The Entrepreneurs

Who we’d hire

1.
Tariq Khayyat Design Partners
To build a home

The UAE has no shortage of empty land but it has filled its skyline with high-rise buildings to house its growing population. British-Jordanian architect Tariq Khayyat says that he wants to do things differently and create human-scale communities that are “a bit more horizontal” in their design.

Khayyat came to Dubai in 2016 to set up Zaha Hadid’s Middle East office at a time when the late British-Iraqi architect was taking on projects across the region. In 2019 he began Tariq Khayyat Design Partners (TKDP) with business partner Xiaosheng Li (pictured, on left, with Khayyat). Their latest project, The Fold in Jumeirah, Dubai, is a group of 28 villas that evoke rows of silk-white tulips. Louvred balconies offer space and privacy, while every home has a rooftop garden with views of the Gulf.

The Fold’s defining feature, however, is a leafy plaza that zigzags between the homes and is designed to be shared by the residents. “We wanted to mimic the courtyards that you find in old Arab houses in Damascus or Beirut, where households gather,” says Khayyat. “This central spine is a place for people to hang out, have barbecues and get to know their neighbours.”

A communal space of this kind wouldn’t be particularly remarkable anywhere else but villas in the UAE tend to have high walls surrounding them and gates that open directly onto the main road. Privacy might be important but such an arrangement also gives neighbourhoods a cloistered feeling. According to Khayyat, tastes are changing; clients, he says, are seeking a more urban way of living and the market is less smitten with the ostentation of previous periods in the city’s history. People are now prioritising quality and depth in architecture and that is bringing plenty of work to the firm’s door. “Ten years ago, Dubai was like a hotel lobby, in the sense that you would often hear people saying that they were just going to stay for a while and then move on,” says Khayyat. “The situation has changed and people have become more brave about investing in a long-term future here.” This shift is reflected in the newer residential architecture: it’s as though the city is at last lowering its shoulders and becoming more relaxed with itself.

The firm recently completed a mixed-use project called The H Residence, also in Jumeirah, which turned an old strip mall into cafés, shops and flats. At the centre of the property are spacious, shaded gardens; like The Fold, it’s a building that was designed with the community in mind. “What’s next for the UAE is a lot more residential offerings that encourage connection and being sociable,” says Khayyat. “We’re living in an advanced digital age, especially here in the UAE, and our role as architects is to create spaces for human interaction.”

TKDP is casting its net across the region and now has projects planned in Saudi Arabia. “They’re looking for uniqueness over there,” says Khayyat. “The word ‘iconic’ is so overused but I do think that we create profound architecture.”
tkdp.one

2.
Agata Kurzela
To build an HQ

Agata Kurzela (pictured above) has carved out a niche by creating original, ambitious office spaces that never stray into cliché. With so many businesses pitching up in the UAE, there’s plenty of work for practices that are prepared to design offices which are both distinctive and pleasant to work in. The crucial thing is to cut through all of the “bread-and-butter corporate” designs, Kurzela tells Monocle. “It’s a land of opportunity right now but you have to be able to bring something fresh to the market,” she says.

Her most recent project is for the UAE government: she was commissioned to create workspaces inside a 1990s-built officers’ club in Abu Dhabi. “The existing space was reminiscent of jfk International Airport’s twa Terminal and already inspiring,” says Kurzela, who is from Gdansk and worked for Roar Design Studio under Pallavi Dean before setting up her own practice four years ago. “It was a matter of redefining that canopy and trying to bring logic back to the space.”

While the bones of the building were in excellent condition, modifications had been made over the years, including during the site’s spell as a storage space. Subdivisions and structures had been added that obscured the simplicity of the original design. “It was a process of stripping and peeling away,” says Kurzela.

To return attention to the dome, she brought in sparse lighting by Davide Groppi and introduced warm, inviting materials to keep this dune-like interior from feeling too austere. “We made sure that there was good lighting, excellent acoustics and a floor that logically works,” says Kurzela, adding that it was important that this space could function both as an office and as somewhere to exhibit grand plans.

Though Kurzela worked with designers such as Latifa Saeed on the furniture, she also created many of the boardroom tables, desks and chairs herself, including an extraordinary travertine table that adds a tactility and texture to the space that complements the smooth curves of the roof.

Breathing fresh life into old buildings has become a hallmark of Kurzela’s studio. Currently under construction is a residence in Abu Dhabi’s coastal Al Nouf neighbourhood, overlooking a mangrove-filled beachfront. She has transformed an old chalet and added pavilions with living areas that embrace the sea. Her furniture work – including a carpet based on the proto-AI “Game of Life” algorithm designed by mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 – will be exhibited this year as part of Dubai Design Week. Despite acknowledging the importance of technology, Kurzela worked with Afghan craftswomen, via an organisation based in Dubai’s Design District, to complete the pieces.

Identifying reliable collaborators is essential for success in the UAE, says Kurzela. “Relationships are priceless here.” Asked what advice she would give to those who want to set up a practice in the country, she says, “It can be difficult to parachute in but find the people who you want to work with and go from there.”
kurzela.com

3.
Anarchitect
To build a hotel

Architecture in the UAE can often seem extravagant but hotels with colossal façades, marble interiors and far-too-shiny finishes don’t have a monopoly. Anarchitect was started by British-born Jonathan Ashmore in 2013 and has since been turning heads with its tasteful, smaller-scale take on hospitality. “We are the anthesis of all of that,” says Militza Ashmore, the firm’s executive director and Jonathan’s partner. While bigger practices stretch budgets by rushing in to add floors and baubles, Anarchitect is eager to put forward a slower, far more understated take on hospitality.

Jonathan moved to Dubai in 2009, planning to stay for only a year in order to pay off his student loan. Militza joined him nine months later and neither has looked back. Soon, they started garnering lofty residential projects.

“One of my first commissions was a 750 sq m triplex on top of the Index Tower by Norman Foster, overlooking Burj Khalifa,” Jonathan tells Monocle from Anarchitect’s studio on the 29th floor of the Marina Plaza Tower. “I felt that there was an opportunity here: there was a disconnect between architects and interiors, and what we wanted to do was overlap the two.”

The design-savvy residents of Dubai who followed design fairs such as Design Days and Downtown Design helped to influence tastes and the market of people who appreciated a subtler, more pared-back approach steadily grew. Anarchitect’s ability to deliver this has helped to make it a go-to for hospitality projects.

Today the studio has big ambitions but the team remains relatively small at 13 people. “There is an efficiency that gets lost in larger practices,” says Militza. “Here, you cannot hide.” Part of the firm’s success stems from its fluency in adapting to international design languages. With bureaux in Dubai, London and Belgrade, its staff members are well travelled and forced to reckon with different design sensibilities and cultures on most projects. The result is a practice that is as confident with Balkan brutalism as it is with British tradition or Emirati ambition. “In Dubai, clients from the Middle East or Africa feel comfortable that we know where they are coming from,” says Jonathan.

Following the success of Al Faya – a transformation of a 1960s grocery shop and clinic with a petrol pump into a desert retreat and spa beneath Sharjah’s Mount Alvaah – Anarchitect reimagined another heritage property in the northern emirate. Comprising of two 1950s family houses, The Serai Wing hotel was once the home of pearl merchant Khalid Bin Ibrahim. This inner-city sanctuary opened in July and is designed to be flexible: acting as either individual rooms or an entire, rentable palace.

Giving buildings a new life requires plenty of thought. “Simply rebuilding isn’t enough,” says Jonathan. “It needs to have a clearly defined usage, whether that’s a spa, winery or wellness retreat.”
anarchitect.com

4.
H1A Architects
For a private hospital

“We’re designing the buildings that nobody wants to go to,” says Stas Louca, (pictured on the left above), one half of Dubai-based H+A Architects, a firm that is rethinking how hospitals and healthcare should look and feel. “We’re interested in how principles associated with hospitality can reduce the anxiety of going to these places.” After working at regional outposts for major international firms, Louca and H+A’s design director, David Lessard, set up their own practice in 2017. It recently moved into a new office in Dubai’s Al Quoz district and has been attracting clients in Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the Seychelles.

