Careers with a migration background: How racist is the German economy?

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As a teenager he fled Afghanistan.

Photo: PR

A life in Germany?

That was actually not Lilith Al-Jadiri's (48) plan.

The Iraqi with a master's degree in applied physics dreamed of the USA, and he mastered the language perfectly after a year at an English boarding school.

But while fleeing from Saddam Hussein's war-torn desert state, he ran aground in Munich in 1996 and waited for his parents, who also made their way from Baghdad as refugees.

There he was now, in a tiny room in the Olympic Center, surrounded by fellow fates who had already passed their judgment on Germany.

"The mood was bad: they don't want us here."

Al-Jadiri stayed, however, and found an assembly job at BMW, a place at the Technical University, where he completed a project for T-Systems.

After graduating, he started working there as a project manager.

Today Al-Jadiri heads IT and Operations at GfK and lives with family in Berlin.

He says of his ascent: "If you leave your comfort zone, a lot is possible."

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