Haile Gebreselassie Set To Take Dell Technologies Forum By Storm

What, pray tell, is an Olympian going to teach you about running a business? At the Dell Technologies Forum. Where he is the Exclusive Guest Speaker. And you’re no athlete?

This is a man who has known adversity. By his own admission, Ethiopia is relentlessly gruelling for entreprenuers. Yet he is one, and a successful one.

Haile Gebrselassie is a legend in many ways.

He is a retired Ethiopian long-distance track and road running athlete. Haile has two Olympic gold medals over 10,000m, four World Championship titles, won the Berlin Marathon four times consecutively, has had three straight wins at the Dubai Marathon, won four world titles indoors, and was the 2001 World Half Marathon Champion.

He famously said “My father thought sport was something fun – he didn’t know it was a way to make money. Then I won a Mercedes at the world championships and I gave it to him. From the moment it arrived my father said ‘Good, you can support not just yourself but me too.”

He has, over the years, amassed half a dozen hotels and resorts, a real estate business, a coffee plantation and a share in a Hyundai car assembly plant.
He opened the first-ever privately-owned movie theatre, Alem Cinema Hall. In a country that did not have a film industry. Between 2005 and 2015, 600 films were produced in Ethiopia, with 57 feature films produced in 2018 alone. The kernel he planted grew into an acorn.
The fighting in the region of Tigray, hunger, political instability and the loss of two of his hotels.
Haile has as a result of his fortitude and patriotism, employed over 3,000 people.

To say this man is a visionary is like saying the sky is blue.

Or, as the man himself would say, “It is not my duty to spend my money in my country, but it is what I want to do. There is nowhere else I would like to invest.”

Join us to hear from Ethiopia’s double Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion over 10,000m. Haile will talk about what it takes to balance performance, goals and also give back to the community at the Emerging Africa Forum.

You don’t want to miss this. It’s happening today at 12 noon.