A remodelled hospital in Dubai and a new oncology centre in Sharjah embody their ideas about making medical facilities feel less clinical. “It’s about natural materials, intimate spaces and good acoustics,” says Lessard, who is from the US. “If you squint, they almost have a spa feel.”

More than 647,000 medical tourists came to the UAE seeking treatment last year and this $270m (€253m) industry is only expected to grow. Hospitals are competing to give patients not only the best treatment but also the most comfortable stay. “Hotels have been talking for a long time about the experience but healthcare hasn’t taken a ‘guest-first’ approach,” says Lessard.

According to the architects, the biggest opportunities might lie in spaces that blur the lines between health and hospitality. H+A has been appointed to work on a 60-key hotel in Cairo with a detox and weight-loss clinic attached. “The biggest trends will be around mental health,” says Louca. “Many new clinics are serving patients who want to take a break and focus on themselves.”
h-a.global

5.
Nada Debs
For the furniture

“We’re aiming to be the Hermès of the Middle East,” says Lebanese designer and studio founder Nada Debs, whose firm is renowned for dovetailing high-quality craft with considered cultural references and detailing. It’s this knack that landed her commissions to renovate the Arab League Hall and the UAE’s Mission to the United Nations, both of which combine traditional methods with a modern finish. Following the 2020 port explosion in Beirut, Debs decided to look east for a safe setup and opened a studio in Dubai. When Monocle visits her villa in Al Safa, by the Dubai Water Canal, she tells us about her mission to make craft and heritage the crux of home-making in the UAE and beyond. “My home has become a showroom,” says Debs, who admits that many still need convincing to favour the well made over the well known.

At her tranquil home, light floods in through large windows and skylights. Rugs meet marble and wood pairs with textiles; there’s an unapologetic abundance of material. The forms of her furniture have an almost Scandinavian-style simplicity, meticulously balanced against Debs’ tendency to deploy striking patterns and colour from Middle Eastern design. Every piece holds clues to its handcrafted back-story: a telling scrape of a chisel or a carefully sewn bead. “Just as food tastes best when it’s cooked slowly by someone you love, craft captures the energy of a person,” says Debs. It’s the time and consideration spent on every object, as well as its balance of form and features, that give a home a true sense of serenity.
nadadebs.com

What is the big idea?

Baharash Bagherian doesn’t want you to think of urb as a traditional design firm. “It was essentially started to help accelerate the world’s transition towards sustainable developments,” says the CEO from a meeting room in the Dubai Design District, where his company is headquartered. “We knew that we couldn’t do that by just operating as architects.” A start-up that has been in business for only two years, urb views itself as more of a hybrid. Among the services that it offers are planning, development management, landscape design, architecture and consultancy. As if that wasn’t enough, it also recently launched an incubator for young companies seeking to scale in green technology.

Wearing a blue suit with a T-shirt underneath and flashing impressively white teeth when he speaks, Bagherian is a telegenic and eloquent ambassador for the idea of making the uae (and the world) a greener place. And he means business, even if the task that he has chosen is a colossal one. Bagherian says that if change is to come, we cannot simply “look at what exists in the market”. Developing and using new technologies to fix problems is crucial. Nor does he think that it’s all merely a question of attracting deep-pocketed venture capitalists. “Money is part of it but so is trying to create change within policymaking and finding the right partners,” he says. “And that really requires the public sector to be involved in the initiative.”

Since its formation, urb has designed a series of ambitious masterplans aimed at bringing about a “paradigm shift”. These draw on Bagherian’s previous experience as design director at Dubai’s Diamond Developers, the firm behind eco-friendly neighbourhood The Sustainable City Dubai and its other iterations. (Before that, he ran his own firm in London for 10 years.) urb’s renderings offer a glimpse of how the uae could be one day if Bagherian gets his way in terms of “bringing the urban agenda to the core of Dubai”. Take, for example, The Loop, a plan for a 93km, plant-filled, enclosed cycle and walking path that could encircle the city. It would use recycled water for irrigation and feature a running track with kinetic paving that generates energy.

Bagherian knows that these projects need to be financially viable if he is to get them off the ground, so everything from retail to wellness businesses are also part of his plans. The same goes for another futuristic concept, known as Agri Hub. Also an enclosed microclimate, its aim is to grow food and connect people with farmers in a nation that imports much of what it eats. “It wouldn’t just be a place for food security,” he says. “It would be a tourism destination too.” urb envisions it becoming the world’s largest agritourism attraction, creating 10,000 jobs.

It would be easy to dismiss these projects as wishful thinking or utopian daydreams, given the leap that would be needed to make them happen. But Bagherian, putting on his developer hat for a moment, is adamant that the projects will be built and that Dubai will be unrecognisable by 2040 as a result of advances in urbanism and mobility. Like so many people who Monocle speaks to in the uae, he points to the rapid progress that the nation has already made and its receptiveness to innovation. “If you have strong leadership that has the urban agenda as part of its mandate, you’ll see change,” he says. “And that is what is really missing in places such as Europe.”

For all the uae’s environmental overtures – from hosting the Cop28 climate-change conference in November to its development of sustainable cities such as Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City – there is still an awfully long way to go. For one thing, Dubai feels like a sprawling series of cities within cities, linked by US-style spaghetti junctions where the car is king. How do you create smart urbanism in a place that requires so much work? “There’s no point connecting the big picture if communities don’t allow for walkability or cycling,” says Bagherian. In other words: start small and work your way outwards.

It’s safe to say that there’s a lot occupying Bagherian’s mind. For one, there’s the need to think of sustainability in terms of social equity, where a city is constructed for everyone. Plus, he says, we have to shift away from thinking about net zero and ensure that the cities of tomorrow are climate positive. And then there’s his lobbying of the government to give urbanism a more central position in the education curriculum.

His heavy to-do list would be enough to daunt less zealous entrepreneurs. But not Bagherian. “We’ve started something that a lot of people want to be part of,” he says. “And that’s the exciting part.”
urb.ae

Movers and shakers

Faisal Toukan
Co-founder
Ziina

Four years ago, a chance meeting in San Francisco was the catalyst for Faisal Toukan, his sister Sarah and Andrew Gold (pictured, on right, with Sarah and Faisal) to co-found fintech start-up Ziina – a simple but much-needed app to easily send payments between users. Thanks to a shared interest in cryptocurrencies, Faisal hit it off with former Apple and Coinbase engineer Gold. Sarah entered the fold from London with a pedigree in fintech product development. With Gold in the engine room and chief executive Faisal – a natural storyteller – steering, the timing and regulatory environment were right as the trickle of venture investments became a torrent in the region.

Ziina has since evolved from an app that lets friends split the bill at a restaurant into a tool that enables small and medium businesses to receive payments. A two-year process of fine-tuning resulted in what Sarah describes as a “one-stop shop” for managing money, whether you want to “save up for your kids’ education” or “work hard, retire at 45 and travel the world”.
ziina.com

Hala Al Gergawi
Founder
Tea Before Noon

Hala Al Gergawi has cracked the code of the Emirati consumer. From serving as the editor of Zahrat Al Khaleej, a high-end Abu Dhabi-based womens’ magazine, Al Gergawi left her day job to set up a consultancy, Tea Before Noon, which helps foreign luxury brands engage with buyers across the GCC. “It’s about localising a brand’s story to make it relevant to its target clientele,” says the Emirati entrepreneur, who has worked with storied brands such as Burberry and Dior to create convivial encounters (and value).

Al Gergawi has turned her deep insight into a string of businesses with a bright future. In 2021, she founded Elevenish, an online shop that sells abayas by Gulf designers, as well as local fragrances and accessories. That has grown into a bricks-and-mortar boutique in Dubai’s Jumeirah neighbourhood and Al Gergawi is considering openings in Abu Dhabi or Qatar.

