SEPTEMBER 2021 # 173 THE GUIDE TO GOOD BUSINESS AND BETTER LIVING UA E AED 20 KSA SAR 20 BA HR A IN BHD 2 KUWA IT KWD 2 OM AN OMR 2 THE EMIRATI WOMEN WHO ARE DOMINATING THE SECTORS DRIVING THE UAE’S ECONOMYHyperforce is coming to the UAE! It’s hyper secure, hyper scalable, hyper compliant and hyper compatible. It’s Salesforce on the public cloud. Discover how you can run your business right here in the UAE with the power and scale of Hyperforce at salesforce.com/uae. SF_Hyperforce_Press_200x265_FA.indd 108/07/2021 14:50SEPTEMBER 202 1CEO M IDDLE E A ST 3 CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2021 # 173 6 EDIT OR’S LETTER 8 W O RK ENVIRON M ENT How to handle information correctly is an important element of any security strategy, says Quentyn Taylor 10 SUSTAINABILIT Y Now is a good time for companies to embrace a new approach to business, Nader Haffar believes 12 EM PLO Y M E NT Fazeela Gopalani outlines the opportunities and challenges for hiring the world’s most connected generation 16 EM PLO Y M E NT Saranjit Sangar offers a road map to achieve a future-proof, upwardly mobile career 18 FA MILY B U SINESS Thomas Kuruvilla says professionalising family entities is the way to futureproof businesses 10 1216 184 CEO MIDDLE E A ST SEPTEMBER 202 1 CONTENTS 22 C I TIZEN S H I P B Y I N V E STM E NT High net worth individuals from economically fragile countries need a second passport to secure their future 32 D I G I TA L SU PPLY C H A I N Richard McKeon believes brands need to find ways to interact with consumers that don’t look or feel like advertising 34 F A N D B SECTO R Expo 2020 Dubai is expected to further fuel the recovery of the F and B sector 36 T E CHNOL OG Y SPO T L I GH T Hussein Malhas discusses digital transformation strategy and the next frontier for cloud growth 26 22 34 32 36 WOMEN POWER CEO Middle East shares the stories and aspirations of inspirational Emirati women who are paving their way to success in male-dominated sectors CO VER S T OR Y: SEPTEMBER 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 5 CONTENTS 38 TI M E PI EC ES The success of Geneva Watch Days 2020 has encouraged its founding and associated brands to organise the event again this year 40 ST Y L E CEO Middle East takes a look at some of the latest offerings from Dolce&Gabbana fashion house 42 PROPERT Y Modelled after the concept of the ‘Tree of Life’, this Dubai Hills Grove mansion’s design and development is nothing short of breathtaking 44 CA R R E V I E W As the UAE welcomes Porsche’s all- electric sports car on its roads, CEO Middle East gets to grips with the future of motoring 46 VENUES When Dubai’s high society wants a change of scene, they swap palaces for this palazzo; Versace, to be specific, a playground for the senses that’s all about ultra-luxurious moments of pure delight 48 RES TA U R A N T S Zor at The Pointe, Palm Jumeirah, offers lessons in Uzbeki and Central Asian cuisine in a lamb-lover’s paradise 50 FI N A L TH O U G H TS We need to keep the media happy, to keep our clients happy and ill-educated 'amateur' PR activities give our industry a bad name, says Natasha Hatherall- Shawe 42 48 38 50 466 C EO M I D D L E E A S T SEPTEMBER 202 1 C hange has to happen at the top, at the very top, for it to cascade down into organisations and companies. If the C-suite doesn’t drive change even the best of intentions to embrace new practices, ideas and evolving attitudes, then middle management will inevitably stick to what they’ve always done, no matter how outdated the default setting is. So I’m delighted this month that CEO Middle East can shine a light on some of the Emirati women who are at the top of their industries. Firstly, they are successful professionals making a difference on the front line of their sectors, but also, as August saw the sixth Emirati Women’s Day marked, they provide beacons of inspiration for future generations who aspire to be part of a more balanced, diverse corporate world. For our cover story, in the industrial sector, we sit down with Dr Dalya Al Muthanna, president of General Electric (GE) in the UAE and the global chief of strategy and operations for GE International Markets. In the maritime industry, we speak to Abeer Alshaali, the deputy managing director at UAE-based uber-luxury yacht manufacturer Gulf Craft. From the financial sector, Dr Saeeda Jaffar, the group country manager and senior vice president for Visa’s operations across the Gulf region, gives us her thoughts. Meanwhile, in aviation, Nadia Bastaki, Etihad Airways’ vice- president of medical services and corporate social responsibility, explains how she has been fighting to break down gender stereotypes, all of which has enabled to become the first Emirati woman to be registered as a specialist in aviation medicine. As a father of a young daughter it confuses and worries me that still – it’s 2021 – being born with a different chromosome can have such a difference on future careers and opportunities, so I’m grateful to Dalya, Abeer, Saeeda and Nadia for sharing their stories with us. It’s also great to hear this month in CEO Middle East from the likes of Nader Haffar, chairman and CEO, KPMG Lower Gulf (the UAE and Oman) who writes about the importance of Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG). He opens with the sentence ‘society is demanding a better approach to business, one that serves workers, customers, society, and the environment, not just shareholders’. He outlines a compelling case for change, one I for one wholeheartedly back, and turn to pages 10 and 11 to read more of his thinking. And, Saranjit Sangar, CEO-EMEA, upGrad, offers a road map to achieve a future-proof, upwardly mobile career and rise up the chain of command where individuals can choose the change they want to see in leadership. She also writes how ‘in the post-pandemic business landscape, leaders are required to bring empathy, imagination and courage to their roles, going beyond the pursuit of profit alone’. While much change is still needed before my daughter hits the job market, it is good to report on these green shoots in terms of thinking changing inside the boardroom. Share your views on thought leadership and innovation by getting in touch: scott.armstrong@itp.com Q U ESTI O N S? CO M M E NTS? SCOTT ARMSTRONG Editor in Chief @Scottiehack GREEN SHOOTS OF CHANGE IN THE BOARDROOM OFFER HOPE EDITOR’S LETTERSEPTEMBER 202 1 C EO M I D D L E E A S T 7 To receive your copy delivered directly to your door, subscribe online at www.itp.com/subscriptions The most important business people and CEOs talk to the most important magazine The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. 