Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor hosted a group of 20 students from Harvard who are in the region for Harvard GCC Trek, a student-led effort to take students to several GCC states to meet political and business leaders and give the students an opportunity to experience the culture in the region. The group, made up of 11 students from Harvard Kennedy School, and nine from Harvard Business School, are from the USA, Canada, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Denmark, Cameroon, India, Kazakhstan, China, South Korea and New Zealand.
The Harvard GCC Trek, which runs from 29 December 2016 to 14 January 2017, aims to give the students a better understanding of the region, its culture and business practices.
Leading the group was Majid Al-Ibrahim, an MBA and MPA candidate from MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School; Abdulaziz Albassam, an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School; Anas Aljumaily, a second-year MBA candidate at Harvard Business School; and Yaarub Al-Yarubi, who is currently doing a master in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School.
The students got the opportunity to ask Al Habtoor questions about his business successes and failures, as well as his management style.
Majid Al-Ibrahim said, "It was our pleasure to meet one of the most prominent business leaders in the Middle East. We learned a lot about the entrepreneurial spirits in the GCC region through his success story."