The crux of her business is, simply, knowing her market. “This is my secret recipe,” she says.
teabeforenoon.com

Audrey Nakad
Founder
Ostaz

In trying to solve a problem that she experienced at first hand while working as a private tutor in Lebanon seven years ago, Audrey Nakad has enabled 60,000 students in dozens of countries to connect with the best teacher for them. She co-founded online platform Ostaz, which streamlines the process of finding a tutor, whether in person or virtual, and is embracing AI as it scales up.

“Parents are coming to us because they’re fed up with spending a lot of money on education and not seeing results,” she tells Monocle. “Ostaz is their insurance company when it comes to educating their kids.” Hundreds of job opportunities have also been created to meet demand for teachers from parents and students in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and beyond. “We have two types of teachers,” says Nakad. “Either brilliant university students and fresh grads or existing teachers looking for a second income.”

The evolution of technology, including generative AI such as ChatGPT, is helping affordable education become more accessible to all. “Honestly, it’s the best thing that happened to us,” she says. Thanks to rigorous testing, Ostaz can onboard the same number of teachers in a few hours that it might have taken years to do without it. It can also use data to help match teachers with students.
ostaz.com

Jonathan Hasson
Founder
UBQT

“We’re in the business of selling catch-ups,” says Jonathan Hasson, founder of the platform UBQT, which he describes as being “anti-social media”. The premise is simple: keep abreast of where friends and contacts are in the world, find out if they are about to jet into the same city as you and then actually meet up with them. “We’re about less screen time and more life time,” says Hasson.

UBQT was inspired by Hasson’s own peripatetic journey building businesses around the world, often finding out – sometimes too late – that he had passed an old friend in the departure lounge, unaware that they had both been in the same place until it was too late. The entrepreneur previously ran a textile business in Shanghai before developing a concierge service to show travellers the city’s hidden architectural history. After a stint investing in start-ups in Brussels, he moved his family to Dubai and assembled a crack team of international coders to help bring his idea to life.

The project is largely self-funded but Hasson is in talks with investors ahead of a full roll-out in November. He also plans to integrate a concierge-style function in future, which will use AI to spot gigs and other places where itinerant friends can connect. “We’ll consider ourselves successful if you spend little time on the app,” he says.
joinubqt.com

Peter Ahn
Founder
Selectshop Frame

When Peter Ahn opened Selectshop Frame, it brought a youth-culture-focused retail experience to Dubai’s D3 Design District that still feels novel. In a city more familiar with shopping malls than concept stores, Ahn’s mix of books, clothing and more felt a little ahead of its time. But pioneering a concept wasn’t Ahn’s main focus. “It was part of a deep-seated desire to bring something close to my heart into existence,” he tells Monocle. “And give Dubai a taste of something refreshingly different.”

That same desire led Korea-born Ahn, a former Samsung employee, to open Teible in 2022. The restaurant in the Jameel Arts Centre cultivates relationships with local farmers, producers and suppliers, aiming to source 80 to 90 per cent of its ingredients locally. Along with executive chef Carlos Frunze, Ahn took a road trip across the country to meet farmers. “We showed them the respect their produce would receive at Teible, and how it would play a role in telling the story of the uae’s agricultural heritage,” he says.

Frunze’s dishes won a Michelin Bib Gourmand just three months after opening, and a Michelin Green Star last year.Coming next is a cultural space aimed at nurturing the creativity of youth. “The foundation of my entrepreneurial journey is my family, and my vision extends to fostering a UAE that has a diverse and vibrant cultural scene,” Ahn says. “I want a nourishing environment for my children to grow up in.”
selectshopframe.com

Kathy Johnston
Chief chocolate officer
Mirzam

As head of Emirati-owned bean-to-bar chocolate company Mirzam, Kathy Johnston’s days are filled with dreams of cocoa, spices and the next great recipe. Along with the stories of ancient Arab spice routes that are at the root of the company’s story, New Zealand-born Johnston approaches her products with a very clear entrepreneurial vision. “We’re all about quality, authenticity and obsession,” she says. “Fifty per cent of my role is leading our commercial teams and our factory, and the other 50 per cent is creative development.” Mirzam approaches each new chocolate collection as a fashion house might, considering seasonality, storyline, suitable ingredients and packaging. A new range of gift items is currently under development, highlighting the brand’s “made in the UAE” values.

In late 2022, Johnston’s role expanded to cover the sourdough bakery Birch, which shares Mirzam’s biodiversity principles and ingredient-sourcing approach. “All of our flour comes from Wildfarmed, a wonderful farming community in the UK, who are always evolving and improving as they learn more about soil regeneration, planting cereals and legumes together and allowing pest and weed populations to short themselves out,” she says. “Birch has a wonderful spirit.”
mirzam.com

New frontier

“This is the best environment in which to start your business,” says Mohammed Islam, founder of robotics start-up FFbots, who says that initial costs in the UAE might be high but efficiencies, such as the speed with which he can get products from overseas, mean that recuperating overheads is quick. It’s fair to say that the Egyptian businessman, who has only been working on his company since 2021, still operates a micro enterprise. All the welding and painting happens in Dubai’s Al Quoz neighbourhood, before the assembly takes place at the small plant in Jebel Ali where Monocle meets Islam today. He is the maker of a yellow robot vehicle on continuous track wheels, armed with a red canon that can spray water at high pressure. It’s designed to assist humans in dangerous tasks such as firefighting and, to date, six have been made, with another four to follow.

Islam started his robotics company in his apartment, where he built a miniature prototype. Despite having a product that was yet to be market tested, he tried his luck with Dubai’s civil defence, showing up unannounced and empty-handed at a local office. “I knocked on the door and said, ‘I want to make firefighting robots,’” he says. He was asked to leave a number and told someone would call him back. Rather surprisingly, a high-ranking officer did so within an hour; a meeting led to a collaboration and now FFbots’ machines might soon assist human firefighters in the UAE. In recent weeks Islam has been teaching the force how to use his contraptions. “If they hadn’t encouraged me, maybe I would have given up from the beginning,” he says.

FFbots might be a small player but it doesn’t aspire to be mass-market; it sees itself as an advanced manufacturer, producing a bespoke product for each client. With plans to move to a consolidated facility, Islam says that pre-Series A funding (funding to grow operations, develop his product and prepare for Series A funding) is coming shortly. Crucially, FFbots has an important technology element in the form of AI, which Islam says he plans to release next year. Once activated, the robots will be able to locate fires on their own and then autonomously select the agent (foam or water) and other variables, such as hose pressure and flow.

In a tax-free industrial park not far from the UAE’s eastern border with Oman, you’ll find the centre of the nation’s ambitious bid to become a major global aerospace player. Established in 2009, Strata is an advanced manufacturing hub specialising in aerospace components with billion-dollar contracts from the likes of Boeing and Airbus. Like FFbots, Strata focuses on bespoke production. The aerospace company has an R&D innovation centre partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa University that focuses on everything from VR to robotics, while inside the hub, workers in grey jackets, many of them women, are inspecting plane parts. In many ways it is the biggest surprise in the “made in the UAE” story. And it could be playing an ever-greater role in the nation’s future.

It’s no secret that the UAE wants to industrialise as it starts to wean itself off fossil fuels and diversify its economy. In recent years it has rolled out so many different plans, from the National Agenda 2021 to Vision 2030, that it’s hard to keep up. It also wants in on the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution in which technology will help to overhaul manufacturing, and industries such as aerospace and pharma will rise to the fore. The UAE is pushing for its industrial sector to be worth AED300bn (€77bn) by 2031, almost triple its value today.

Strata might be delivering tens of thousands of component parts – from rudders to tail fins – but look a little closer at the UAE business ecosystem and you’ll find scores of small and medium-sized companies that are tapping into the Emirates’ entrepreneurial spirit and taking advantage of its increasingly attractive setting from which to launch a start-up. These are the cogs in a sector that often gets overlooked in favour of energy or tourism.

