Mamdooh M. Al Radadi

Mamdooh was born in Portland Oregon USA in 1966, therefore gained most of his early studies abroad between the US and the UK. Then based upon his father’s completion of his PHD returned back home to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Facing the usual conflict in atmosphere and culture he managed to move along with his friends at Manarat Jeddah and Al-Thagher schools. He graduated in 1987 from high school then Joined King Abdulaziz University at the faculty of Engineering/ Industrial.

Not completing his college after 3 years he moved on to start his own business which did not do well due to many constraints such as financial and the erupt of the Gulf war in 1991. His close friend Basem Quota introduced him to banking at Saudi Cairo Bank for the simple reason of Mamdooh’s knowledge and command of the English language!

From then the rest was history. He stayed 3 years and moved slowly but gradually at the Treasury department where he was sent on several training courses local and international. He worked on the Saudi Desk where he handled the day to day calls from country wide branches calling for rates on currency and time deposits. Then he moved on to the international desk to handle derivative markets for a year. Management decided to have him handle large multi national companies with hundreds of millions of Saudi riyals.

He was working with the sales manager for the treasury department where he managed to close a SAR1BILLION deal for a listed Saudi Company public offering beating all competing banks. This was the turning point when he found no management support or even a simple thank you letter, his resignation was evident.

SAMBA came knocking on his door in 1994 also from a close friend who was asked to find someone to replace him at his post. Mamdooh joined SAMBA as a management associate, removing his manager title from his previous employer to work for the best bank in the country at that time!

His post was located at the head office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as the sales officer or in other words the Assistant branch manager. From then he faced the day to challenges of any new banker at retail; People, management, extreme pressure, policy & procedures, quick digestion of new products rolled out, different customer base…etc. Having completed his 3 month probation period at the bank it was smooth sailing from then on.

With managements supervision and understanding of his treasury background he was given more slices to chew on, gradually and steadily he was promoted almost every year, and gained financial incentives alongside a good management support.

In a survey conducted by the western region to consumers of the bank, Mamdooh was one of the reasons customers chose to bank with SAMBA.

Soon he was promoted to manager in Private banking which was another turning point in his career. Here you deal with a few customers with large wallets and act as their financial advisor. He was an active participant in the merger of SAMBA with SAUDI UNITED BANK and converged many customers.

After 3 years at Private banking he was called upon to manage one of the new branches from the merger and transfer it to another location, in the same year he was handed over Tahlia branch which was a High profile branch, thus handling two branches at one time.

After two years he was promoted to Assistant General Manager and posted as the Priority Banking head in the western region. He was handed the elite bankers and richest customer base in the retail sector, hence another stepping stone.

In the year 2005 he received many offers from local and international banks to go back to his previous post as a private banker but with senior titles, more money as they say and more demands, including such top notch names as Merrill Lynch private banking and ABN AMRO private banking.

His move was a costly one, as he had just been promoted he chose to move on for a real challenge, or so it appeared. Saudi Hollandi Bank requested him to join as their new Van Gogh Proffered banking head in the western region, supposedly a private banking head post.

To his dismay things that are rosy on the outside are not always that way inside. He puts it as a chemistry problem, the fast paced, policy rich, system quality of SAMBA was no match for the later bank. Armed with his knowledge and straight talk in front of management and staff alike, he came across them as a direct threat to the way they conduct business, slow, bent corners, centralized and full of bureaucracy.

Although ABN AMRO and the major stake holder in ABN Lubna Al-Olayan were what made Mamdooh make this move. He does not regret the experience and the people he knew at SAUDI HOLLANDI and calls it a good lesson.

His wall of fame for bankers that he came across in the banking arena and gives them hi praise are as follows not necessarily in order: His Excellency Shaukat Aziz, Eisa Al-Eisa Samba’s Managing director, Bruno Daher head of Merrill lynch private banking, Abdulhadi Shayif the former NCB GM, and all the good bankers he came across during his 14 years of banking (they know themselves!).