bCbusinEss.Ca OCtObER 2018 BCBusiness 39
e n T r e P r e n e u r o F T H e Y e A r 2 0 1 8 / C L E A N T E C H
When Zak El-Ramly was
passed over for promotion,
he started his own company.
In 1995, he was executive
vice-president of Powerex
Corp., the BC Hydro and
Power Authority subsidiary
that markets the utility's
surplus electricity. Someone
else was appointed president
of Powerex, and "I realized
that my market value is higher
than my corporate value, so
I decided to leave," El-Ramly
explains. He founded ZE
PowerGroup to advise utilities
on how to operate in a com-
petitive environment follow-
ing the deregulation of U.S.
enerˆy markets.
El-Ramly came to Canada
on a student visa in 1969. Born
in Port Said in northeastern
Eˆypt and raised in Cairo, he
was teaching engineering at
Cairo's Ain Shams University
when the Six-Day War broke
out in 1967. Following a year
in Kuwait working as an
instrumentation engineer at
an oil re'nery, he moved to
Ottawa, where he completed
a master's degree in combus-
tion engineering and a PhD in
aeronautical engineering at
Carleton University. He stayed
on as a "ight safety researcher
until 1977, when he landed
an engineering job with BC
Hydro's enerˆy conservation
division in Vancouver.
Several years later, by then
manager of the utility's enerˆy
conservation group, El-Ramly
attended a
NATO conference
on enerˆy management in
Portugal. "I realized how much
we knew compared to the rest
of the world," he says, "and
eureka, I came up with the
idea of having a massive pro-
gram that covers the various
aspects of conservation in one
program," now called Power
Smart. In 1990 he moved
to Powerex.
In 2001, El-Ramly created
ZE Market Analyzer
(ZEMA),
which develops software
that helps clients like Chev-
ron Corp., Gazprom and
Royal Dutch Shell use their
resources more eŸciently. ZE
Power Engineering, launched
in 2005, designs electrical sub-
stations, mainly in B.C.
The Richmond-based,
family-owned ZE group of com-
panies has about 250 employ-
ees in Canada, including
El-Ramly's 've children, plus
another 20 in the U.S., the U.K.
and Singapore. "We actually
graduate a lot of people from
our operation, because we are
willing to train and take new-
comers and new graduates,"
El-Ramly says. "Of course when
you do that, you don't have
fences, and the wild horses
roam around. As a result, we
feed the whole neighbourhood
with horses." —F.S.
W I N N E R
Zak El-Ramly
p R E S I D E N T a N D
C E O , Z E p O W E R -
G R O u p + Z E p O W E R
E N G I N E E R I N G
What did your
summer jobs teach
you about business?
Thinking you are great or
know it all is one's own
major shortcoming and
impediment to success
