Born in Lebanon, Fred Mouawad is a member of the fourth generation of the Mouawad family, which owns and runs the Mouawad company.[3] He graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA in 1994.[2][4] In college, Mouawad was planning to take over his father's company, but upon his graduation, he found that his father was not interested in retiring, so he changed directions and started other businesses.[5]