Over on the ground floor of Emirates Towers in Dubai’s downtown, Josefine Lissner and Lin Kayser, co-founders of Leap 71, are sipping coffee at a café near the Dubai Future Labs space where they work. The pair, who are originally from Germany and met in Munich, have called the UAE home for the past year. “We had to decide where to set up our company,” says Kayser, who is dressed in an untucked blue shirt, slacks and sandals. “Singapore has become so bureaucratic and slow. The UAE is cosmopolitan and a breath of fresh air.”

Lissner and Kayser’s start-up isn’t a manufacturer but its focus is on software and intellectual property aimed at revolutionising the design and manufacturing process. Lissner, an aerospace engineer, and Kayser, a software engineer, have come up with an algorithm that automates the laborious manual work of an engineer, which normally involves months of human-drawn iterations to get to a final version of a product. Lissner calls Leap 71’s breakthrough “a tremendous departure” from what currently exists, with the power to generate a design in anywhere from five to 15 minutes. In theory, it can be applied to anything engineered.

The company is now applying its technology to help make rocket engines. In September, Leap 71 announced a partnership with The Exploration Company (based between Munich and Bordeaux) to help design propulsion systems to be 3D printed and eventually used in rockets; there are plans to test the engines next year.

For now, when it needs to test its software, Leap 71 does much of its 3D printing overseas as the infrastructure isn’t there yet in the UAE. But Kayser predicts that will soon change, given the pace at which everything else seems to move, as the UAE continues to focus its industrialisation efforts on highly-skilled, high-tech work.

“An agile group of engineers in a dynamic environment, unencumbered by legacy technology, can outperform much larger countries when it uses AI and automation,” says Kayser as we gaze over some of the start-up’s sample printed engine parts, which look like contemporary art sculptures. He insists that the aim isn’t to replace humans but actually make their lives easier. “By investing in modern manufacturing infrastructure, especially 3D printing, the UAE can set itself apart,” he says. Soon a “made in the UAE” rocket engine might be joining those firefighting bots and plane parts.

Made in the Emirates

Aluminium, architectural glass and artificial islands are among the products now proudly manufactured in the UAE.

1.
Weaving and embroidery

These ancient practices are woven into the nation’s Bedouin backstory. Today the non-profit Al Ghadeer uae Crafts works with 250 craftswomen across all seven emirates to create clothing, homewares and accessories using traditional weaving and embroidery techniques including sadu, talli and khoos.
alghadeeruaecrafts.ae

2.
Masks

Face coverings are here to stay – partly because the average plastic mask takes 450 years to biodegrade. That said, you can breathe easy knowing about the canny Navamask project by the smart souls at Khalifa University. Made from a bio-based compostable polymer, this new mask keeps out bacteria, sand and all manner of nasties.
ku.ac.ae/navamask

3.
Artificial islands

A lack of waterfront space? Real-estate developer Nakheel simply built more. Some 7 million tonnes of rock and sand were used to build Palm Jumeirah, the first of two artificial islands in the shape of palm trees – chosen to maximise the beaches. Today Palm Jumeirah is home to luxury hotels and 80,000 people.
nakheel.com

4.
Aeroplane parts

You might be able to spot the empennage of a great Gulf carrier but did you know that Strata has made some 60,000 aeroplane components since the Al Ain-based business took off in 2010? With clients including Airbus, Boeing, Pilatus, Leonardo and Saab, the sky’s the limit. What’s more, the uae’s hope of becoming an aerospace hub seems a little closer.
strata.ae

5.
Camel-milk chocolate

Since 2008, Dubai-based Al Nassma has made just the treat to get you over the hump: the world’s first – and, according to founders Martin Van Almsick and Hanan Ahmed, finest – camel-milk chocolate. The bars are stocked across the country (including in the brand’s Deira flagship), as well as in Australia.
al-nasma.com

6.
Pasta

The Emirates Macaroni Factory in Dubai’s Al Quoz neighbourhood has been busy making and exporting dried durum-wheat pasta since 1979. Today it produces about 200 tonnes every day, which it sells in 38 countries across five continents.
emiratesmacaroni.com

7.
Aluminium

Few associate the uae with heavy industry but it’s quietly become a global player in aluminium production thanks to government-backed firms such as Emirates Global Aluminium, which employs about 7,000 people. Today Emirates Global Aluminium accounts for 4 per cent of global production – something to reflect on.
ega.ae

8.
Tote bags

Sustainability comes in many guises and, for Peahead.eco, that means swooping in to stop those old Etihad seat covers and lifejackets from hitting the scrapheap. These laser-engraved totes are handmade in Dubai and come in different styles courtesy of artist Christine Iris Wilson. Reusing products and adding value through design has bags of potential.
peahead.eco

9.
Architectural glass

Emirates Glass saw a window of opportunity during a construction boom. The firm started in 1997 and has developed innovative materials for its EmiCool series to protect against the desert heat. Emirates Glass has also created lighter and easier-to-transport varieties, as well as a bullet-proof glass.
emiratesglass.com

10.
Coffee cups

Design agency Tinkah set up The Foundry to give its designers the space to experiment with sustainable new materials. It came up with Ramel: a mouldable substance made from the nation’s abundant desert sand. These handsome coffee cups, inspired by Bedouin life, were launched during Dubai Design Week.
+971 4 385 2211

11.
Yachts

Umm Al Quwain-based shipbuilder Gulf Craft has made waves in the yachting world since 1982. It runs two shipyards in the uae and one in the Maldives where it makes high-performance vessels beloved by boat enthusiasts from the Gulf to the Med. While never going overboard, the Nomad range is the most luxurious.
gulfcraftinc.com

12.
Bikes

Khalifa University worked in tandem with aerospace manufacturer Strata to give old plane parts a new lease of life. The result? The Ku-Strata: a custom-made, carbon-fibre bicycle with a titanium saddle. While the project was academic rather than commercial (only six were made), we can see a space in the market for a well-made cruiser.
ku.ac.ae

13.
Burrata

Italfood moved its production from Naples to the Gulf to help its export businesses. The factory in Ras Al Khaimah works with milk farms in the uae to produce burrata, mozzarella and ricotta, as well as regional treats such as labneh. The nearby port handling millions of tonnes of freight each year is a bonus when it comes to distribution too.
italfoodshop.com

14.
Toilets

Ras Al Khaimah-based RAK Ceramics is one of the few uae firms that many around the world will know intimately: each year it makes 5.7 million pieces of sanitaryware (think toilets, sinks and bathroom fittings). Founded in 1989, the company is flush with ideas, employing 12,000 people and selling its wares in more than 150 countries.
rakceramics.com

15.
Ice cream

Founded in 2017 by Emirati Ahmad Al Marri, Canvas Gelato has become a Dubai favourite despite not having a permanent parlour. It has excelled thanks to doorstep delivery, partnerships with homegrown restaurants and imaginative, often-changing flavours such as karak tea and biscuits or orange blossom.
+97 1 52 999 3565

Clean sweep

Does your headquarters feature an “abstract immersive experience” in the form of a teeming rainforest where you can tout your green credentials to visitors and get clients in the mood to do business? Perhaps it should. There’s something charming, if a little eccentric, about the recently opened HQ of Beeah, a waste-management and green-energy behemoth, based in the desert suburbs of Sharjah. Built between 2014 and 2022, the building is one of the last designed by the late Zaha Hadid. From the sloped, tent-like ceiling of the managerial majlis (sitting room) to the furniture designed by Hadid, there is an admirable, almost obsessive fealty to the architect’s original vision. Behind the scenes, it’s bolstered by artificial intelligence (AI) and smart systems that ensure that operations are kept green and clean. Impressive? Certainly. But does it work as a day-to-day office?

