Walter Klienschmit

I arrived with my wife and youngest daughter in Doha in 1984. I had 20 years of Canadian department store and independent retail store owner experience. This includes a period of active experience as a tenant in the brand-new Toronto Eaton Centre and other centres in the region. I knew very little about Doha, other than there were some military skirmishes between Qatar and Bahrain. That frightened family in Canada.

Doha, followed by Muscat and Riyadh was home, and my base of work for over 35 years. I therefore had to learn, adapt, and adopt local knowledge quickly, as the business environment changed at exponential speed. Learning and adapting to the changing retail real estate landscape around me shaped me to become who I am. For that opportunity I was, and am, and will always be thankful.

Thankful for the result and the memories, and mostly thankful for the hospitality, trust, and challenges I was given by the Issa Abu Issa family in Doha, Sheikh Zaher Al Harthy family in Muscat and HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in Riyadh, with whom I worked in succession for the first 20 years. During the subsequent 15 years I provided consulting services throughout the GCC, the Levant, Egypt, and beyond.

My tools were a customer-centric vision applied to what needed to be done, and the merchandising skills homed in the department store industry which provided me with insight on merchandise planning within a store which also applied to a shopping centre – both spaces created to meet customer needs, and dreams, and both needing to change to meet forever changing and more demanding expectations.

I also loved to chat, and share what I knew, and this led to my participation as a founder of the MECSC (now MECS R) and be part of ICSC International faculty delivering educational material to information hungry new members of our exciting industry. It was an added bonus to witness many “students” assuming increasing responsibilities and successful careers.

As I look back and try to describe the result of this incredible journey I think fondly of employers, clients, colleagues, acquaintances, and employees / trainees who I think I impacted positively and definitely gave me so much knowledge, joy, satisfaction and a sense of being.