Matthew Amlot
A look at the region's finest business figures
In this special section, CEO Middle East highlights some of the biggest leaders in business that have embraced transformation, thrived and found success over the past year
The business landscape has continued to be shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic over the past year, with industries responding differently to the unique challenges wrought by the virus. While some sectors have found success throughout the pandemic, others have faced tough challenges in the face of unprecedented economic upset.
Business sentiment appears to have improved over the past year, with leaders indicating that 2022 could be even further improved as the virus recedes, variants withstanding.
The upset that Covid-19, and ensuing lockdowns, caused on the global economy has likely changed the face of business permanently. Leaders continue to indicate that working from home, digitalisation and increased levels of flexible working are trends that are here to stay. Indeed, technology has been highlighted as critical to adapting to the world’s “new normal” and overcome fresh industry challenges.
Supply chain issues continue to plague businesses, with leaders increasingly looking to shore up procurement and build resilience to prevent any further disruption. In the Gulf, the rapid recovery in commodity prices has resulted in positivity for the region, with some businesses booming at pre-pandemic levels, although the risk of further disruption by new Covid-19 variants still looms large.
In this special section of CEO Middle East we have highlighted some of the biggest leaders that have managed to embrace the challenges of the past year and get their take on what 2022 holds. Our leaders come from across the business spectrum, whether they be in healthcare, education, food and beverage, or travel, and I trust that you will find their thoughts on the future insightful.
I would like to thank all of our entrants for sharing their thoughts with us. Given the limited space we have here in print, I would encourage all of our readers to visit the digital edition of this list to enjoy an expanded set of questions and answers from each leader.
| Alaa Abu Siam | John Tsioris |
| Arif Amiri | Mohamad Ballout |
| Ahmad Al Zaini | Mohsin Hani Al Bahrani |
| Aloki Batra | Mutaz Ghandour |
| Dino Varkey | Nerio Alessandri |
| Issam Kazim | Paul Griffiths |
| Jamal Hussain | Hussain Sajwani |
Name: Alaa Abu Siam
Company: Egis
Designation: CEO Middle East
Sector: Industry
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
We feel positive about the outlook of 2022, the acceleration of the national visions in the region is driving the non-oil sectors to return to their pre-Covid-19 levels, we see a significant pipeline of infrastructure developments and spending on giga-projects across the Middle East.
Concurrently, oil prices are at their highest sustained level since 2014. These factors are helping drive a robust improvement in public spending, attraction of foreign investment and market diversification.
As Egis, we expect to announce acquisitions in unique specialties that complement and expand on our current service portfolio. We also expect to embark more than 1,000 people into our business. In addition, we are optimistic that 2022 will continue on the success of 2021; with double-digit growth and penetration of new clients in various sectors and industries.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Throughout 2021 we focused on consolidating our regional footprint & reorganized ourselves in a way that enhances customer centricity and agile decision making. We also took conscious decisions to focus on sustainable development in some of the projects we undertook. Another key priority we undertook was to establish strategic partnerships that focused on value creation and proved to be very successful for larger and more complex projects across various infrastructure sectors.
On a group level, we rolled out our new corporate strategy, named Impact the Future to support our growth and join the top 10 global majors in the profession. The driving forces behind our ambition and this direction is being a global player, doubling our turnover in 5 years, achieving carbon neutrality and accelerating our development in South-East Asia with the results of 2021 putting us ahead of this plan.
Name: Arif Amiri
Company: DIFC Authority
Designation: CEO
Sector: Financial Services
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
We are optimistic about 2022. DIFC performed incredibly well in 2021 and we expect our growth trajectory to continue. Growth will come across various sectors, although we expect to continue seeing exponential growth from fintech and innovation firms.
DIFC will continue to help position Dubai as a global hub for innovation and technology to drive economic growth. We support these businesses through our comprehensive proposition at the DIFC Innovation Hub which includes education, accelerator programmes, regulatory and operating licenses, mentoring, networking and access to funding. We also expect to see new regulations relating to digital assets, venture funds and open finance, as well as accelerating adoption of ESG and sustainable finance.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
DIFC supported its clients during the pandemic which provided a foundation for them to come back stronger in 2021. Beyond the pandemic, we continued to evolve our laws and regulations to ensure they are favourable and world leading. This helped us attract new clients and many of our existing clients expanded. This led to DIFC achieving its 2024 Strategy growth targets three years ahead of schedule with the total number of active registered companies exceeding 3,300.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
Covid-19 stimulated change in the finance sector, just like it did in other industries. We have seen financial-related firms accelerate their digital agendas and progress agendas that they may have been indecisive on in the past. The pandemic also saw firms and individuals become more principle centric. For example, environmental, social and governance controls are coming to the fore. At DIFC over 80 percent of our clients now factor them into their decision-making.
