Waleed Iskandar

Waleed Iskandar,

was a consultant

By Globe Staff, 9/21/2001

Waleed J. Iskandar of Boston and London, a consultant with the Monitor Group, was killed Sept. 11 in New York City while on American Airlines Flight 11. He was 34.

Mr. Iskandar was born in Beirut. In 1984, he came to the United States and graduated from Stanford University in 1989, earning a bachelor of science degree and a master of science degree with distinction in industrial engineering and computer science.

Mr. Iskandar moved to Boston in 1990 to begin his career as a consultant with the Monitor Group, a leading global strategy consulting firm in Cambridge. In 1993, he earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

He worked extensively in the United States, Korea, and throughout Europe. He established Monitor Group's Istanbul office and helped develop Monitor's Central/Eastern European and Middle East operations. Most recently, he was living in London and was head of Europe for Monitor's digital strategy unit.

He loved to travel and recently returned from a vacation to Greece, where he and his fiancee were planning to be married in July. He was a food and wine enthusiast who enjoyed yoga. He was fluent in French and Arabic.

Mr. Iskander leaves his parents, Joseph and Samia of Los Angeles; his fiancee, Nicolette Cavaleros of London; a brother, Sany, of Sudbury; a sister, May Marconet of Los Angeles; and six nephews and nieces.

A memorial service will be held Monday at 10 a.m. in St. Paul's Church in Harvard Square in Cambridge.
Editorial Obituary published in THE BOSTON GLOBE on September 21, 2001.

An Adventurer at Heart

He was supposed to be studying for his M.B.A. at Harvard. Where was he? Water-skiing with his brother. Was that a problem? No. Waleed J. Iskandar was so sharp that he could study less, achieve high grades and squeeze in plenty of water-skiing. Classmates remembered him wandering in late for a study group and rapidly rattling off solutions to a thorny case before dashing off to the water.

Known for his zest for life and his devotion to Pink Floyd, Mr. Iskandar enchanted people — a lot of people. His contact list on his Palm Pilot consisted of thousands of names. As one of his relatives put it, "Wherever he was, that became the best place in the world to be."

He was an inveterate adventurer. Among innumerable excursions, he had biked the 400 miles from San Francisco to Santa Monica, gone on safari in Africa, explored the rain forests of South America and stayed with monks in India.

Mr. Iskandar, 34, chief of digital strategy for Europe for the Monitor Group, lived in London, and was on Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles to visit his parents. He and his fiancée, Nicolette Cavaleros, had been visiting his brother in Boston. She was going to fly to California the day after he did. They were going to be married in July.