Growth strategy

Beeah is not your typical waste-management company. The public-private firm was founded in 2007 and initially served only the emirate of Sharjah, collecting domestic and commercial garbage and running education programmes to encourage people to recycle. Its efforts paid off. Today the city diverts 90 per cent of its waste from landfill, which goes instead to waste-to-energy plants, reclamation yards and wider repurposing procedures – all processes owned and operated by Beeah. The Gulf Cooperation Council nations are among the world’s largest generators of waste per capita but Beeah is turning that around – and reporting a tidy profit along the way. Its blue rubbish trucks and wheelie bins can now be found all over the uae, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt’s newly built administrative capitals. In the past few years, it has expanded into a group of companies spanning healthcare, property and investments in digital technology.

Base of operations

In 2013, Beeah set about creating a home that could match its global ambitions. “At a certain point, we had to make a statement as an organisation,” says group CEO Khaled Al Huraimel, who built the business from the ground up. Despite the grandeur of his office (and his custom Hadid-designed desk), Al Huraimel is a modest, rather self-effacing Emirati who had long harboured the idea of building something that could embody what he calls the “city of the future”. “But if we had talked about this when we started 15 years ago, people would have said, ‘What are you doing? You’re garbage men.’”

The building resembles an abstract sand dune or perhaps a conch shell sunk into a manicured patch of copper-coloured desert. The roof is made from glass-reinforced concrete, while waste water irrigates the cactus gardens. An on-site solar farm powers parts of the building, which is kept cool by sophisticated AI that also monitors energy use. Curved concrete structures shield the glass windows of the offices from hot winds and exposure to the sun.

As Beeah grew, Al Huraimel sought to create a building that could communicate the business’s core values to a team of 13,000 people spread across the region. “When our employees walk in here, I want them to feel inspired about a more positive future,” he says. At the core of this is Beeah’s increasing use of AI: the company’s trucks and public bins, for instance, are now fitted with sensors that relay data to HQ and monitor collection trucks in real-time. Meanwhile, back at the base, the boardrooms have been set up to “listen” to meetings when they begin, automatically drafting and sharing minutes at the end. That might sound strange but Al Huraimel concedes that Beeah is yet to fully implement all of these AI features.

Though fastidious in terms of materials, the HQ’s design is emblematic of the principles that informed Hadid’s best-known works: organic in form yet eerily futuristic and fiercely resistant to uniformity. It apparently took a dizzying number of fabricated panels to form the building’s curved, arterial corridors. “We tried as much as we could to take the design intent all the way to the end, which is so often lost in construction,” says Nada Taryam, Beeah’s chief real-estate officer and an architect by training. The HQ took eight years to build and Taryam kept things on track even when the project’s UK contractor, Carillion, went bankrupt in 2018, halfway through construction. “I always wanted to work for Zaha so I feel like I manifested this building [into existence],” she says.

Inside intelligence

Entering Beeah HQ is a little like stepping into an planetarium: you are greeted by a celestial ambient soundscape that sets an elevated, futuristic tone. On the morning of Monocle’s visit, however, the virtual concierge – a large screen equipped with a camera that can apparently recognise visitors, direct them to meetings and even order them coffee – isn’t particularly co-operative. Instead, we are greeted by a smiling receptionist. “I have really come to love the music,” she tells Monocle.

The attention to detail verges on extravagant. From the doorhandle housings to the ashtrays – yes, ashtrays – in the managers’ majlis, everything subtly references dune-like contours. The lobby is filled with a variety of furniture and each piece is starkly black or white, which appears in tune with the predominant colour scheme of dress among the staff. A grand, almost muscular staircase extends up to the managerial floors, while an oscillating ceiling leads employees to the main offices (which comprise sales, operations and marketing) and a cave-like canteen, where wooden beams span the ceiling. Sharjah-born HR executive Abeer Mohammed is on her coffee break. “I like that you can actually see people at many different levels of the company and interact with anybody,” she says, referring to the open, glass-fronted offices of management. “That’s inspiring to me.”

The main offices are serene and illuminated by indirect sunlight. Custom-designed desks by Milan’s ACPV Architects can be adjusted for standing work and these hot desks are intended to allow staff from Beeah’s other regional offices to drop in and soak up the atmosphere for a day. “It’s calming in here, certainly,” says events officer Dana Al Khalili, whose duties include setting up the public feasts that are served nightly on Beeah’s grounds during Ramadan. “But not everyone here is used to working in an open-plan office. You have to keep in mind that everyone can hear what you’re saying.”

Setting the bar

You have to hand it to Beeah: it’s easy to talk the talk on corporate sustainability and design ambition but this HQ really walks the walk – and cleans up after itself too. It’s already a landmark for Sharjah: given that it sits on a dusty highway lined with desert shrubs and petrol stations, its smooth contours appear on the horizon like a mirage. The place might feel stark and otherworldly on the inside (employees say that it can be a bit like walking into an elaborate 3D render) but it is also the antidote to the region’s identikit corporate offices and sets a new bar both in terms of vision and the willingness to pull out the stops to make a statement about sustainable design. With it, Beeah has drawn a line in the sand.

Beeah in numbers

Founded: 2007
Size of HQ: 9,000 sq m
Employees: 13,000 across the uae, Saudi Arabia and Egypt
Bins emptied daily: More than 100,000 of the 123,546 bins deployed – and the public, solar-powered ones are fitted with wi-fi
Rubbish trucks: 1,512 vehicles operating in the uae

Time to deliver

When Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson decided to launch a new business, all they knew was that they “wanted to build something big and meaningful”. What they ended up with was a ride-sharing and delivery platform that’s worth billions of dollars. Having met while working at consultancy firm McKinsey, the duo looked to Sheikha’s home region as a starting point for where they could make a difference and drive change. “We got the idea from an ex-colleague who suggested that we look at transportation,” says Sheikha, who hails from Pakistan and is the CEO and co-founder of Careem. “It wasn’t until we got close to the drivers that we realised that their life is full of uncertainty and a lot of hardship. That inspired us to create something that would make a difference and would be a good source of income for them.”

Careem was launched in 2012 in Dubai as a corporate car service. Having looked back at their own experiences as consultants who regularly had to travel around the Middle East for business, they knew that they had tapped into something worthwhile. “The quality of ride-sharing and delivery services back then was pretty low,” says Sheikha. “We had a real problem going from one place to another in a foreign city.” The arrival of services such as Uber drove Careem to develop similar technologies to keep up. “We realised that our business would be disrupted by this innovation that was starting to take over the world. So we had to move quickly and proceed from being a car service to launching our app.”

That was just the start of the journey for what is today one of the Middle East’s biggest technology success stories. In 2020, Uber acquired Careem for $3.1bn (€2.9bn), making it the Middle East’s first technology unicorn – or “unicamel”, as Sheikha calls it, with a laugh. “That was a landmark deal for the region. It created a lot of confidence and self-belief, which didn’t really exist before,” he says. “Ten years ago I remember talking to entrepreneurs and founders, and there was always a question mark around whether they could build $50m (€47m) businesses. But now, everyone feels that it’s almost their birthright to build a unicorn. That confidence is here now. And when it is, it leads to manifestation.”

Fast-forward 10 years and Careem is a fully-fledged platform, providing everything from ride-hailing services and digital payments to food and grocery deliveries. “We saw all of these different services opening up and it started to become a little overwhelming for customers, because they needed multiple log-ins across different apps for various services,” says Sheikha, explaining the decision to broaden Careem’s scope. “We knew that there was a far better way for people to use these services. That’s why we decided to create our ‘everything app’ – we’re calling it an everything app instead of a ‘super app’ because it offers all of the services that you might need for your daily life in one place.”

Careem is all about making life better and easier for people, whether they are customers or “captains” (what Careem calls its drivers). “We feel a responsibility towards them,” says Sheikha. “We want to make sure that they benefit from being part of this platform. We have done different things across the region and beyond. In Pakistan, our team negotiated discounts with schools for the children of captains. And during the pandemic, we created a fund to support them and raised almost $1m [€950,000].” Last year, delivery drivers from several platforms in Dubai went on strike over pay and working conditions. None of Careem’s captains joined the picket line.

