Dr. Iqbal Lambat, Star Agritech’s current c.e.o. and president of the Star Corporation group of companies, looks back at a long-spanning career. The Swiss citizen holds a number of prestigious degrees including a triple master’s degree in finance, marketing, and economics earned from Webster University Geneva. In 1989, already well on his career path, he gained a doctorate in international finance from Business School Lausanne.
Star Corporation
Star Agritech: Reaching for the Stars
Dr. Iqbal Lambat, Star Corporation’s c.e.o. and company president
After initial employments with Piaget/Baume & Mercier as well as Dow Chemical Europe, Dr. Lambat joined PMI in Lausanne as business development manager, preparing feasibility studies and economic analyses on a variety of food and tobacco related projects in Scandinavia, the Middle East, and Africa. As vice president of strategic planning and business development for RJRI in Geneva, he subsequently was responsible for leading the company’s expansion into emerging markets for both RJR tobaccos and Nabisco food products before moving to Kazakhstan to serve as RJR Nabisco Central Asia’s vice president and c.e.o. Returning to Switzerland in 1994, Dr. Lambat assumed the position of vice president and c.f.o. for emerging markets at RJRI Geneva.
In 1996, RJRI by then having become more commonly known as Japan Tobacco International, he was promoted to senior vice president of worldwide strategic management, a position he held until the year 2000. He subsequently joined Germany’s Reemtsma as executive vice president for group strategy and corporate development, reporting directly to the board of directors. In 2002, he assisted the Reemtsma board in the company’s trade sale and merger with Imperial Tobacco Group.
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By 2005, Dr. Lambat had launched his own company, Lambat & Associates, filling a role as strategy and diversification advisor providing senior-level consultancy in the FMCG sector with a strong emphasis on emerging markets. Some major projects included assisting Tchibo Holdings Germany in its sale of the Davidoff cigarette trademark rights to Imperial Tobacco, formulating and implementing for Oettinger Switzerland the market entry into India for Davidoff cigars, advising KT&G Korea on strategic entry options for Turkey and the EU, and assisting Groupe Sipromad Madagascar in fully integrated tobacco operations from tobacco agronomy thru to cigarette manufacturing for the domestic market.
In 2008, Dr. Lambat was instrumental in launching Star Tobacco International (STI) in Turkey, being appointed c.e.o. only a year later, a position he holds until present. With the recent rebranding of STI into Star Agritech International, which in addition to tobacco brought with it a product expansion into other agricultural commodities, Dr. Lambat also became president of Star Corporation. And the rest, as they say, is history.