In some ways, former Careem MD Junaid Iqbal’s life has come full circle: after working at news channels, including two years at CNBC Pakistan, he spent almost two decades in the corporate world before founding Caravan Media in Dubai.
The company’s first product is called Pakistan & Counting, which is currently making videos hosted by Iqbal that deal with issues such as Pakistan’s untapped economic potential when it comes to mangoes, olive oil and cheese.
“In 2004, 2005, when I was in the media, there were three full-time business channels. Today, when the economy needs the conversation, there’s none. So we said, let’s create a voice,” he told Asma Mustafa on Aaj News show In the Arena, which aired Thursday evening.
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“Our first product deals with Pakistan and we’re soon launching something focused on Saudi Arabia. It’s going to be called ‘How to Saudi’. So there’s going to be some geographically-focused products, and then there are functionally-focused content products.”
After his time at Careem and before Caravan Media, Iqbal founded Salt Ventures, which is also based in Dubai.
“I invest in startups. Everything from fintech to construction tech, transport tech, retail automation tech, women’s health and ‘life admin’ tech.”
So why has he chosen Dubai as his base?
“The GCC has an opportunity challenge. It has too much opportunity, and the world doesn’t understand it yet. We created Caravan Media as a knowledge-focused media business, grounded in tech, business, and economy. And it looks at the entire MENA region as this new emerging force in the world.”
“GCC is moving at an amazing speed. It is becoming the centre of the world. The centre of talent, the centre of capital, and actually the centre of innovation. Emirates Airline was the first example of this, but now (more) examples have started to pop up.”
“So when we look at the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP), this is going to become one of the most interesting and exciting regions in the world. And the role Dubai and Riyadh are playing is they have enabled talent and capital from around the world to collaborate seamlessly.
At Caravan, we want to be one small enabling layer of this region’s rise.”
From being a host to jumping ‘in the arena’
To understand how Iqbal has such a deep understanding of Pakistan’s economy which enables him to make the kind of content he is currently working on, one need only look at the trajectory of his career.
During his time at CNBC, where he hosted ‘Power Lunch’, Iqbal thought of heading to the US for his MBA, but his friend pointed out that he was actually already getting paid to do one.
“What do they teach in an MBA? they said to me. Networking and case studies. And what are you doing at CNBC? Every time a CEO comes to your show, you analyze all their financials, you’re actually going head to head with them and they’re respecting you for it, that you come so prepared.”
“Why on earth would you go spend two years of your life and pay a few hundred thousand dollars?”
And it was exactly this experience that lead to Iqbal starting his first venture, BMA Financial Services Limited, a subsidiary of leading Pakistani financial services firm BMA Capital.
“I would meet CEOs everyday. I was so interested in how they run their companies. But I thought to myself, they’re the ones who are in the arena and I am a commentator.”
When the show would end, Iqbal would sit with executives, have tea with them, ask them a lot of questions, and tell them he wanted to start his own venture. And they all encouraged him to do so.
Eventually, he wrote a business plan and reached out to these same people and they all agreed to fund him. Spoilt for choice, he ended up going with BMA in 2010.
“It was a beautiful experience. BMA was a full service financial services firm. It did investment banking, retail brokerage, institutional brokerage and asset management business. And then the financial product distribution business was set up, which I joined as CEO.”
Part of Iqbal’s rich experience also comes from the fact that BMA had branches everywhere in Pakistan, including Haripur, Abbottabad and Multan.
In 2011, Iqbal moved to Elixir Securities where, as per his LinkedIn profile, he restarted Elixir’s Corporate Finance division and completed privatization transactions worth over USD 1.5 billion, including the government of Pakistan’s sale of its 40 percent stake in HBL Bank worth USD 1.02 billion, “making it the largest equity capital markets transaction in Asian Frontier Markets history.”
These experiences, plus getting to meet executives from top firms as well as all of the big Pakistani business families, coupled with the “high-level mapping” of the economy that he achieved from his time in the media, is how Iqbal ended up where he is today.
On his life mantra, Iqbal said: “Sometimes you will get breaks in life and everything you touch will fly, and sometimes that will not happen. But if your inner voice says do something, then go for it.”
When asked if he has any regrets, Iqbal simply said: “I dare not complain.”
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