Before we leave the company’s HQ in Al Shatha Tower, Sheikha offers Monocle some parting advice from his journey with Careem. “The reason that we survived when pitted against significant competition was that we were here on the ground, learning and solving local problems,” he says. As for what comes next, Sheikha believes that Careem is “still very early in our journey”. “About 500 million people live in the region between Morocco and Pakistan – that’s the area we call home. We are serving only a fraction of them today, so there’s a lot more to be done.”
careem.com

Beyond business class

When three aviation industry veterans banded together to launch a premium- only airline, it made sense to base themselves in the uae. When Monocle visits its HQ in Dubai South, Beond is just weeks away from its inaugural flight. We buckled our seatbelts and spoke to co-founder and CEO, Tero Taskila, about Beond’s sky-high ambitions.

How did you meet your co-founders, Max Nilov and Sascha Feuerherd?
We were working at Lufthansa in the early 2000s. We worked on its consultancy arm, which developed new ideas for the Lufthansa Group and other airlines. We created a company called Private Air, which was like what we do now but solely focused on business travellers. After that project we all went in different directions: Max went to work with aircraft manufacturers, Sascha for iata, and I went into C-suite positions with airlines around the world. Three years ago, we got back in touch and decided to do something together.

How did the decision to launch Beond come about?
Max saw very early on that there was a new plane coming, the Airbus A321xlr, which was a narrow-body aircraft but ultra-long haul – we could fly up to 11 hours non-stop. So, we thought let’s make this fully business class and fly longer than anyone has ever flown before in similar configurations. When we started looking deeper, we saw that some European companies had tried something akin to this but had all failed or gone bankrupt. That’s when we realised: everyone was chasing the same customer. Whether it’s American Airlines or British Airways, they were going for the frequent-flying business traveller. But this sort of traveller doesn’t tend to make their own decisions. They often have long-standing corporate deals with airlines or change plans at the last minute and need flexibility, so it was difficult to grab them as clients.

So, what makes Beond different from those failed attempts?
That period of research coincided with this emergence of luxury travel, so we thought instead of going for business-class cabins, let’s go with premium cabins. This means that we are after a customer travelling for leisure. They are actually a better yield than corporate customers because leisure flyers are willing to pay the full fare for that premium, unique experience. So we were good to go: we had the plane, refined the concept and knew the target market.

You’re a uae-based business but your main destination is the Maldives. Why?
We canvased premium markets around the globe, showcasing our concept and seeing which ones would fit best. That’s where the Maldives came in: it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime destinations and experiences for many. At the same time, other than private jet customers, which are only 5 per cent of those landing in the Maldives, everyone else has to connect in the Middle East. So, we had a clear opportunity to deliver hassle-free luxury from the region.

How crucial is Dubai as a base for your operations?
Dubai is important for two reasons. One is that having it as our headquarters gives us the flexibility to travel more easily to other hubs and markets. Second is the access to the workforce. There are more than 100,000 aviation professionals in Dubai, from pilots to maintenance and crew, so that pool of talent can help us design the best possible airline. From a business point of view, the tax benefits of the Middle East were also attractive to support that growth.

Speaking of design, Beond has a distinctive dark livery and brand identity. What does the inside of one of your aircraft look like?
One thing that we wanted to make sure was that we were addressing the needs of our clients, who are typically environmentally conscious. It was important to have an aircraft that is low on emissions. By using electronic flight packs, we save up to 3 per cent of fuel compared to other airlines. For the seats, we hired Optimares, a boutique manufacturer in Italy that created an extremely light seat in a classic design. The carbon-fibre shell is designed by Ferrari using the same Formula One technology to reduce weight. Instead of built-in seatback entertainment – which can weigh up to 30kg – we are kitted with iPad Pros. It’s all designed to reduce weight and lower our emissions.

What has been the most challenging part of this venture so far?
This is my seventh start-up and each of them had its own challenges. Running a business is like a roller-coaster, you need to keep frustration and excitement in good balance in order for it to work. But a particular issue is the state of the aviation environment, which is driven by several factors. The pandemic grounded a lot of planes and it takes time to make them fit to fly again. Also, the geopolitical crisis, driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine, has heavily impacted the aviation sector. We don’t get the same access to raw materials due to all the embargoes on trade deals, and more than 700 aircraft – worth $20bn (€19bn) – are stuck in Russia; they are unable to fly due to all the bans and have essentially been rendered useless. So, it has been difficult to find aircraft – we are getting them but not at the pace that we’d like because the bigger players get priority. But luckily, we have partners who believe in us and want to embark on this journey with us.
flybeond.com

Bright ideas

There are many opportunities to hang out your shingle in the UAE – plus plenty of venture capitalists and deep-pocketed customers to embrace suggestions. Here we round up underserved corners of the market where an enterprising firm could add to the riches on offer, from aviation to architecture.

1.
Making a spectacle
A far-sighted eyewear brand

How has this been missed so far? The UAE’s abundance of both sunlight and sand – a vital ingredient in glass lenses – is an untapped and obvious place to try to launch a homegrown luxury eyewear brand. Ditto for a decent opticians service that we would roll out across the Emirates with solicitous and professional service and same-day lens fittings. Can you see what we mean?

2.
Fit for purpose
Healthcare

Artificial intelligence is being touted in everything from fintech to marketing, but few applications will provide as much relief as those in healthcare. From screening scans to managing patient data, opportunities abound. We would back a platform that processes (anonymised) patient information to improve treatment and focus on early screening for illnesses – tailoring care and resources to those who need it.

3.
Fresh suggestions
A properly shady consultancy

Not the suit-wearing sort but those teaching architects how to harness the heat. Think awnings, blinds, slatting and bricks that let through a breeze. Harnessing the principles of the barjeel (wind tower) and the nation’s sha’bi houses could make the right firm a regional leader in managing heat. The pay-off? More walkable neighbourhoods with better retail and fewer car journeys required.

4.
Souks you, sir
A decent multi-brand menswear shop

Not all retail in the UAE is mall-based but too much of it involves luxury brands selling faintly inappropriate versions of European apparel. There’s space for a decent shop selling both understated brands (think light linen blazers, seersucker shirts and slip-ons) as well as Gulf staples. We would operate the nation’s freshest kandura laundry, alteration service and tailoring while you wait.

5.
Press play
A newsstand (with global distribution)

The UAE is already a global air-traffic and sea-freight hub, so why not fill any empty bellies with the books and magazines that are currently missing from the nation’s not-so-well-stocked newsstands? Yes, there are one or two independents but a homegrown book and magazine distributor could help to put the country at the centre of a global conversation about media, journalism and publishing.

6.
Be our guest
A UAE hospitality school

Despite the number of jobs in the hospitality sector, there’s a gulf in the Gulf. Top GMs are flown in from Swiss hotel schools, while kitchen porters and scullions are kept back of house. There’s still a stigma around Emiratis in the kitchen and service industries, though this is shifting. Starting a hotel school would put paid to both, helping to train staff for a new generation of restaurants and cafés.

7.
Dunes’ blooms
A florist rooted in local flora

Too many shop and hotel displays use flown-in posies that are ill-suited to the climate and short-lived. They also send the wrong message about sustainability and taste. What about celebrating the feathery fronds of the ghaf tree, oleanders or salt cedars? The native brush is spikier and wilder than Dutch tulips but perhaps getting back to the nation’s roots involves some aesthetic rearrangement.

8.
Arabian flights
A world-leading aviation repair centre

The arid conditions of deserts make them ideal for storing planes that need fixing (Arizona does this in the US) and the UAE’s ascent to a global aviation hub presents an opportunity to become the world’s workshop too. The nation has the space, the climate and connectivity. An aviation and aeronautical hub that’s as attractive to start-ups as global manufacturers is anything but blue-sky thinking.

9.
Top of the shops
A toothsome produce-led supermarket

This won’t sound revolutionary to some, but for all the souks and pop-ups, the UAE lacks a decent, walkable place to buy fresh produce. While you might be able to try local tomatoes or Gulf oysters at restaurants, the city needs to get people excited about local produce – and that means growing and buying at scale. Our little supermarkets will help smaller growers and producers to win new fans.

