2023-08-05 19:15:40
Born in Casablanca in 1981, Kamal Wardi obtained his baccalaureate in economics, before continuing his studies in contract management in France from 1997. Once graduated, he returned to Morocco in 2003. With Yabiladi, he confides not having been able to find a job that matches their skills in the country. “At that time, I met a Brazilian woman through the Internet and in 2004, I decided to join her in Brazil to marry her,” he adds.
When he arrived in the small town of Ponta Grossa – Paraná, things were difficult, but Kamal finds great support from his beautiful family. “I didn’t speak Portuguese, I communicated with them in English or French. In three three months, I finally started to master a little Portuguese. With the exception of the language, in the end I didn’t face any integration obstacles,” he recalls, while insisting that his new family had a lot to do with it.
In Brazil, Kamal worked hard to learn the language quickly. After two and a half months, he also landed his first job. “I worked in a restaurant without fully mastering Portuguese. After a while, I took care of the accounting. I was able to reduce the restaurant’s expenses by around 12%,” he says, even today.
Nine months later, Kamal decided to change his destination to the city of São Paulo. “I found work there in a restaurant, too. After a month and a half, I got the job of manager, then I was called by an IT company affiliated with the IBM group. I worked there for a year and a half. I learned a lot of things,” he recalls. In 2006 he began to take photos in the Brazilian regions. He publishes them via blogs on the Internet, accompanying them with useful information about the country.
“I received a lot of questions from many people, curious to know more about Brazil. That’s when I started thinking about tourism.”
Kamal Wardi
An all-round entrepreneur
With a Brazilian partner and a fellow citizen living in the country, Kamal launched in 2010, creating a tourist agency. In 2012, he started a professional activity in parallel with a friend, in the field of halal food, for the distribution of meat and fish in Brazil. The value of transactions has increased significantly to around $2.5 million per week.
The investor previously also worked in a video game company, as head of the marketing department. The entity’s domain grew to include apparel in particular, while Kamal became its marketing director for Latin America.
In 2013, Kamal traveled to the United States. “I was preparing for a civil aviation project, through the creation of an airline in Brazil. I wanted to learn everything about leasing leading to the acquisition of aircraft, given the presence of many specialized companies in New York,” he told us.
“This project remained unfinished for two reasons. Brazilian law requires a local citizen to own 80% of the company. We also had to provide 200 million euros of guarantee.
Kamal Wardi
A project to invest in Morocco
After this adventure from which he retains several learnings, Kamal Wardi returns to Brazil. He decides to leave the tourism agency created in 2010, to found a new entity and start working with several countries. “In 2018, I started to focus on Arab countries, including Morocco, in addition to traditional destinations whose residents travel to Brazil for tourism,” he said.
“Business went well, until the Covid-19 health crisis. During the pandemic, the situation got extremely worse. We hope that the routes operated by Royal Air Maroc (RAM) to Brazil will be restored.”
Kamal Wardi
Kamal Wardi confirmed with Yabiladi that he was considering a return to Morocco. “I am now working on expanding the project. We have opened an agency in Egypt and we are working to launch another in Morocco and Spain,” he said. According to the entrepreneur, “Morocco is an important market for Latin America, thanks to its competitive prices, the diversity of its cultures and its infrastructures, as well as the diversity of its environment”.
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