From a Palestinian refugee to citizen of the world is how Sabbagh likes to describe himself. A highly influential businessman and philanthropist, Sabbagh is a man with humble beginnings. Born in 1920 in Tiberias, Palestine Sabbagh shined from his early days as a student until he graduated from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1941.
In 1952, along with his brother in-law Said Khoury, and friend Kamel Abdul-Rahman, Sabbagh set up the Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), a company that would become the largest engineering and construction company in the Middle East, specialising in building oil plants and pipelines around the Middle East and former Soviet republics.
That company is today headquartered in Athens, Greece, and is the 17th largest construction company in the world with a work force of over 69,000 employees, composed of more than 60 nationalities, in almost every country of the Middle East, as well as in many countries in Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The company’s revenue is in excess of US$2.2bn and it is ranked 1st among the top 10 contractors in the Middle East, and 7th among the top industrial/petroleum contractors in the world.
CCC has been at the forefront of the adoption of new construction technology to improve efficiency, provide more rapid execution while ensuring high quality performance. Two of the founding members are presently leading the Group, Mr. Sabbagh as honorary chairman since suffering a stroke and Khoury as President.
Sabbagh is a member of the Palestine National Council as well as a member of the Palestine Central Council, where he has played an important role over the years. He is also deputy chairman of the Health Care Organization of the West Bank and Gaza and chairman of the Palestinian Students Fund, which provide social and economic services to residents of the West Bank and Gaza.
Al-Najah University in Nablus, Bethlehem University, the Islamic University in Gaza, the Gaza National College, and Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. He has also given generously to other causes, providing financial aid to the Beirut Charities Foundation, the American University of Beirut, the Jordan Charities Foundation, the Welfare Association in Geneva, and the Vatican.
In the United States he has been generous to health care and educational institutions primarily. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have received generous grants from the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Foundation, as has Harvard University (the alma mater of his daughter Sana), Georgetown University (in particular the Centre for Muslim – Christian Understanding), the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, Eureka College in California, and Webber College in Florida (where his sons studied).
In 1995, he made a generous donation to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York to create a chair in Middle East affairs. Sabbagh is a donor to the Carter Centre, which promotes respect for human rights and fights global poverty.
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