Building Palaces for Saddam Hussein and Rides for Disney

Who would you rather work for: Saddam Hussein or Mickey Mouse? Mervyn McCall has worked for both. As co-founder of construction giant Mivan, he built palaces for Saddam before Gulf War One put an abrupt end to that; wiped out half his business overnight; and landed him with a hostage crisis situation as 90 ex-pat staff were held by the Iraqi dictator as "human shields". With that episode behind him, he turned his focus to getting work in the massive "Euro Disney" project underway near Paris. He got a foot in the door with one director and six staff. He sent them with a firm instruction to grow that work to 60 staff. Before long it was 600 and Mickey Mouse had replaced Saddam as his number one customer. Next, he turned his attention to Asia where a revolutionary construction system he ultimately acquired, enabled him to build cheap housing in rapid order as the economies in the East boomed. At one point in his early career as he flew back into Northern Ireland after a spell away in Iraq, he noticed two things: it was green and small. The green was good - nice place to live. But the small meant bad place to work. The world was his oyster now. In this episode Mervyn dives deep into his incredible global career, the highs and lows; the personal sacrifices made along the way; the learnings for anyone keen to grow in business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trading Up

Trading Up hosted by Jim Fitzpatrick and produced in association with EY, delves into the real businesses, personal stories, and remarkable journeys of entrepreneurs. Discover insights on risk, resilience, and business growth from diverse founders and leaders in businesses big and small across various industries. Tune in weekly for inspiring entrepreneurial learnings.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• No. of episodes: 48
• Latest episode: 2025-06-19
• Business News Business News

Where can you listen?