Exceptional

Profile: ACWA Power
Mohammad Abunayyan may have
joined the family business, but
he had to start at the bottom.
“Our business
model is simple:
we want to be
around forever.”
“When I look back, my father really did me a huge
favor,” he says. “I only kept going initially because
I had no formal higher education, but it turned out
to be a great learning curve.”
Those formative years clearly left an impression
and imbued in Abunayyan a lifelong appreciation of
the value of people and their individual contribution to
an organization. This echoes his father’s approach to
business, which eschewed the social convention of family
seniority and propagated a corporate culture based on
ability, as Mohammad — who is also Chairman of the
family company, Abunayyan Holding — explains.
“My father didn’t believe that age automatically
equates to seniority, and that is something I have applied
throughout the group since I became Chairman in 2003,”
he says. “Age is not a deciding factor, and neither is there
any privilege that comes with being a family member;
if anything, it’s a liability.”
With 13 siblings active in various roles within
Abunayyan Holding, managing the family dynamic has
brought unique challenges and, at the same time, been
a source of inspiration.
“While we try to disengage between relationships at
home and at the office, we have also worked hard to build
a corporate culture that has a strong family foundation,”
Abunayyan says. This has been the secret to ACWA
Power’s success — and an invaluable support mechanism
during his chairmanship, especially during tough times.
For almost a decade following the Gulf War, the Saudi
Government was under severe financial restrictions.
As a result, the company had receivables dating back
three years, in addition to the problems caused by an
abandoned pipeline project. In 1995, Mohammad realized
that Abunayyan Holding needed to be less dependent
on government capital expenditure funding and had
to find a way to execute projects without upfront
financial constraints.
In the early days, Abunayyan recalls that there was
a complete lack of interest from various government
entities, but a breakthrough came in 2002 with the
establishment of the Saudi Supreme Economic Council by
Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, along with
a resolution allowing the private sector to work with the
Government to invest in desalination and power generation.
“After setting up ACWA Power in 2004, one of the first
trips we made was to talk to GDF Suez, but they, and
other large companies, weren’t interested in speaking
to us,” Abunayyan recalls. “At that time, the perception
was that the developer-led build-and-operate business
model belonged solely to the big players, and nobody
took us seriously.”
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