10.
Panel discussion
A sunny solar provider

While many countries in the region are keen to reduce their reliance on oil, it’s obvious that battery alternatives aren’t always much better for the environment and are tough to recycle. So what about making the most of the region’s abundance of sun? A canny operator could retrofit buildings, set up spots in the desert and be an ambassador for a technology that’s more than a little overlooked.

Breaking new ground

The visionary developer
Mahdi Amjad, founder and executive chairman, Omniyat

It’s hard to imagine how things were before. Apartment 801 of The Lana, an almost-completed mixed-use property consisting of residences and a hotel, looks onto a circular marina sprinkled with yachts and, beyond that, Downtown Dubai’s skyscrapers. But not so long ago, none of it was here. “This area was a military camp,” says Mahdi Amjad, the Iraqi-born founder and executive chairman of property developer Omniyat, dressed in a dark grey suit. “That’s why there is a Defence Roundabout here.” Today the area is known as Business Bay. Back then, says Amjad, it was “just desert”.

It took gumption to take a punt on this sandy lot in the early 2000s, when the emirate was just opening up to foreign home ownership. At the time, the Creek had yet to be extended. As Amjad pored over the planning maps, it came down to one question. “I asked the government, ‘Are you sure that it’s going to happen?’” he says. “And they said, ‘Yes, we’re pressing ahead.’ That was when I became a property developer.”

Outside The Lana, Amjad’s dark-blue Rolls-Royce is parked not far from where site workers are putting the finishing touches to the building. Things have turned out well for Omniyat (“wishes” in Arabic), which now has a portfolio valued at more than $5bn (€4.7bn).

While it was in the right place at the right time, it also would have been easier for the company to erect more conventional glitzy towers instead of the thoughtful high-end developments that Omniyat has built. “The main challenge was in deciding what type of developer we were – what were we going to do?” says Amjad. “I went around the world trying to envision the identity of this company that we were creating.”

After studying contemporary architecture in bookshops abroad, Amjad came up with a list of starchitects with whom he wanted to work, from Rem Koolhaas to Richard Rogers. At the top of the list was British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid. How he persuaded her to come to Dubai and put her trust in a twentysomething with a property start-up and previous experience in electronics distribution remains a mystery to him. “I still don’t know and I would have loved to ask Zaha,” he says of the architect who died in 2016. “What did she see in me to have such faith – to come to Dubai and work on a several-million-dollar mixed-use development with a young entrepreneur whose company was in its first year of operation?” That collaboration culminated in the Opus, a mixed-use building featuring 4,800 unique pieces of glass and comprised of two towers that come together at the top and bottom, creating a shape in the middle that Amjad says is “like a melting cube of ice”.

Sitting on a sofa in the vast living room of show apartment 801, Amjad may overuse words such as “exceptional” and “unique” into our conversation but he does so with some justification. He clearly has the nous for creating properties catering to what he calls “a particular segment” of the high-net-worth community. These include the “villas in the sky” of One at Palm Jumeirah and The Lana, which features seven central gardens. The latter, by Foster + Partners, took a number of iterations to get just right. Along the way, Amjad has ticked off several names on his wish list of firms, though he has yet to work with Renzo Piano.

Omniyat is expected to make several new project announcements before the end of the year. It was also in the headlines in September with the news that it had bought the body of water outside our window, Marasi Bay Marina, with development rights. For now, Amjad is giving little away but he promises that it will be iconic. “My grandfather was a jewellery-maker in Iraq and that has always been part of my dna,” he says. “I want to ensure that I contribute to this beautiful city.”
omniyat.com

The Star designer
Pallavi Dean, founder, Roar

One of the uae’s most sought-after designers, Pallavi Dean, set up her studio, Roar, in 2013. Since then, it has forged a reputation for her skill and vision by reimagining everything from offices to retail spaces, schools and homes. Born in India, Dean moved to the uae when she was just three months old. She built her career in the Emirates after studying architecture in Sharjah, with a brief professional stint in the UK. Dean has grown Roar from a start-up in a spare bedroom to an international firm. Her 35-strong team works with local makers to fabricate everything from joinery to millwork. Dean recently completed an office space in Dubai and is working on new hotel projects in Rabat and Islamabad, a school in Saudi Arabia and several social projects for the Abu Dhabi government. Here, she sits down with Monocle and shares a few entrepreneurial observations.

You once said that your work is at the intersection between design and entrepreneurship. What do you mean?
I have two degrees: an MA in architecture and an mba, which I have just finished. For me, it’s not just about pretty pictures and pretty spaces. It has to make sense scientifically and functionally. Return on investment, footfall – all those numbers make a difference to me.

Is it easy to switch between sectors?
Traditionally, you had architecture or design firms that only specialised in hospitality or commercial work but we have always been multi-sector. The reason for this is that you can learn so much through diffusion. I implement a lot of what I have learned in workplace design in the schools and education spaces that we work on. Similarly, I put a lot of what I learn in my hospitality designs into everyday homes. The cross-pollination of ideas is so rich and keeps me on my toes.

There’s so much development happening in the UAE. Does that mean there’s a lot of opportunity?
I’ve seen dusty villages grow into cities. In terms of opportunity, it’s fantastic. The pace at which we work here is wild. In the UK, I worked on one project for 18 months. I have built seven projects in that timeframe in the uae. For a young designer or someone who really wants to get those 10,000 hours of experience under their belt, this is a fantastic place to be.

How would you describe your leadership style?

My firm is 92 per cent female and that’s very intentional. It was about providing a safe place for women to balance their work and life. My leadership style is based on empathy. I’m very assertive and focused on deliverables. I don’t care about whether people come into the office but if you say that you’ll do something, it has to get done.

There’s a lot of talk in the UAE about technology. How big a part of your work is it?
We use generative AI and I spent a lot of time learning about the metaverse. We were one of the first studios in the uae to design there – for a Singapore bank – and I also teach a course on it. You can’t just think, “Ah, it’s all something in the future. Somebody else will deal with it.” I want my clients to know that this technology is out there but it can’t perform exactly what it promises yet because the infrastructure isn’t ready. But it does give me ideas that I wouldn’t have ever thought of because it’s working from a database of millions of ideas. Everybody should invest time in understanding this technology because it’s so important.

Your studio is so busy. How do you stay ahead of the competition?
Because the ecosystem is so friendly and ripe for entrepreneurship, people who are fresh out of university set up their own firms. The competition is intense. But I am experienced and have been doing this for more than 20 years. You always have to establish trust with your clients. They need to know that you are an expert, that you are a thought leader in this industry and that it’s you who they should listen to. I do a lot of independent research and write a lot of white papers. That’s my way of differentiating myself.
designbyroar.com

The pioneering investor
Fadi Ghandour, chairman, Wamda Capital, and co-founder, Aramex

Fadi Ghandour always has his sleeves rolled up and is ready for business. The eagle-eyed, market-smart investor is the serial entrepreneur who co-founded one of the uae’s earliest global success stories: package-delivery firm Aramex, which launched in the 1980s. Today Ghandour chairs Wamda Capital, the uae’s first true venture fund. Here, he shares lessons on how to make it big in the Middle East.

How easy is it for an entrepreneur to get funding in the UAE?
It’s night and day compared to 20 years ago. There used to be no such thing as venture capital here. Crucially, the sovereign wealth funds have changed their focus. They used to invest outside of the region to generate an income beyond oil but that has changed completely. They have become enablers of a real entrepreneurial ecosystem here, especially in technology.

Where are the opportunities right now?
There’s a lot of purchasing power here and this is a consumer-based region, so there are plenty of opportunities in digital payments, e-commerce, digital banks, last-mile delivery and anything to do with the consumer experience, including entertainment. Many talented engineers have also moved here from countries like Ukraine and Russia.

