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It is the generally accepted that ceremonies which mark important transitional periods in a person's life are 'rites of passage'. More often than not, they involve ritual activities and teachings, designed to take a person from one role in his or her life on to the next level. But 'rites of passage' as a phrase often gets bandied around and, more often than not, it is associated with a person who, through his or her own determination and wit, rises from a humble background to become successful. Since time began, there have been people who have risen from little to acquire much - they have had a dream to propel them on and up. To quote the American author John A. Appleton: 'I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success is to dream a great dream.' And his words are not far off the mark. People who aspire to greatness have dreams: they have vision - and they won't let obstacles step in their way in pursuit of their goals. In our contemporary world there are many people who can lay claim to have had 'rites of passage' - sportsmen for example, who have not been born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths but who have risen from humble (and loved) beginnings to achieve greatness. Basically these are the people who started with nothing and made something of their lives and careers, not necessarily through luck but through graft and determination to be the best. Let's take David Beckham as one such person from the sporting world. In the world of entertainment we have seen many people come from being a nobody, to being 'discovered' and propelled into stardom - Oprah Winfrey is a shining example. Harry Potter's author, J K Rowling came from being a single parent on the dole, living in a run-down area, while she wrote her epic chronicles. She is now a multi-millionairess. And in the realms of business, we have people like Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus who is from equally humble beginnings. He may now be mixing with the elite and calling some of the world's more influential people acquaintances and friends, but, if he hadn't had a dream and vision while he was growing up, he wouldn't today be heading an iconic brand and at the top of his chosen career. To put it in a nutshell, when Dany was born in Turkey in 1971, his parents were certainly not prosperous. His father was an electrician, his mother a hotel cleaner. They say that it was this beginning which made him hungry for wealth and status. Perhaps this is true, but, as you know, being a motoring journalist who has followed Bahar's career for some time now and got to know the way he ticks, I reckon there is more myth behind this supposition than fact. His family moved to Switzerland in the mid-'70s, when he was young - they were immigrants who wanted to better their lives and, in turn, give their children a more prosperous start in life. His father ran an electrical shop while his mother went from cleaning hotels to running a pensione in a Swiss ski village near the Italian border. His mother personified the immigrant's ambition - she made her own way up and this rubbed off on her son. On the way, Bahar's parents split. That's a difficult one for any offspring to take on board, but Dany got through the trauma, changed his surname to his mother's maiden one and studied hard. OK, so here we see humble beginnings - and rites of passage, as they say, happen at a transitional stage in one's life. This is most certainly what happened to the young Dany for he went on to show dynamism from an early age. As a student and a talented linguist, he found work in the nearby Hotel Conrad's sports and fashion shop before moving on to study marketing at St Gallen. While following a commercial apprenticeship in a sports shop, he became involved with an inline skating marathon in nearby St Moritz. He spotted an opportunity for sponsorship and persuaded Benetton to back the event to the tune of 600,000 Swiss francs. It was a win-win situation - Benetton saw the vision, Dany did the deal. The marathon was a huge success. He went on to study finance and, when his studies were complete, moved to Rome where he continued to rise in the field of sports marketing, before switching over to finance. He then set off for Dubai where he worked in IT investments. He was spotted by Fritz Kaiser, who ran a wealth management firm and persuaded to move to Lichtenstein to work in his organisation. This took him into the peripherals of Formula 1. As an asset manager with Kaiser, he met Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian-born co-founder of Red Bull. Dany cites Mateschitz as being one of the main influencers of his career. He was lured across to Red Bull and became Mateschitz's right-hand man, operating out of Switzerland and turning the energy drink into an iconic international brand. One of his first moves there was to negotiate a deal for Red Bull Racing to use Ferrari engines. This paved his way to the next step of his career - he moved over to Ferrari in 2007. Rites of passage... The rest is history, in 2009, he was invited to join Lotus and two years on, he's in the midst of re-branding and re-launching one of Britain's best-loved and most admired automobile brands. That is a brief 'potted history' of a man who has experienced the rites of passage - he's dreamt but lived the dream through hard work and gut feelings to be where he is today. He said to me some time back: "I started at the bottom and worked my way up, over 20 years. You experience and learn a lot that way." And learn he certainly has, He's taken every transitional move in his career as a propeller to the next level - and he's still only 40. I wonder what the rites of passage holds for him next...?
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Dany Bahar, Rites of Passage, Career, CEO, Group Lotus, Motorsport,
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