Abolhassan Diba


Abolhassan Diba was an Iranian politician, socialite, and businessman.

Biography

Diba was born 4 January 1894 in Tabriz, Iran, to a well-established family which can trace its line from the 8th century. His mother, Princess Malektadj Firuz, was a princess of the Qajar dynasty and his father, Fazlollah Vakil-el-Molk, was a Private Aide to the Crown Prince, Mozaffar-ed-din Mirza. At birth, he was given the Qajar title of "Saghat-ed-Dowleh". At the death of his father, the family moved to Tehran in 1902.
In 1909, he accompanied his half-brother, Mohammad Mossadegh, to Switzerland and France, where he graduated from the Ecole des Sciences Politiques of the Sorbonne, with a degree in economics and administration. On his return to Iran after graduating college, he went into public office, becoming deputy minister of finance.
He married Pouran Vakili and is the father of Farhad and Malektadj Diba, all relatives of the former Queen Farah Pahlavi of Iran.

Business ventures

After the coup d'état by Reza Khan, he left government employ, sold his land holdings and entered into private business, which was frowned upon by his aristocratic peers at that time, setting up the firm of Diba & Bayat, which later became Abolhassan Diba and Company. He was innovative and forward-thinking, always seeking to bring modernity to Iran. In this quest, the following activities are worth mentioning:
  1. He imported the first Leyland trucks into Iran, to be used for road haulage instead of mules and camel caravans.
  2. He introduced agricultural machinery to replace the use of bullocks.
  3. A civil construction department was established to undertake the development of rail construction, bridges, buildings and roads. For this purpose, the first asphalting machinery was imported with which the company built some of the first paved roads in Iran.
  4. Another section imported automobiles.
  5. He was the first to bring mechanised accounting procedures to Iran, with an Electronic Digital Computer in 1957.
  6. After World War II, the first lifts were installed in the first buildings of 4-stories and, later, a factory established which produced nearly all Iran's requirements.
  7. He started the first hotel on modern western standards. In addition, he started the first local hotel training school, staffed by foreign instructors.
  8. He introduced modern telephony, setting up the first automatic Teheran telephone exchange.

Charitable and educational works

He was the administrator of a large charity hospital, established by his mother Najmieh. With all of these endeavours, he never lost sight of the human factor, sending hundreds to be trained abroad in whatever vocation they were employed. Thus, within these activities, there were a large number of experts in such varied fields as hotel management, chefs, doctors, nurses, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, computer technicians, etc.

Iranian revolution

In later life, he was devastated by the Iranian Revolution, which saw the wrecking of all his endeavours and the seizure by the clergy of all his assets, including the Park Hotel. He had spent sixty years of his life investing his knowledge and his fortune in Iran, only to be forced into exile. The shock was such that he spent the last two years of his life in hospital and died in Lausanne, Switzerland on 16 April 1982.