What do the worlds of automotive, entertainment, venture capital, and private equity have in common? Well, if you’re Oweis Zahran each is firmly in your sights as targets ripe for disruption.
In Zahran’s words, doing so is easy, all a business has to do is “establish a one-year goal that most people would complete in 10 years.” While this seems ambitious, to Zahran even a partial completion is a success, as his firm will remain “lightyears ahead of everyone else.”
However, building a team to match such extraordinarily ambitious vision is no easy feat. Indeed, Zahran identified the importance of talent early in his battle for success.
“Like I always say, a strong team makes you stronger, a weak team makes you weaker. If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, you go together,” he says.
Zahran’s companies, which all fall under the OWS umbrella, OWS Auto and OWS Capital to name two, have been built out of the entrepreneur’s early desire for success “at speed.”
“I had this ambitious goal when I was about 21 years old, that by the time I was 24 I wanted to be a multimillionaire,” he says.
Did he succeed? Well, perhaps some of his recent successes will speak for themselves:
“We’re featured among some of the largest companies in the world, spoken of in the same breath as some of the largest businesses. These companies have been around for two centuries or more and are often competing against us for the same projects and, more often than not, we end up winning over those companies. That doesn’t happen by coincidence, if it happens once, it’s a coincidence, but to do it 13 times over in a relatively short amount of time is quite impressive.”
Before the glitz, glamour, and success however, Zahran began his journey with OWS Auto, a business he describes as one “you wouldn’t look at twice, it’s not attractive, it’s not IT, or real estate, or fashion, it’s very automotive – the clue’s in the name.”
OWS Auto continues to focus on industrial manufacturing, remanufacturing, and reverse engineering as “a very large company that employs thousands of people, supports hundreds of families and operates in the very specific niche automotive logistics transportation world.”
After building the company, Zahran noticed opportunities that he terms as “low hanging fruit in the entertainment world, in the venture capital world, in the private equity world.”
“Personally, I had several ambitions and passions that I’d have liked to develop but I couldn’t because I was this automotive guy,” he explains.
As such, OWS Capital was set up to allow Zahran to “venture into everything else.” The company now operates health clubs in the UAE, invests in SMEs, has taken an interest in F&B, and made significant strides into the world of entertainment.
All of this is possible because of the relationships that Zahran has built over the years, what he refers to as a “network and access to market at the highest level.”
Entering Hollywood
For Zahran, the business world and Hollywood are intrinsically tied: “I have a good friend of mine who tells me everybody rich wants to be famous, and everybody famous wants to be rich. You get all these rich guys that have famous people around them with the hopes of becoming famous one day, and all these famous people meeting with rich people.”
Understanding this dynamic has powered Zahran’s pivot towards entertainment. As he explains, there was a veritable eureka moment when he realised his business “was missing out on the famous part, and failing to relate to the Hollywood and celebrity world.”
“What we then started doing was partnering with Hollywood entertainers and public figures in the entertainment world to attract more attention towards our core business. Now, our business appears a lot cooler, has a lot more attention, and is a lot more fun to be around.”
Combining these two facets results in a “lot of money to be made,” with “quite a bit of success in a very short period of time.”
Zahran’s only regret in his new enterprise is that “we didn’t get into it earlier.”
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Leaving a legacy
While at just 32 years old Zahran has a long career ahead of him in business, entertainment, and finance, frequently throughout our interview the conversation turned to that of legacy: “Right now it’s about leaving a real legacy.”
Do so, however, is more complicated than it seems, and has required Zahran to rethink how his business operates.
“I need a model that is not dependent on me as a person, but a system that is dependent on a way of life or a best practice that is applied throughout the DNA of the company.”
When asked what this legacy looks like, Zahran replied: “It’s something that people can look at and be proud of. Simply put, maybe cliché, but that’s the goal … as you grow up, you begin to realise that money is really not everything. It’s what you do to leave something for whoever’s coming next.”
Is this likely to happen soon? According to our intrepid entrepreneur, the more success, the harder it is to walk away – especially when a large proportion of your business is built on relationships with governments.
“In a lot of places, it’s the president who’s our partner, and if not the president, then the Ministry of Finance, or the sovereign wealth fund. So it’s difficult to slow down and reduce the amount of decisions that come back to me, reduce the high pressure of responsibility and leadership. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”
Speaking of locations, Zahran revealed that he had travelled to over 70 countries around the world, but that out of all of them, the UAE is his favourite. The country “played a major part in the grooming of who I am as a person, my brand, and the way we do things and think.”
In praising the country’s leadership, Zahran also expressed his admiration for what he calls the UAE’s philosophy of urgency: “We’ve applied it to our business and is the only way that we’ve been able to achieve exponential growth in a relatively short period of time. It’s been fascinating to watch the UAE’s successes, and it’s that success that OWS, whether its OWS Capital or Automotive, wants to be associated with.”
As a leader, Zahran believes in a culture of “getting the work done,” noting that while he endeavours to “come across as a fun work colleague,” leaders need to be careful not to overmix the two.
“Am I a fun boss? I don’t think so. I don’t think you will look at me and say, I have the best time of life when I’m working with Oweis, because you probably won’t and honestly, I don’t really want us to have the best times of our lives when we’re together. Work is the priority around me,” he explains.
Zahran has previously gone on the record as wishing to retire early, and take up other interests and pursuits. Indeed, in 2019 he publicly stated a goal of retiring by 29. Since then, he’s seemingly failed to slowdown in his quest for success, but is this likely to change in the short term?
“I don’t know if I ever want to retire. It gets better as you grow older I think, and that also becomes more fun.”
We’ll check back in another five years to see if Zahran has managed to leave success behind.