OUR BUSINESS LUNCH AND BRUNCH PICKS THIS MONTH RAK’S WALDORF ASTORIA IS WORTH THE RETREAT CAN GANDHI BEAT MODI? A STUNNING DECEMBER HAS RAHUL GANDHI DREAMING OF THE TOP JOB YOUR STAFF IS STRESSED Business leaders need to pay attention to how global events affect employee morale BADR JAFAR’S SOCIAL COMPASS Crescent Enterprises’ CEO won’t compromise on making an impact FEBRUARY 2019 #145 THE GUIDE TO GOOD BUSINESS AND BETTER LIVING HOW HUSSAIN AND ALI SAJWANI ARE CHARTING WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE FAMILY EMPIRE HISTORY’S CHARM EASA SALEH AL 0GURG’S MD REVISITS OLD DUBAI RIDE TO THE TOP AL MASAOOD AUTOMOBILES CEO’S DRIVE TO SUCCEED DESIGNER DREAMS NAVAI’S FOUNDER ON WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT IN FASHION UA E AED 20 BAHR AIN BHD 2 KUW AIT KWD 2 OMAN OMR 2 FEBRUA RY 2019 ARARREE CCHARARTITINGNG WWHAH T’SS NEN XT FFOROR TTHEHE FAMAMILLILYY Y EMEMPIP REE TH E FUTU RE OF D AMA C RIV A RIV AMARE BECAUSE EVERY MAN NEEDS A BOAT PLE ASURE DEEP BL A C K SE A OMEGA ‘S TWO-TONED MASTERPIECE BA CK TO T H E 1950S COS TS SCHOOL FEES VS RENTS FEBRUA RY 20 19 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 3 Business 08 BIG PICTURE GULF DOLLARS ARE POURING INTO PAKISTAN’S PORT CITY 11 NEW S UAE CEOS TO MAKE MAJOR INVESTMENTS IN 2019: STUDY NON-OIL FOREIGN TRADE HITS $330BN ‘KSA WILL COME BACK STRONGER THAN EVER’ MEKUNU COULD COST INSURANCE FIRMS $400M KUWAIT SEES $25BN DEFICIT 16 LEADERBO ARD EDARABIA’S STUDY EXPLORES UAE SCHOOL FEES VS APARTMENT RENTS 18 CEO COACH HOW THE WAR FOR ATTENTION WILL IMPACT EMPLOYERS AND THEIR STAFF 20 BOOK EXTRACT RAJA EASA AL GURG TAKES A LOOK BACK AT WHERE IT ALL BEGAN 24 5 M I N U TE I NTERV I E W 800 PIZZA’S ALESSANDRO D’UBALDO 26 1 0 QUESTIONS LUXURY HANDBAG MAKER AMANDA NAVAI 28 POL I T ICS AND E C ONOMY HAS RAHUL GANDHI BECOME THE POLITICIAN INDIA WANTS HIM TO BE? 34 SPO TLIGHT HOW IRFAN TANSEL WENT FROM BEING AN APPRENTICE TECHNICIAN TO BEING AWARDED AUTOMOTIVE CEO OF THE YEAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST 38 COVER STORY WHERE DOES ALI SAJWANI WANT TO TAKE DAMAC? HOW HUSSAIN SAJWANI SEES THE WORLD IN 2020 45 SPOTLIGHT CHAIRMAN AND MANAGING DIRECTOR SANJAY RAGHUNATH 46 FE AT U R E BADR JAFFAR DISAGREES WITH THE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN PROFIT AND PURPOSE contents February 2019 08 26 11 20 18 28 42 24 384 C EO M I D D L E E A S T FEBRUA RY 20 19 Pleasure 51 PLE ASU RE N E WS PHANTOM OF THE OPERA DATES IN DUBAI ANNOUNCED 52 ST Y L E BRUNELLO CUCINELLI F/W19 CHLOE F/W19 56 M OTO R RIVA RIVAMARE WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO BUY A BOAT 58 FR A G R A N C E O F TH E M O NTH NISHANE’S COLOGNISE 59 A LWAY S O N T I M E OMEGA’S SEAMASTER GOES BLACK WATCHES OF SWITZERLAND’S CEO ON GROWING IN AMERICA GUCCI’S G-TIMELESS COLLECTION BULGARI PAYS TRIBUTE TO GERALD GENTA 62 DES T INAT ION RAS AL KHAIMAH’S WALDORF ASTORIA IS THE IDEAL STAYCATION RETREAT 64 C E L E B R AT I O N BRUNCH MANZIL DOWNTOWN’S BACKYARD BRUNCH 66 BUSINESS L U NCH CAN DIFC’S ROBERTO’S LIVE UP TO THE HYPE contents 51 62 February 2019 66 52 56 59 58FEBRUA RY 20 19 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 5 To receive your copy delivered directly to your door, subscribe online at www.itp.net/subscriptions business people and CEOs talk to the most important magazine FES TIVE GIFT GUIDE ARE CEOS CONFIDENT ABOUT GROW TH? 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BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS Why informed decision making makes for good leadership AGE OF HUBLOT The Swiss watchmaker’s CEO and his plans to make the brand among the 10 best in the world THE NEXT DECADE Why the next decade of the Capital Club is one to look out for DECEMBER 2018 #143 THE GUIDE TO GOOD BUSINESS AND BETTER LIVING LEG ACY UA E AED 20 BAHR AIN BHD 2 KUW AIT KWD 2 OMAN OMR 2 REF ORMS THE PACE NEEDS TO CONTINUE HOW DUBAI CARES’ CEO MADE A DIFFERENCE TO 53 MILLION LIVES NIKKI BEA CH STEP INTO ANOTHER WORLD C A PITAL CL UB THIS TIME’S DIFFERENT PLE ASURE RICHARD MILLE TOURBILLON TALISMAN IMP A C T DE CEMBER 2018 I SSN 1818- 4421 9 771818 442009 00143 GROW TH EXCLUSIVE: MARRIOTT CEO ARNE SORENSON ISN’T READY TO SLOW DOWN YOGESH MEHTA AND HIS SON ROHAN LOOK BACK, THINK AHEAD, AND PLOT PETROCHEM’S FUTURE EMPIRE AVIATION’S UNRIVALLED GROWTH STR ATEG Y The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. 