Carlow native John O’Kelly and 30 volunteers undertook a 2,000km drive from the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam to Kampala in January to deliver a fleet of 15 emergency vehicles (donated by the Japanese government) to the Ugandan capital.
Tackling inhospitable terrain is nothing new for O’Kelly. He’s a former endurance motorbike racer who organised a similar trip to Uganda in 2020. In recent years he has embarked on three motorbike adventures, which took him from Dubai to Dublin via Iran, from Dubai to Cape Town, and from Argentina to Alaska.
O’Kelly lives in Dubai where he is chief executive of Kelly Steel Engineering. He has been in the Middle East for more than 40 years and his company specialises in providing the type of elaborate architectural steel that distinguishes many of the landmark buildings in the Gulf region.
Among others, the company is responsible for the spectacular Butterfly Pavilion on Al Noor Island and for the striking Adnec skyscraper events centre in Abu Dhabi.
When O’Kelly left Ireland in 1982, his plan was to follow friends to Sydney. He stopped off in the Middle East for three months and that was that. He never made it to Australia.
“Although the economy was quite bad in Ireland in the early 1980s – and this was certainly an incentive – the main reason I left was to explore the world and seek adventure,” says O’Kelly, who studied agriculture at Warrenstown when he left school.
There was a vast amount of development going on in Dubai at the time and I could see an opportunity in steelwork construction
O’Kelly got a job with Masstock (the dairy business started by the McGuckian brothers in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s) and started off driving a bulldozer.
“To this day I have a good relationship with the McGuckians. If you were willing to work hard, they were willing to give you the opportunity to progress within the business. As the business grew, I grew with it and moved into sales and marketing. I became area sales manager, country manager and eventually marketing manager for five Gulf countries based in Dubai,” says O’Kelly, who spent 15 years with the business before following his dream to start his own company in 1997.
“There was a vast amount of development going on in Dubai at the time and I could see an opportunity in steelwork construction,” he says. “Steelwork had always interested me. Even as a youngster on the farm I loved working with steel.
“I set up Kelly Steel Engineering to focus on architectural steel that combines aesthetics with functionality. This was doable in the Middle East as there was always money available to go the extra mile to make construction projects look good. We are now the number one company providing aesthetic architectural steel in the region.”
For almost 20 years, the company’s business was concentrated in the Middle East. But as the market matured, O’Kelly began looking farther afield and over the past decade the company has moved into Australia, Africa, Europe, North America and the Far East. Kelly Steel Engineering is building the Prada handbag store in Singapore and the parliament building in Uganda, which requires 3,000 tonnes of steelwork.
O’Kelly started his business with 11 staff, mainly from India. Within 18 months this had risen to 35.
Today, 182 people are employed at the company’s 15,000sq m design and manufacturing facility in Dubai. “What really enabled us to expand was becoming heavily involved with the metro for Dubai city. That was our big break,” he says.
Setting up the business was not without its challenges at the time as O’Kelly had a young family, no capital and no track record in running a business. The Dubai metro contract gave him the leverage and credibility required to borrow to expand.
“Banks in Dubai are encouraged to lend on the basis of how you’ve conducted your business. It’s your ability to perform rather than anything else they look at,” he says.
O’Kelly met his wife, Liamhán, in the Middle East and the couple have five sons, all of whom completed their secondary education at Clongowes and are now working and studying across the globe.
“Dubai is a great place to live. It has fantastic infrastructure, extremely low crime rates, a family friendly atmosphere and good education.
“It also offers fabulous outdoor activity opportunities. I particularly like the desert and exploring that vast expanse. Dubai has been the fastest-growing city in the world for more than 30 years and this has provided good business opportunities for entrepreneurs who are prepared to work hard.
“Dubai has a skilled, diverse workforce which fosters innovation and opportunity,” he says. “The UAE has more than 190 different nationalities in permanent residency so it’s a real melting pot. It’s critically important to learn about other cultures and understand their way of doing business. Then different approaches can be meshed together to form a strong working relationship.
“I saw how the McGuckians approached doing business in a foreign country. Basically, they adapted to local culture instead of trying to impose what they knew from home. I followed what I’d learned from them. Working with the McGuckians was a whole education in itself.”
O’Kelly points out that while it’s not possible to get citizenship in Dubai, there is no barrier to working there indefinitely if someone is employed or is a business owner.
After four decades in the sun, O’Kelly is well acclimatised to desert living. However, he admits that, “sometimes I miss the soft Irish rainfall after many months of continuous sunshine.”
