Dear AmCham members, partners, and friends,
I spent the first three days of this week in Brussels attending an annual conference hosted by AmCham EU, the AmCham accredited to work with and represent the pan European AmChams and our member companies with the European Commission and European parliament. I came back yesterday afternoon to join with the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce and the other private Chambers of Conference for a conference at Circle Cité moderated by Andrew Notter, the Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce and keynoted by our Luxembourg Minister for Home Affairs Léon Gloden with the theme of keeping Luxembourg an attractive business location.
While both events followed the broad objective of promoting economic and social prosperity, the Brussels event was pan European and Transatlantic in its focus, while the Cercle Cité event was almost totally local in its focus. I will need a bit of time to fully reconcile and get my head around the similarities and differences in messages, challenges, and priorities between these two events before sharing my feedback analysis with you at a later date. But, as a first take away, I am struck by the degree with which so many of us in Luxembourg are fortunate to live in a privileged bubble. I truly hope those in power to make decisions have the wisdom and strength to preserve this privileged bubble and fully dedicate AmCham.lu to partnering and fighting to keep Luxembourg’s privileged bubble safe and strong for your benefit and the broader benefit of all the people and companies resident in this special and so wonderful small country in the heart of Europe.
I am very pleased this week to offer you an interview with one of our newest AmCham members who came from outside our privileged bubble and has been working with all of his considerable skill, strength and passion to grow an innovative space sector company with self-developed technology and a lot of hard work. Omar Qaise and his team at OQ Technology have an interesting and exciting story to tell. They have my respect and appreciation for who they are, what they have done and where they are going. Please read and enjoy this interview!
Our quote this week is “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can”. This quote very well describes Omar and his company. It also describes the most fundamental of my “lessons learned” from our International Women’s Day event two weeks ago to “ Never give up!”. Success takes hard work and perseverance. It does not come easily. It takes personal will, a great deal of personal will. So, if you want to be successful, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! THINK YOU CAN! ….work smart and hard and NEVER GIVE UP!
My respect and very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AmCham.lu