Name: Ahmad Al Zaini
Company: Foodics
Designation: CEO
Sector: Food & Beverage
Country: Saudi Arabia
What is your outlook for 2022?
The future is bright for our sector and we are extremely positive as, despite the pandemic, the food and beverage market is still predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 9.5 percent, forecasting a market worth over half a trillion US dollars in 2028, according to Statistica – in 2021, the global F&B market was worth $281.14bn.
Digitisation of restaurant operations has been key to this trend, and as the leading restaurant-tech company in MENA, we are well positioned to capitalise on this growth both regionally and internationally.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Foodics’ mission has always been to make an impact on the F&B industry by helping business owners overcome foreseen and unforeseen challenges, such as the recent pandemic, through digital technologies. During recent unprecedented times, we remained strong and the teams proactively fast-tracked product development in order to best support the whole ecosystem through the crisis. For example, we helped outlets integrate into the online delivery aggregators in order to secure an increase in their order volumes.
We had 90 percent of stores completely locked down at some point during the pandemic. This was really serious at that time.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
The F & B industry has indeed witnessed a huge shift in the way it functions, especially with regards to digitisation of traditional restaurants and the rise of cloud kitchens due to the hefty weight of rentals in high-demand areas and the impact of the pandemic.
The increase in data-enabled kitchens through Foodics are also making it easier for restaurateurs to adopt data-driven decisions. Restaurateurs can utilise the available data to understand and respond to customer likes and dislikes, not only to build and boost word of mouth, but because online reviews will determine how restaurants are ranked and viewed on aggregated food delivery platforms. They are then able to receive customer feedback in real time and adjust their strategy accordingly.
How has your management and leadership style changed throughout the pandemic?
With eight offices servicing our Foodics customers 24/7 in over 25 countries, we have grown at a rapid rate since inception and the pandemic was another turning point for us. During these difficult times, F&B brands relied on us more and more. Our restaurant management ecosystem enabled owners to run their operations seamlessly and continue to grow their business despite the challenging conditions.
Name: Aloki Batra
Company: FIVE Hotels and Resorts
Designation: CEO
Sector: Hospitality
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
I am excited for 2022! As a Dubai homegrown brand, FIVE is all set to conquer global shores with the launch of FIVE Zurich in the Summer 2022 while Fly FIVE (a FIVE party on a plane) takes the skies in Q4 of 2022. FIVE Palm Jumeirah and FIVE Jumeirah Village outperformed in 2021 – both hotels continued to be Leaders in their STR competitor sets – with each hotel, individually ranked number 1. FIVE Palm Jumeirah has generated a TrevPAR of 246 percent more than its competitive set while FIVE Jumeirah Village generated a TrevPAR of 286 percent more than its competitive set. This has resulted in an increase of total revenue generated between both hotels by 153 percent since 2019; and in 2022 we plan to continue to break our own records!
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
The Vibe at FIVE that attracts visitors from all around the world, is a result of a highly driven and focused FIVE Tribe, and therefore FIVE has always shone a spotlight on rapidly and keenly rewarding our ‘FIVE Stars.’ Our team members are always given the opportunity to succeed alongside FIVE, as we rapidly expand – so do their incentives, as proven by a 236 percent increase in incentives paid from AED12.7m in 2019 to AED30m in 2021. In fact, in a recent employee survey conducted by Aon Hewitt they discovered the incentive pay-outs at FIVE to be 318 percent higher than the industry norm.
What changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
FIVE was an early adapter and introduced long-stay offers allowing guests to stay over longer periods of time (7 or 14 nights) at the hotel with their own private swimming pool and in-room catering from all in-house restaurants. Our revenue generating initiatives included finely tuned targeted marketing campaigns for our clientele, such as ‘Pay 3, Stay 4,’ ‘Pay 6 Stay 8’ and Stay and Dine,’ that continue to run successfully.