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MEDIA6 C EO M I D D L E E A S T FEBRUA RY 20 19 AST MONTH, I WAS TRANSCRIBING A conversation I’d had with one of the advisory heads at PA consulting during which he mentioned that we were on the verge of a whole new form of transport coming to market very soon. “Think about it,” he said, “It’s either going to be a hyperloop, autonomous vehicles, or aerial taxis. And it will change very significantly the economy of this city.” The world before and after the technology comes to the fore will contrast starkly. But I bring it up because aside from what it would mean for the economy, I wonder how it would feel to my mother. She’s is in her mid-60s and moved to Dubai in 1977, when Dubai was more a desert than the cosmopolitan it is today. Like yesterday, she remembers when the Dubai World Trade Centre was the tallest building in the city, visible from half the city away on all sides. And then skyscrapers began coming into being in front of her eyes. She didn’t notice much of the latter possibly because she was attuned to it. She was in her early 20s when she first moved here, and by the time Emirates was born she was already a mom to two children. The rise of elevators as a selling point for residential apartments paralleled a growing family’s need for convenience. Cell phones came about right at the time that her children went to college. Technology entered her world at the speed of life. Because of the residency visa laws, she left the country after my father retired and spent a decade in the land where she only just went to school. And life ‘back home’, as only those who have spent more than half of it in Dubai would know, moves at a much slower pace. When I returned to Dubai after university, everything had changed. Automated metro trains were the most obvious way I could explain what that meant to people before I managed to find the right words: the city was taller, faster, and automatic – and hardly anyone one we knew a lifetime ago still lived here. Ma felt the same when I brought her for a visit to Dubai a decade after she had left. Everything was so similar, and yet so alien. She’s visited three times in four years since. Each time, she prefers to spend her time on ‘the other side’ of the Dubai Frame: Deira, Bur Dubai, Karama, the Creek. “That’s where I grew up,” she says. And I know exactly what she means, because as a Dubai kid in the 90s and early 2000s, that’s where I grew up too, with her. But I’m younger and now live in New Dubai. I can not only bear the speed at which this city grows, it excites me. The day flying taxis emerge, I imagine, like many here, I’ll be standing in line to try them out. However, my mother is now in her 60s and I wonder if she would. At her age, I can imagine nothing else than sitting in a flying taxi that would shout out to her that Dubai is leading a charge that will see the world change forever. That the city she called home for so long will not ever again resemble the city that it used to. Her first ride on one undoubtedly be akin to a singularity. And as soft as it sounds, I’d like to be on it with her again just like the times when she would take us for a stroll near the old Fish Roundabout near Al Ghurair Centre half a lifetime ago. Because as it takes off and turns, I can hold her hand, and hope that she knows that even if the city has transformed, there’s someone still here who knew her when she was young and wanted to see what the future holds because she wasn’t afraid of being left behind. I’d like there to be there with her because at that moment, at the onset of a world that will grow ever more alien, I would be the only remaining constant with her during all her time in Dubai. 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At the apex of the $60 billion China Pakistan Economic corridor, the city is seeing an influx of investment from Gulf Arab states, including a potential $10 billion deal for an oil-refinery during a visit by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to Islamabad that is expected to take place in FebruaryNext >