between fiat and FX and the power of cryptocurrencies. The company offers:
- All in one investment and trading platform
- Digital Wallet and EMI
- Crypto Exchange & Crypto Concierge
- Forex Trading Platform
- Centishop; Acquiring for Merchants
“One Platform, Endless Solutions”
Centishop is the fastest and most efficient e-shop builder in the market. With the help of Centishop one can build his or her online business with its all-in-one CMS eCommerce enabler and multi-payment platform.
It allows merchants to easily create e-commerce and use it right away to boost their online presence, upgrade customer experience and grow revenues. It also offers a reliable web hosting, top security, and a dedicated support team, as well as users own payment service to integrate in their e-shop.
- Centipay
Centipay enables seamless commerce and card processing for businesses of all sizes and types. The company wants to help SMEs launch their business and witness it grow, get the adequate solution to suit them and accept payments that their customers want. Its payment gateway is easily integrated with merchant site to provide customers with a streamline payment experience. It accepts payments made with all major card brands while protecting online transactions thanks to the “Verified by Visa”, “Mastercard Secure Code” security systems services. As per company, “We Belong to the 0.1% of Payment Gateways able to offer Crypto to Fiat and vice versa solutions.”
- Centurion Network
- Wenext
The Values that Make Business Successful
As per Mr. Kassab, the important values in his business were always Social Responsibility and Integrity; Empowerment based model and Sustainable Solution for Humanity. He strongly believes in empowering people, processes, and customer experience to ensure company growth and sustainability. He says, “Our success is based on the total commitment of our people, who represent our most valuable asset.”
Focus on Finding Solutions
Finding the appropriate personnel and communicating the vision in an aligned way is always a problem for any organisation, as is finding the right business partners and investors that believe in the project’s objectives rather than seeing investments as a short-term ROI. As Mr. Kassab sees, being selective and always aiming high with a sharp clear focus on the vision journey is a key element to solving such challenges for sure.
A View on Success
Mr. Kassab defines success as making a positive difference and having an influence on an existing ecosystem by introducing fresh thoughts and ideas that leave their imprint on the story. He asserts, “Success is when you are able to generate a lot of positive attitudes and thinking for the people surrounding you (family, friends, employees); pride, accomplishment, and recognition.” He also adds, “Success is when you fight all your fears and overcome challenges that lead you to achieve your goals.”
The Shifting Trends and Aspects of the Sector
Consumer behaviour is shifting away from traditional ways due to increased faith in technology, technical performance, and online payment sectors. This requires the Management Consulting business to adapt to new trends, such as working from home, and progress toward a future where brick-and-mortar offices are no longer necessary.
Centurion & Co believes that the world is changing toward a new economic order, which necessitates a new way of thinking, and that Centurion, as a digital and fintech factory, will play a key role in establishing a robust ecosystem for consumers.
There will be a long-term decrease in business travel due to the emergence of video-conferencing tools, with high-net-worth individuals preferring to travel via private jet as opposed to first-class air travel.
Governments will introduce e-services throughout the region. Governments, business leaders, and companies will allocate more budgets to invest in healthcare and healthcare products after discovering the gaps in the global system while fighting the coronavirus. More tech startups will emerge with creative applications.