Name: Dino Varkey
Company: GEMS Education
Designation: CEO
Sector: Education
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
The manner in which the UAE has managed the pandemic, whereby we have kept communities safe while retaining sufficient momentum in the economy, is testament to the visionary leadership of the nation. As a result, we have seen rapid recovery across all sectors, with many forecasted to rebound to pre-pandemic levels. For GEMS Education, the story is no different. Our schools have proved remarkably resilient, and 2022 will witness continued enrolment growth across all segments of our portfolio.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
The education sector has operated relatively normally through 2021. The start of September 2021 saw a return to face-to-face learning in schools across Dubai and the majority of the UAE. I am proud to say that our schools have delivered record-breaking academic results for two consecutive years, in 2020 and 2021, which proves the efficacy of our technology, our teachers and educators, our pedagogy and our processes.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
The pandemic has exposed the fragility of education systems around the world, which is disheartening. However, it has also caused an unprecedented and rapid adoption of technology solutions – systems and tools that are now here to stay, as they have opened the door to enhanced, more personalised education provision.
How has your management and leadership style changed throughout the pandemic?
Resilience, care, agility and adaptability are core attributes of any leader at GEMS Education. We simply had to anchor ourselves deeper within those attributes.
Name: Issam Kazim
Company: Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM)
Designation: CEO
Sector: Tourism
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
In 2022, we expect to see the global tourism industry stabilise, a trend we have witnessed particularly during the last quarter of 2021, with the traditional source markets of India, Russia and Saudi Arabia returning to their positions amongst the top 10 markets for international tourism arrivals. Expo 2020 Dubai is also providing a huge impetus to growth, so optimism remains high across the tourism ecosystem.
We anticipate that 2022 will bring sustained international visitation from established, as well as new and emerging markets, whilst more and more travellers discover and re-discover the city, contributing towards Dubai’s expected 3.4 percent economic growth next year.
Indeed, this upward trend is demonstrated in Dubai’s latest tourism figures, which culminated in 24.74 million occupied room nights between January and October 2021, in comparison to 15.66 million room nights in the same period for 2020.
As we look forward to 2022, we are reflecting on the strategic drivers of the tourism sector’s sustained growth and applying these insights to current and future strategies and global marketing campaigns. Dubai continues to lead the global tourism rebound and stimulate international business growth, and we are rallying our efforts to ensure that this upward momentum continues throughout 2022 and beyond.
Fundamentally, our focus on raising the bar and ensuring Dubai shines bright as a diverse, multi-faceted destination will continue. Our emphasis on cultivating the domestic, as well as international tourism market and developing attractions and offerings that have enduring appeal will remain, and this in turn will drive visitor confidence and growth across the entire tourism ecosystem.
Name: Jamal Hussain
Company: Kibsons
Designation: Managing Director
Sector: E-commerce
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
2022 will be a year of increased growth based on the stability created within the UAE that has navigated the Covid pandemic extremely well, and gives many sectors the opportunity to see growth.
As a direct importer, distributor and ecommerce retailer we will face a number of supply chain challenges, increased costs and freight capacity, that are expected to continue into Q4 of 2022.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Kibsons’ goal at the start of 2021 was to increase our product offering, based on the demand and our customers’ requirements experienced during the 2020 lockdown.
We expanded our category ranges to included but not limited to self-care, health, pet-care, festive theme among others. We also focused on lifestyle trends expanding our vegan, vegetarian, keto and gluten free ranges.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
Our growth and budget projections for 2020 and beyond were accelerated five-fold in the space of few months. We managed to employ more than 400 staff in less than six weeks in 2020 during lockdown.
There was a fundamental shift within the country to ecommerce and once customers had experienced the ease, quality and convenience they continued to use the ecommerce platforms.
How has your management and leadership style changed throughout the pandemic?
Kibsons continues to be a family run business and we have continued a very similar style of leadership with quick decision making processes in place, to ensure we adapt, address and implement effectively and efficiently.
Name: John Tsioris
Company: InstaShop
Designation: Founder and CEO
Sector: E-commerce
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
The opportunity in the on-demand delivery space is still incredibly large and will continue to boom for the upcoming many years, 2022 being no different. The pandemic accelerated digitalisation of services and consumers have been rapidly using online platforms to access all their essentials on demand. New users will continue adopting online in 2022 yet at a slower pace.
