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Palestine's Coca-Cola franchisee Zahi Khouri.

Zahi Khouri believes in the power of business and brand names to build peace. "When the first McDonald's opened in Russia, it made more headlines than people going to the moon," he said. In 1995, this Palestinian-American businessman left a comfortable life spent between Manhattan and Orlando to make his own headlines in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Palestine.

Khouri launched, with Palestinian partners and the Coca-Cola Company, the Palestinian National Beverage Company which holds the Coca-Cola franchise in the West Bank and Gaza, in 1995. Over part of the last decade, business has boomed. Today, Coca-Cola employs hundreds of Palestinians and sells 10 million cases of Coke a year.

But for Khouri, this wasn't just about building a business. It was about building a thriving Palestinian economy that could serve as the foundation of an independent state.

"For me, it wasn't about money. Coke could put Palestine on the map," he said. "I knew people would think that if Coke is investing in Palestine, there must be something here, and there would be followers."

With Khouri at the helm, the Palestinian National Beverage Company has been a leader in corporate social responsibility. The company built children's libraries in hospitals in key Palestinians cities like Ramallah, Gaza and Nablus. It sponsors the Palestinian National Football Federation, art exhibits and school programs.

Khouri was born in 1938 in Jaffa, the largest city in Palestine. When he was ten years old, his family was driven out along with roughly 70,000 other Palestinian residents of Jaffa. They fled to Lebanon, where Khouri stayed until moving to Germany to pursue a Master's degree in Engineering from the Stuttgart Institute of Technology. In 1967, Khouri received his MBA from the European Institute of Business Administration, INSEAD, at Fontainebleu, France.

Khouri moved to Richmond, VA in 1967 and built a career with multinational corporations in New York City, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

After the Oslo Peace Accords were signed in 1993, Khouri joined forces with other Palestinian entrepreneurs abroad to establish businesses in the West Bank and Gaza. They formed the Palestinian Development and Investment Company (PADICO), the largest Palestinian investment company in the Occupied Territories. Khouri also serves as Chairman of the Palestine International Business Forum (PIBF), and chairs the largest Palestinian NGO, the NGO Development Center in association with the World Bank.

Khouri maintains his commitment to building businesses and a nation, because he says, "the best engine driving peace, stability, and growth is a healthy business environment."

Op-Eds by Zahi Khouri:

Four decades of occupation, San Diego Union-Tribune

A simple road to Middle East peace, San Diego Union-Tribune

Things go better with rights, The Wall Street Journal