Crain's 40 Under 40: Nicole Antakli

posted on: Oct 30, 2009

Nicole Antakli, 37
President and CEO
Intraco Corp.
Troy

Biggest achievement: Building on the company’s foundation to create and drive profitability, and learning how to manage and balance that with the debt structure of the company.

Current goal: To become a billion-dollar company within five years.

Nicole Antakli stands athwart two very different worlds.

She’s president and COO of Troy-based Intraco Corp., the architectural glass and after-market auto parts exporting and distribution company her father founded in 1971. She’s also a first-generation Syrian-American proud of her heritage .

With U.S. sanctions in place against Syria since 2004, Antakli is in an unusual position.

“It’s part of my responsibility to educate people” about Syria, she said. Intraco was founded on the concept of building bridges between people and nations, peace through commerce.

Antakli started her career 10 years ago as Intraco’s manager of information systems, and rose rapidly to her current position. She’s orchestrated the company’s growth to more than 250 global clients today.

Intraco, which buys its goods directly from manufacturers and resells them overseas, acts as a sort of middleman to Middle Eastern markets for those companies, doing the sales, marketing and distribution on its own.

Intraco, which expects to reach $200 million in revenue this year, recently launched a company aimed at South American and Latin American exports, and is increasing its business in Asia.

Antakli also has shepherded the company’s product diversification in the face of global competition fueled by online access.

“The company was founded on essentially making available to other counties North American products,” she said. “The world has gone more global, and that’s forced us to look at other products.”

It’s now shipping up to 500 containers overseas monthly. It also has two General Motors Co. dealerships in Syria — selling Chevy products that have less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts to meet the U.S. sanction rules.

Bill Shea
Crain’s Detroit