TAMPA -- There was a time in Meshal Alothman’s life — light years from his job today overseeing Kuwait’s multi-billion-dollar social security system — that he focused on a far different kind of occupation.
The occupation by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops of his homeland.
Iraq’s sudden invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a tumultuous, terrifying experience, leading to the Gulf War with the United States and its allies and forever changing the course of Alothman’s life.
One moment, he was a geology student at Kuwait University; the next he and his family were thrust into an uncertain and challenging daily existence. It ultimately put the 19-year-old on a path that would lead to the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business in 1996 for a B.A. in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing and minoring in International Studies, and then back to Kuwait to rise to the heights of the nation’s financial ranks.
Looking back now — separated by three decades from the chaos that fractured Kuwait — Alothman recalls via a recent video call the upheaval that reshaped his personal and career journey.
“It changed everything,” he said from his office at Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security, where he serves as director general. “First of all, my late father had retired as an ambassador only two years before the invasion took place. So all high-ranking officials, including those who were retired, were highly sought after by the Iraqis. Even so, he said: ‘We will stay whatever happens. And we will fight with whatever means we can to defend our country and stay in our homes.’ ”
His father eventually had to go underground as armed resistance by the Kuwaitis only served to make the Iraqi forces more aggressive. What had been a comfortable life in the small, oil-producing nation on the Persian Gulf became one of constant checkpoints, searches, street violence, and struggling for essentials.
“Many non-Kuwaitis ran the local businesses, but they started to leave after the invasion,” he recalls. “Those of us who remained took over those jobs to make sure life was possible. We ran the grocery stores, gas stations, barbershops, and bakeries. Teenagers picked up trash. And all the while, we waited in endless lines to be searched. Some Kuwaitis were arrested and harassed. Some were tortured and killed, or simply disappeared for no apparent reason.”
Alothman recollects how Iraqi occupiers fired shots during morning prayers to instill fear, and in time how his family members — including his parents and five siblings — had to change their ID papers to remain safe. “It got worse toward the end, as thousands of people were taken off the streets and bussed to Iraq,” he says. “I learned never to take anything for granted, and that life was dear.”
He also learned that life was worth exploring, beyond the boundaries of Kuwait. During the seven-month occupation, Alothman decided on a change in direction if the opportunity ever presented itself. And when the U.S. and its allies liberated Kuwait in early 1991, after two months of war, he abandoned his plans to earn a geology degree and go into the oil business and set off for America.
Arrival in America
His mother was worried, but his father consented to give his blessing on two conditions. “He said, ‘Don’t go there and call me in two months that you want to return home to Kuwait University — you need to graduate from the States — and second, don’t call asking for extra money beyond your allowance’ ” Alothman recollects.
The first stop was Boston. A Kuwaiti friend of his had planned to pursue his studies in Boston University, and Alothman applied and took some preliminary English language courses. In the meantime, his pal decided he would rather attend school in the sun and sand of Florida’s west coast — at St. Petersburg Junior College. Alothman’s English was already solid as the son of a career diplomat, and he made a snap decision to leave Boston and tag along to St. Petersburg.
He felt an instant connection to the geography upon arriving. “It was much warmer weather than Boston and I absolutely loved St. Petersburg — it was like Kuwait being on a gulf, and I could swim, and fish just like at home,” he says.
Alothman received his acceptance to BU soon after arriving in Tampa Bay, but he had no desire to return north. Instead, he poured himself into his studies during the week, capping his Fridays with evening prayers at a mosque and then playing soccer with newfound friends. In two years, he graduated with honors in 1994 with a 3.5 GPA and a dream of pursuing a new career in marketing. Alothman considered other major universities in the state — Florida, Florida State, Central Florida, and Miami — but loved USF’s campus when he visited and was happy to stay close to his new home.
He transferred to USF and, when possible, began taking smaller classes that allowed him to interact with his professors. By contrast, he felt lost in larger auditorium classes, ironically struggling to get a passing grade in one of those courses: finance. “It was either a D or C-minus,” he says, smiling.
Four years later, Alothman graduated in 1996 with his business degree and a 3.3 GPA, with plenty of classes under his belt in marketing and international studies. Eager to return home and begin a marketing career, he applied for a position in the international marketing department with Kuwait Petroleum Company. But he never heard back from the company, or numerous other marketing companies. “I was so disappointed,” he says. “That was the field I dreamed of working in.”
Needing work, he applied for an investment job in 1997 with the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), an agency for the provision and administration of financial and technical assistance to developing countries which was established in 1961, the year the country received independence. And to his surprise, he was hired. “I knew very little about finance, and barely passed my own finance courses,” he says. “But I kept my textbooks from USF to help me with the basics. And with the Internet starting to grow, I had some online resources.”
His immersion into the finance world was accelerated by a stroke of fortune. His company had a training program with Wafra Investments, a firm in New York City. It would normally have taken Alothman several years to be eligible, but two employees ahead of him were unable to participate for personal reasons. So off he went to New York City, where he gained invaluable experience as an investor.
“We had a bunch of very smart Americans investing billions of dollars,” he says. “At first, the discussions in our meetings were like listening to Chinese to me. I didn’t know what junk bonds were. Why would you buy junk? But within a few months, I was speaking “Chinese” fluently – and learned about global investing.”
Returning to Kuwait
When he returned to Kuwait, Alothman soon began managing international portfolios totaling $300 million. Then came another world event that had enormous repercussions — the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the removal of Hussein. The Kuwait stock market shot up, and local investment companies began hiring away experienced talent. As a result, employees senior to Alothman left for new jobs and he rose in his company at a much faster pace, taking over the Kuwait Fund’s equity divisions and overseeing all the assets.
During his tenure at KFAED, he successfully led in restructurings and repositioning programs of several investment divisions (inhouse portfolio, equities, hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure).
The success of the transformational restructuring can be attributed to the three Ps that Alothman always refers to — people, process, and portfolio.
However, after 20 years he was ready for a change. “I felt like the movie Groundhog Day,” he says. Then, in late 2016, he was contacted out of the blue by the Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) about becoming the institution’s first chief investment officer. He was initially reluctant to make a jump but said he would accept on two conditions: that he would not have to lead on reviewing old files to determine if errors were made — something he was not trained to do — and that he could hire his own team.
His terms were accepted, and similar to the restructuring he had done at KFAED, he developed portfolio guidelines, implemented risk management protocols and built several investment teams at PIFSS. His team soon grew from 36 (early 2017) to 80 (late 2018) and was overseeing a $90 billion fund for Kuwaiti pensioners.
When two of the three managers above him retired over the next two years, Alothman was promoted to deputy director general for investment and operations, and less than two months later, in January 2019, he was offered the job of director general. Since then, the team he leads evolved the organization’s governance structure into a robust organization-wide governance and compliance framework, embarked on an ambitious digitization program, built an industry-leading investment operation with a well-performing global portfolio, changed the organizational structure, and upgraded the services the organization offers to pensioners and subscribers. Today, along with a team of 2,300 employees at PIFSS of which 104 are in the investment sector, he manages a fund worth some $150 billion.
Alothman has come a long way: from dodging occupying forces as a youth — to occupying one of the most important financial positions in his home country, with a key step in his journey unfolding a world away at the University of South Florida.