PEOPLE Josef Miskulnig
Fast Lane’s engineer entrepreneur
Into the wind Josef Miskulnig worked with IBM and its partners for almost twenty years before deciding to set up Fast Lane for technical training services. By temperament a hardware and systems specialist, Miskulnig has built Fast lane around Cisco’s networking technologies. Although he graduated with Electrical and Electronics engineering from Austria, the first year of Fast Lane in 1996-97 was the toughest challenge of his life. “I had a good reputation with IBM and the customers, however nobody knew Fast Lane. I had to prove personally prove its value.” Today as its CEO and President, Miskulnig can look back at the rich experience he has gained from growing Fast Lane from a one man organisation to an international company. The best part of his current role is when he looks across his international offices, with employees from different cultures and different working environments, all focussed on maintaining the quality standards of Fast Lane. At the UAE office, there are more than ten nationalities working together and Miskulnig rates this as one of his strengths. “I am a big fan of understanding different cultures and environments.”
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Reseller Middle East
january 2012
Working in the fast paced IT industry and staying ahead of the pack is his biggest challenge. Surviving in this industry and the region however is a differentiator and Miskulnig has seen many competitors come and go. Having completed years of training during his extended work span with IBM, Miskulnig has learnt rest of the tricks of managing business and people on the go and also learnt from goof ups. He sets high standards for himself and whatever he does himself he does well. He believes in leaving space for other talented people to fill up. Miskulnig unwinds by spending quality time with his family including three daughters and grand children and relatives and friends over dinner or at the beach. He is fascinated by car, motorbike and boat engines and the faster they are the better. He also rates himself as an early adopter for gadgets and devices and his current favourites include an IBM Thinkpad, dual SIM mobile phone and iPod for music in the car. He is a casual user of social media and his favourite daydream: no emails and no mobile phone calls. Greed and ruthlessness are strong turnoffs. //