Amine Britel
In his native Morocco, Amine Britel, early in life had a passion for sports. At
age nine, he was the youngest male to earn his first degree in equestrian jumping.
At age seventeen, he became a member of the Moroccan National Junior Team in the
Sprint distances.
At age fifteen, he faced a major challenge: How to reconcile his parents'
insistence that he should concentrate on his studies, on the one hand, and on the
other, how to devote all his energies to sports and become an accomplished
athlete. The solution lay in going to France where, contrary to Morocco, it was
possible to pursue both a rigorous training and serious studies. He found this
opportunity at the National Institute of Sports and Physical Education in Paris
(INSEP). The Institute offered a well structured program which enabled him to
build up discipline and a strong focus on both schooling and athletics. This
environment suited him well because (to the pleasant surprise of his parents), he
earned his Baccalaureate diploma with honors.
The second challenge was to go to the United States for undergraduate studies
without neglecting his athletic ambitions. The challenge lay in learning a new
language, passing several academic test, and above all achieving high athletic
marks on the track. In less than a year he met all these objectives and was offered
an athletic scholarship from the University of California at Berkeley where he
earned his BA degree in Economics.
After graduation, Amine joined the International Management Group, the world's
premier sports marketing and management company. In less than a year, he received
the employee annual award for outstanding acomplishments from the executive office
of the CEO, triggering the call for advanced studies. The following year, he
applied and was accepted at Harvard University Graduate School of Business
Administration. In his second year at Harvard, he was appointed President of the
Middle East & North Africa Club. While there, he organized and led a group of over
100 MBA students to Morocco during Spring Break, a trip that represented a once in
a lifetime opportunity for his classmates to discover the beauty of Morocco.
Upon obtaining his MBA from Harvard, Amine joined JP Morgan Chase & Co. as a member
of their Global Investment Group. Shortly thereafter, he made the decsion to forgo
that career and to pursue an old dream of creating his own business. He set up a
US based tour operator company (www.gateway2morocco.com) devoted exculsively to
sending US tourists to Morocco. In August, 2001, gateway2morocco.com was ranked as
the premier travel information site by Expedia Travels.
Aside from managing gateway2morocco.com, Amine is training for the 2004 Olympic
Games in Athens, Greece, where he intends to represent Morocco in the Triathlon.
Amine ranks 5th in the United States in his age group and has already qualified as
the first Moroccan triathlete to compete in the 2002 World Cup in Cancun, Mexico.
Reflecting on his journey through life, Amine had this say: "I followed my heart,
listened to my instincts and believed in my dream in the face of many hardships,
especially the pursuit of excellence in both education and sports. And in the end,
it was the passion and drive for sports, the incredible hunger to be a champion
that laid the path to a successful educational and professional career
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