Khaled Bichara ( ar, خالد بشارة, ) (July 27, 1971 – January 31, 2020) was an Egyptian businessman and entrepreneur who served as the

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of link.net and chief executive officer of Accelero Capital. Prior to joining Accelero Capital, Bichara was chief executive officer of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology OTMT, group president and chief operating officer of VimpelCom Ltd., and

executive chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of Global Telecom Holding. Bichara played a pivotal role in the merger of VEON and

Wind Telecom Wind Telecom S.p.A. was a telecommunications holding company owned by the multinational telecommunications company VimpelCom. In 2011, it was merged into VimpelCom It was originally founded as Weather Investments S.p.A., a holding company contr ...

to create the world's sixth-largest telecommunications carrier.

Early life and education

Khaled Galal Bichara was born on 27 July 1971 in

Cairo, Egypt Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

. Bichara earned his B.Sc degree from The American University in Cairo in 1993 with a major in computer science and a minor in

business administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

. He has also attended a number of professional and postgraduate courses, including the Executive Program for Growing Companies at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and another at the

American University of Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ar, الجامعة الأمريكية بالقاهرة, Al-Jāmi‘a al-’Amrīkiyya bi-l-Qāhira) is a private research university in Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning progra ...

Institute of Banking and Finance.

Career

LINKdotNET

In 1996, after a short experience with Microlab, a software company, he co-founded LINKdotNET (at the time called LINK Egypt) an Internet Service Provider (ISP) company in Egypt. In 2000, he was appointed by Orascom Telecom Holding as the company's Chief Internet Strategist. In 2002, Khaled Bichara was involved in a partnership between Microsoft and LINKdotNET which resulted in the launching of

MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

Arabia, the first global portal of its kind in the region. LINKdotNET, under Khaled Bichara's leadership, acquired eight internet companies. This acquisition increased the workforce to more than 1,500 making the company the largest private ISP in the region. Khaled Bichara became a member of the board of directors at Orascom Telecom Holding in 2003. He was also recognized as the “Young Executive of the Year” by ''

Business Today Egypt ''Business Today Egypt'' (also known as ''BT'') is an English business magazine which is published monthly in Cairo, Egypt by Egyptian Media Group. It is the only independent business magazine in the country. The magazine models ''Fortune'' and ' ...

''.

Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A.

Bichara was appointed to head the fixed line and portal business unit at Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A., a subsidiary company of Wind Telecom S.p.A. located in Italy, in 2005. He was promoted in 2006 to the position of chief operating officer of the company. During this period he was responsible for the transformation of Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A., initially a company on the downturn, in just three years, into one of the best performing mobile, fixed line and broadband integrated operators in the continent.

Orascom Telcom Holding

Orascom Telecom Holding became the largest investor in LINKdotNET in 1999, with a 54% stake in the company. In 2000, Khaled Bichara was appointed its chief Internet strategist before joining the board three years later. In April 2009, Khaled Bichara was appointed the chief operating officer (COO) of Orascom Telecom Holding, replacing the former officer Emad Farid. In November 2009, the company announced Khaled Bichara's appointment as the new group chief executive officer of Orascom Telecom Holding saying “Khaled is dynamic, energetic and will be able to draw on his successful experience in the restructuring of Wind to gear the Group into a more aggressive period of growth and transform OTH into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company.”

Personal life

He was married to Marianne Bichara and has two children, Sherif Bichara and Galal Bichara. Bichara died in a car crash in Giza, Egypt, on 31 January 2020 at the age of 48.

References

External links

Khaled Bichara Official website

Khaled's profile at Orascom telecom websiteKhaled Bichara in bt's Top 40 Executives Under 40
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bichara, Khaled 1971 births 2020 deaths Free Egyptians Party politicians Egyptian chief executives Egyptian people of Coptic descent Businesspeople from Cairo Chief operating officers The American University in Cairo alumni Road incident deaths in Egypt