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MEDIA8 C EO M I D D L E E A S T SEPTEMBER 202 1 WORK ENVIRONMENT Quentyn Taylor, Director of Information Security at Canon for Europe, Middle East and Africa, says educating and training all employees on cybersecurity and how to handle sensitive information correctly is an important element of any security strategy NAVIGATING A HYBRID WORK ENVIRONMENT central office has typically been most business’s default work- ing location, but the role of the office has significantly changed over the last year. Today, over 90 percent of organisa- tions say they’ll allow employees to work remotely, at least part of the time, going forward. Changes that were brought about in haste to deal with the pandemic are crystallising into permanent fixtures. The expectation is that employees will have the freedom to move between multi- ple working environments and connect to a company’s network from each one. But this shift to a hybrid working model poses potential security risks for your organisation and employees. Your business’s network perimeter has evolved to not only encompass a core office loca- tion, but each employee’s home too. As such, it’s not surprising that companies have reported feeling less confident in the resilience of their security measures, according to NCC Group insight. With hybrid working here to stay, se- curity professionals need to work quickly to secure a flexible work environment that your business can trust. To do so, they must take a holistic approach. This means ensuring the business’s security infrastructure is watertight, while at the same time investing in education and training for employees. Only then can you comfortably facilitate collaboration across a distributed workforce, or expect to build resilience against the modern threat landscape. The modern threat landscape Organisations need to address the changes we’re seeing to the modern threat landscape amid a shift to hybrid working and assess how they impact our new working reality. ASEPTEMBER 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 9 WORK ENVIRONMENT 1. First of all, employees now communicate and collaborate with each other beyond the periphery of the usual security firewalls, sharing corporate data throughout the working day. 2. Secondly, employees are likely to be accessing company servers over public networks, which offers attackers more opportunities to break through. According to NCC Group , 66 percent of organisations that increased their use of remote working during 2020, saw an increase in phishing and malware attacks. Notably, 39 percent of all those surveyed reported that accidental, malicious or inadvertent insider threats had increased in the second half of the year. 3. Finally, we are seeing an increase in the use of personal IoT devices, such as printers and phones, that are configured with default security settings used for work alongside company devices, such as laptops. Mobile working and remote system access through trends such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) offer great benefits to the productivity of both staff and employers, however, they open up new potential threat vectors and present new challenges in relation to device management. The technology and user policies businesses previously had set up to protect a central office are no longer applicable in a hybrid working set up. Evolving threat Cyber-attacks have evolved – mov- ing away from trying to infect as many devices as possible, to looking for one weak link through which they can hold corporate systems to ransom or steal data. Now if one employee is hacked while connected to their home network, the whole system could come down. The digital and cloud-based solutions that have become pivotal to business’s operations throughout the pandemic, to maintain collaboration and produc- tivity, have also made businesses more vulnerable. Making your hybrid workspace safer Companies have an opportunity now – and buy in from senior decision makers – to make significant improvements in- ternally. While businesses are never able to completely eradicate risk, there are steps that you can take to build resilience as you prepare for hybrid work. 1. First, it’s important to carry out a se- curity assessment of your internal and external IT infrastructure to under- stand the infrastructure perimeter you actually have, rather than the one you think you have. 2. This will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your security across the board. Only then can you iden- tify security gaps and know which improvements need to occur to secure your network. It’s like secur- ing a home, if one entry point is left vulnerable and an attacker gets in, it doesn’t matter that all of the others were secure. Finding every possible vulnerability is an essential step to securing them. 3. Security vulnerability assessments can be carried out at any time. Before you introduce new systems or endpoints into the IT infrastructure, or on an ongoing basis. After all, what was secure yesterday, may not be secure today. Canon’s Office Health Check service offers businesses a comprehen- sive assessment of their internal and external IT infrastructure, including recommendations ranked by risk, to help mitigate any potential security vulnerabilities. By catching malicious attacks before they’ve had a chance to take hold, Canon can help your busi- ness prevent potential data loss. Investing in people One of the most common mistakes that companies make is focussing solely on the technical aspect of cybersecurity. If you were to carry out a network perimeter assessment and invest in the best network security solutions, you might be confident in the resilience of your security measures and go about business as usual. However, you could still find yourself caught up in a security breach. Why? Because you’ve failed to provide training for your employees. After all, it only takes one errant click on a fraudulent link to open the company up to risk. As we enter an era of hybrid work, it is important to foster a culture of openness around security breaches and encourage employees to come forward and share their mistakes. Your defence strategy is only effective if breaches are being reported. Firstly, this helps mitigate the dam- age as issues often snowball if employees hide errors. If an error is out in the open, it can be fixed. Secondly, breaches can be used to help further education on security, while pooled learnings from attacks can speed up progress in crafting new defences. By taking control of your informa- tion, and the necessary steps to educate employees, you can keep one step ahead of cyber-attacks and have the confidence to operate business as usual. “IT ONLY TAKES ONE ERRANT CLICK ON A FRAUDULENT LINK TO OPEN THE COMPANY UP TO RISK”Next >