Company: Itisaluna Abr al-Iraq
Position: CEO

Biography: Loay Almalaieka is CEO of Itsaluna, a wireless internet provider. He has more than 17 years’ experience in the industry.

He spent five years in the US, working for a joint venture of the US’ AT&T and the UK’s BT as an engineer and later as a consultant. He moved to the US’ Lucent Technologies in 2000 as account manager, before becoming the company’s international business development manager.

As part of Lucent, Almalaieka became sales and business development director, focusing on Iraq, Palestine and Jordan. In this role, he negotiated 12 local and foreign partnerships worth more than $90m. In 2006, Almalaieka left to set up Barqtel Communications in Iraq, a small business of engineers specialising in installing and operating telecoms equipment.

He was appointed CEO of Itisaluna in 2009. Itsaluna’s subscriber base has more doubled in the six months to January 2010 to 256,000.

Contact: +964 7400 400 400
Company website: www.etisaluna.com/