Has the ‘funding winter’ – the decrease in the inflow of start-up capital that has been affecting other regions – reached the UAE?
It might be autumn but it’s not winter yet. This region continues to generate the most new cash and liquidity in the world simply because of the price per barrel [of oil]. Silicon Valley is knocking on our doors and many financial institutions have set up operations in Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) because they want to raise money and there are opportunities to invest.

You built Aramex from the ground up. How did you get started?
When we started in the 1980s, the big boys, such as Fedex and ups, seemed to be completely focused on the US market. And if they even thought about going global, it certainly wasn’t to the Middle East, with its civil wars, terrorism and all of the stuff that you don’t really hear about any more. So, I went to courier companies around the world that didn’t have a presence in this region and told them, “We will deliver here for you.” Which we did, even through the civil war in Lebanon and after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. From the start, we created a brand built on reliability.

Aramex was the first Middle Eastern company to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Would you list it in the US today?
No. At the time, 51 per cent of a company in the uae needed to be owned by a Gulf national, which I am not. As a result, I couldn’t list it on a stock exchange here. That has all changed and the law now allows for 100 per cent ownership. In many respects, the uae is completely in tune with the rest of the world: we work a Monday-to-Friday week and the rule of law in the DIFC is largely modelled on British law. In 2002, we bought Aramex back and relisted it on the Dubai stock exchange three years later.

There have been several major IPOs in the region, not least that of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Do you expect that there will be more?
A good chunk of the companies that are going public are either government-owned or semi-governmental. While this is about creating liquidity and deep stock markets, it also creates more transparency [in state-owned companies]. It shows that there is maturity in the economic system. You will see so many more private companies in the next five to 10 years that want to professionalise in this way.

How will technology shake up supply chains over the coming years?
At the centre of this story will be robotics, AI and 3D printing. These things will allow you to create an industrial base close to home and minimise the cost of supply chains and of securing them. There’s a new competition happening out there and supply chains are at the heart of it.
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Up in the air

Tim Clark is a self-professed aeroplane geek. The Emirates executive, who has been the airline’s president since 2003, might be in his eighth decade but his affection for what he dubs “the buzz” of flying remains undiminished. Luckily, his office on the top floor of the Emirates Group’s HQ next to Dubai International Airport, gives him a daily fix. With views over the airfield below, there’s a constant stream of planes – many flying Emirates colours – taxiing back and forth from runway to gate. “It’s every nerd’s dream,” he says, leaning back in an armchair, dressed in a suit and pink tie. “I have probably the best view of any president’s office in the airline world today.”

When Emirates airline was founded in 1985, Clark joined the planning department after spells at British Caledonian and Gulf Air. Since then, the carrier has gone from a plucky start-up to one of the world’s largest airlines. Today it flies to more than 140 destinations, having recently added Montréal to the mix. And despite the severe dip of the pandemic, which hit the whole industry, Emirates has bounced back. In May it reported its most successful figures to date, with profits for the 2022-2023 financial year of aed10.9bn (€2.8bn).

Trying to pinpoint crucial chapters in Emirates’ success story is not easy; Clark calls it “a complex series of questions with a complex series of answers”. He has always maintained that the airline shook up an outdated model in which destinations were determined based on a postwar, old-world order. In stepped Emirates, as what Clark calls “a disrupter to the traditional approach”. It linked multiple points of the map in a more streamlined fashion, drawing on the Gulf’s strategic location as a hub between Europe and Asia.

Emirates has also always had something of a “go it alone” attitude. While it has forged code-sharing partnerships with the like of Qantas, it has avoided clubbing together with others in the Star Alliances of the world. “We do not allow ourselves to be sidetracked into other issues, such as getting involved in partnerships,” says Clark, who says that the focus has been on building an airline from the ground up rather than getting distracted by secondary services.

A fierce advocate of liberalising the airways through so-called “open skies” agreements, Clark refutes claims that Emirates has received subsidies from its wealthy government owners. “We are not subsidised by the government; the government is hugely supportive of what we do,” he says. “They don’t give us any money at all, apart from when we were in dire straits during the coronavirus pandemic when they stepped up immediately. But they rely on us to get the job done.”

Others have complained that the way that the uae is set up has given Emirates an unfair advantage, such as the fact that the airline’s employees are not unionised (Clark says that the company offers extremely generous packages) or that Dubai Airport doesn’t have a curfew, essentially operating 24/7. When it comes to the latter, Clark is bullish. “That’s the way it is,” he says. “We have a government that is hugely involved in what we do in the sense that they understand the criticality of aerospace. They want to nurture it and what’s wrong with that?”

As an airline executive, Clark must occasionally answer questions on hot-button issues. Described in the past as having “a friendly outspokenness”, he agrees with the depiction, saying that at times he might have been “a little bit vocal on certain issues”, even if he does try his best to veer away from anything controversial, such as politics. Monocle takes this as a cue to ask about Emirates’ decision to keep flying to Russia. “We do as we are bid by the state,” he says, making it clear that decisions like these rest with the government.

Not so long ago it looked unfathomable that a conversation like this with Clark could happen at all. Back in 2019, he announced to the world that he was retiring as part of an acceptance that, as he puts it, “nothing lasts for ever”. That decision to bring the curtain down on a Emirates career lasting more than 30 years was reversed as the pandemic hit. “You’re right,” says the 73-year-old grinning. “I’m now pushing four years over when I said I was going to go. But I’m pleased that I stayed.” For now, he won’t be pushed on an exit date as he continues to pilot the airline’s impressive post-pandemic recovery. And the focus still seems to be on ensuring that Emirates is never on autopilot and continues to disrupt the market.

In the past, that disruption was arguably done through traditional customer service: its colossal double-decker Airbus A380 planes, with their top floors dedicated to premium classes and staff welcoming back passengers by name. Small gestures such as metal cutlery being extended to economy, meanwhile, suggested that this was an airline that didn’t skimp on costs. Clark says it has all been part of the airline continuing to bring “class, style and panache to the various cabin classes that we offer”.

Technology plays a central part in Emirates’ bid to continue to differentiate itself. “We are at the forefront of embracing just about everything that comes along,” says Clark. And that ranges from blockchain and the metaverse to the current brave new world: artificial intelligence (AI). While Clark seems cynical about its ability to be customer-facing, he thinks that the technology offers plenty of opportunities. “We need to embrace AI to help us in the way that we go about executing our products: engineering, flight operations, finance, HR,” he says. “The B2C side is far more complicated.”

Not that it’s stopping the people on the eighth floor from pushing the boundaries of where Emirates’ tech-enabled customer service might go. The Innovation Majlis platform, launched in July, is working on prototypes that could one day be a mainstay of the Emirates experience; Clark says that it’s vital to have a group of people “who are testing, innovating and, hopefully, shocking and stunning us”. During our visit, Monocle gets to try out a virtual-reality headset complete with a haptic glove that could be used for crew training and would prove much less expensive than a life-size aeroplane simulator. (Your correspondent managed to spill a coffee and drop a drill, meaning that his Emirates job prospects look slim.) Elsewhere, there is a 3d printer trialling the manufacture of replacement metal parts for airport buggy transport, as well as an impressive 3d customer service avatar powered by Hypervsn.

Back on the executive floor, Clark is sketching out future plans, including painless air travel, easy check-in and virtually non-existent physical security, thanks to biometrics. “Why do you need a passport these days?” he asks. “It’s a rather anachronistic piece of paper and a book.” But our time is coming to an end, even if we could talk for another hour about the future of travel, the difficulty of scaling the provision of sustainable aviation fuel, and Saudi Arabia’s cash-rich Riyadh Air taking off in the region.

An eloquent and often amusing interlocutor, Clark relaxes when Monocle’s audio recorder is switched off. It’s then, in that less-guarded moment, that he offers a glimpse of the management style that has kept Emirates at the top of its game and sees him behind his desk at 06.30 every morning. “I’m always on,” he says, adding that he expects to be able to contact his employees whenever he needs them, given the multiple issues across multiple time zones that constantly need resolving. “This is a change of life,” he says, comparing working for the company to being an on-call doctor. It may well be the best explanation yet for Emirates’ success.