Tarek Bukai: Visioning to Provide Universal Access to Business Intelligence

The founder and CEO of Idea Consult, Tarek Bukai, is a transformative leader who is driven by a desire to revolutionise excellence and a love of challenges. With his experience in business growth at Magna Invest and his knowledge of investment management and financial analysis, Tarek is well-equipped to help Idea Consult ‘s customers make smarter business decisions. He is an accomplished vice president with a track record of employment in the hospitality sector. He possesses expertise in entrepreneurship, equity research, business strategy, and negotiation. strong professional with a Harvard University master’s degree in banking, corporate, finance, and securities law.

Idea Consult

Idea Consult is a hub for business and economic information. It is an online consultancy that integrates best practices in market research, data mining, and processing technology. With a few keystrokes, it provides investors, entrepreneurs, and consultants with all the data they want in any sector, zip code, or area in the United States. The platform is designed to provide quicker, simpler, and more economical access to the business analytics required to validate a business idea from the onset. As Tarek states, “We created an algorithm that compiles all the market and industry data that a company requires to make better business decisions.”

At Idea Consult, we are passionate problem-solvers. And we’re not troubleshooting these problems out of a hat.” Each member of the team is an industry authority, has substantial knowledge from years of experience, and has a vision for making business information universally accessible.

The Vision Behind Founding Idea Consult

When he started Idea Consult, Tarek wanted to collect all of the business information in the world and make it accessible to everyone. And in some ways, the group has succeeded in doing that. The team is now concentrating on business news from the United States.

Idea Consult serves as a clearinghouse for all publicly available business intelligence in the US. Numerous business owners, consultants, and companies of various sizes have benefited from this. Tarek is content with Idea Consult’s current contributions to the industry, but he acknowledges that there is still work to be done because he is targeting global business information.

Growth of Idea Consult during Pandemic

“We, like many other businesses, were affected by the pandemic. Not knowing what to expect, a lack of awareness, and the fear related to the life-threatening virus have all held the company in limbo at the outset,” says Tarek. He further adds that, fortunately, Idea Consult was able to adjust, improvise, and find ways to make the best of what it had six months later. It was one of the most difficult challenges the firm had to face yet. But the team was able to synchronize all the teams together from different places with different time zones. He asserts, “The whole world has changed, and startup or not, we must change with it.”

Being the Chief of an Organization

Tarek is a morning person. He begins his day with morning exercise and meditation. Then, he monitors the development of his ongoing activity or project and tries to foresee any issues so that he can deal with them before they become bigger ones. He shares, “I make it a point to touch base with my COO and co-founder, Nadia Lahham, to get updates and to get a sense of the overall operations and team.”

Tarek’s primary duty as the company’s founder and CEO is to maintain focus at all times. He doesn’t micromanage things and has a great team. He firmly believes in assigning duties to qualified individuals and allowing them total authority over their teams. They have earned their positions, and Tarek is confident that they are more than capable of fulfilling their duties. He wishes for his employees to share his enthusiasm for business.He opines, “I am the CEO, but they are all my partners, so we collaborate and create together.”

Lessons Learned During Professional Journey

“Your mindset plays a huge role in whatever you do in life, and this is easier said than done,” says Tarek. He further adds that everyone has off days, everyone experiences insecurities. He does, but he also has to try to maintain a strong mental attitude. He shares, “Starting your own company means getting a lot of NOs for answers. So, you must keep looking for the YES. But, more importantly, you must keep searching for the right YES. When you know your value, you don’t concede, and this can occasionally lead to passing up possibilities that are appealing right now but not in the long run, or vice versa.” He also believes that one also must know what the challenge is in front of him or her so they can make better decisions.

Tarek mentions that there will also be countless obstacles and difficulties, and many people, sometimes including family and friends, will try to discourage you. That’s just how life goes, and one must accept the punches and keep going on. He opines, “Focus on the ball one step at a time, and let the outside noise be just that clutter, a hindrance, a nuisance that must be ignored.”

Moments to Proud

Idea Consult, in Tarek’s opinion, has given him many reasons to be proud. The organization takes pride in every client that is happy with its services. For him, each time the group comes up with a solution or starts to come up with ideas for new projects, those are times to be proud of. For Tarek, a successful day at work with his colleagues is even better than a stress-free day. “But perhaps the biggest yet is founding Idea Consult —that was a NO that I turned into a big YES,” says Tarek. He remembers that while he was establishing the business, many business leaders admired his idea but had doubts about his ability to execute it. He and the crew succeeded through pure willpower and tenacity. And no matter what happens in the future, Tarek will always be proud of that accomplishment.

‘Success is Not an Easy Path to Walk’

There’s a quote that Tarek really likes that says, “Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes, it’s built on catastrophe.” He finds leading a company to success is hard. There’s no sugarcoating it and it’s an ongoing process that doesn’t stop with a milestone. He asserts, “You need to keep going and growing. Thinking about Idea Consult is not the hard part since the vision I have is clear.” Tarek saw better possibilities to influence the course of business and project development, but translating that vision into reality required unequivocal belief, hard work, commitment, and perseverance. Tarek opines, “My dream for the company is bigger than myself. So, I was willing to do what it took to achieve that dream and not give up on it, and that included failing, even a hundred times or more, and learning from those failures.”

For Tarek, the definition of success is subjective. Some people could consider starting a business or being the CEO to be successful. It is, though not exclusively. It goes beyond just having a high social status, financial security, or a master’s degree. He says, “Setting a goal and achieving it is what defines success.” He adds, “It is having the right mindset to go after what you want in life and using that outlook to achieve your goals.” 

Living to Motivate and Empower

Tarek finds no separation between his personal and professional lives since they are intertwined. He doesn’t consider these areas of his life on a scale but as parallel roads leading to a common goal. And that is his life’s mission. He shares, “It may seem cliché, but I firmly believe I was born to make a difference and contribute to making the world a better place. And I see my work as an extension of that mission.”

Tarek instills the same form of motivation in both himself and his staff: get up, explore the possibilities, and seize the opportunity to change the world. As he analyses the simple yet difficult questions, what can he do today to improve someone’s life? What can he do to improve the world? He continues by saying that although these seem like idealistic topics, even the simplest solutions, like making a coworker smile, can have a significant impact.

Innovation is the Future

“Creativity and innovation are two practices that cannot be taken lightly,” says Tarek. He believes that when you create, you think of new ideas, and when you innovate, you act on those ideas, and that your company requires both to continue to evolve. He asserts, “To thrive in what we do, we strive to continually enhance, update, and upgrade our system by bringing new resources, AI, technologies, and services. The competition is always fierce, and it always will be. To stay ahead, you must create and innovate to provide better services and produce better outcomes. Like Thomas Edison said, “There’s a way to do it better—find it.”

According to Tarek, the Idea Consult team has always sought to offer business information not just in the US but all across the world. Idea Consult’s next major area of focus is on that. However, it also innovates and tinkers continually to enhance its platform and services.

Aspiring leaders should concentrate on creating a firm that adds value and makes the world a better place, says Tarek. He says, “Give people something of worth—a valuable product, a trustworthy company, or a worthwhile service, and you’ll quickly find that they’ll repay you with loyalty.”