At a special seminar held in West Hall's Bathish Auditorium, Ghosn inspired a hall packed with current and former Executive MBA (EMBA) students, businessmen and faculty by sharing his experience in cross-cultural management.

Humans, by nature, he said, just like to fit in, often seeking people who are like them. "But we can hardly learn anything from people who are very much like us. So even though it's not comfortable, [embracing diversity] is the only way you can enrich yourself," he said.

Ghosn, himself, is the product of diversity, having been born to Lebanese parents in Brazil and grown up between Lebanon and France, where he is also a citizen. Later, because of a series of outstanding jobs, he also lived and worked in the United States, Japan, France and Brazil. His diverse background has helped him a lot in business, he said, noting: "When you are an outsider and you cannot be categorized into one culture, it makes people feel that you are unlikely to be biased."

Businessmen and women as well as students and faculty packed Bathish Auditorium

Najjar, who along with Provost Peter Heath, thanked Ghosn for taking time out of his busy schedule to speak with students, briefly listed some of the auto-industry magnate's seemingly endless accomplishments.

Credited with turning Nissan around and saving it from near-bankruptcy, Ghosn has been nicknamed 'Samurai' [or, 'he who serves'] in Japan, earning celebrity status there. He has also been dubbed 'Le Cost Killer' in France, for bringing growth and profits to Renault as well as Nissan, in which Renault owns 44 percent of shares. In 2003, Ghosn was also named Man of the Year by Fortune Magazine and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut.

"He is the living embodiment of how far you can go with a PhD from AUB," quipped Dean Najjar, prompting laughs from the audience.

[Ghosn received an honorary doctorate from AUB in 2003]

Acknowledging that people's first reaction to difference and diversity is usually criticism, Ghosn encouraged his audience to go beyond this initial reaction and open up their minds in order to learn from their differences, especially since the world we live in is increasingly one with fewer boundaries, where people from different cultures and countries have to work together.

"What's important is to respect the other's identity and not try to change them, but to add to your experience and enrich it," he said.

The audience, who remained engaged for all of the 90 minutes during which Ghosn spoke, responded with dozens of questions on business and cultural concepts. Even politics had its share, with one questioner asking if Ghosn could confirm rumors that he was considering running for the Lebanese presidency. "If someone wants to succeed in something, they have to really know what they are doing and what they are getting themselves into," responded Ghosn. "I am a businessman, not a politician."