In addition, the next two years should be critical to determine which market players out of the myriad that entered the space are equipped to serve consumers the best and thus win a more durable spot in this competitive space.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
2021 has been the year full of opportunity for InstaShop where we doubled our team and increased our business by over 50 percent – the pandemic transformed the industry in terms of offerings and competitive intensity to the benefit of the consumer. InstaShop was early on to the trend of the on-demand delivery of anything and had onboarded a vast number of retailers from different verticals from 2018. What first started as a grocery delivery service, now has expanded its value proposition even further to offer beauty products, electronics, stationary, pharmacy products as well as food delivery.
We took more control of the experience of our users with our own pickers in many partner shops, while we also introduced our own delivery fleet to support our partner retailers and accelerate the delivery process to meet the ever increasing expectations.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
The biggest element was a hike in demand. The beauty of being a marketplace is that we are designed to handle higher volumes of orders, compared to other platforms and this has been a huge competitive advantage against other models.
Name: Mohamad Ballout
Company: Kitopi
Designation: CEO and co-Founder
Sector: Food & Beverage
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
What the past few years have taught us is that it’s critical to be as agile as possible, both as an individual and as a business. We are very confident that what is set to stay well into 2022 is the continued acceptance and accelerated adoption of everything virtual and digital – from virtual working to online shopping to virtual events.
As a business, a key focus is to get ready to evolve as consumer expectations and behaviour continue to shift in this direction.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
We’ve been conscious of the evolving ecosystem and changing consumer behaviour that have mainly resulted from the pandemic and have made it a focus to stay relevant for our customers. This means adapting our offerings to best meet customer expectations from how they prefer to order to how they would like their meals packed.
From this perspective, everything our teams are focusing on is geared towards adapting our business to better meet the changing customer needs.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
Covid-19 and the global lockdown has caused permanent changes in the F&B sector. Lockdown and dining restrictions have shifted consumer perception on what is considered acceptable or normal for food delivery.
Consumers are willing to spend more on delivery with a higher frequency. Likewise, inviting people over to dine over multiple types of delivered food is also becoming a norm – signifying that delivery has evolved beyond convenience to become a dining experience.
The dining landscape has permanently shifted, and online food delivery is continuing to grow, and looks set to be a permanent part of our lives.
Name: Mohsin Hani Al Bahrani
Company: MHD ACERE
Designation: CEO
Sector: Transport
Country: Oman
What is your outlook for 2022?
I am broadly positive on the economic outlook of 2022. Strong income growth coupled with healthy consumer balance sheets should support consumption. I am also seeing encouraging signs on the investment front with businesses engaging in capital-intensive projects with government spending and investment set to remain elevated. Against this backdrop, I believe that the local economy is well on track to recover to where it would have been had the virus never hit and perhaps to even exceed that level. Virus-related restrictions and energy price spikes could weaken growth for a couple of months but I expect growth to recover after things normalise, returning economies to their original trajectories towards full recovery.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Throughout 2021, we have been keeping a close watch on the pandemic situation and its impact on the economy. As automotive showrooms remained closed for a long time, we launched ecommerce operations where consumers could purchase a car online. This launch was intended to help MG Motor reach a wider customer base and maintain a continuous relationship with current customers and partners. To provide premium experience to our niche customers, we also enhanced the e-commerce platform of Jaguar Land Rover to give them the much-deserved personalized experience. This move enabled MHD ACERE to achieve its goals of delivering utmost customer satisfaction and improving overall brand awareness.
Another step we took was to diversify our operations and we launched construction equipment and a renewable energy business in 2021. We became more flexible vis-à-vis our business approach, and at the same time, more aggressive as we didn’t want to leave any single opportunity that came our way for growth and development. We brought niche brands such as McLaren Automotive, ABB EV Chargers, Varta Batteries, XCMG and Weir Trio in Oman. We expanded the sales and aftersales network for MHD ACERE, setting up eight new sales facilities for the business across different locations in Oman and for aftersales, we grew from just three facilities in 2019 to 12 aftersales facilities in 2021. As a result, we managed to create enhanced job opportunities for the local population and even contribute to national development.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
Covid-19 brought in a lot of challenges especially in the automotive sector in terms of sales and stocks. But with our determination, flexible business approach, teamwork and our strong relations with partners and principals, we managed to overcome most of the challenges.
Name: Mutaz Ghandour
Company: Metito
Designation: Chairman and CEO
Sector: Industry
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
The water industry holds immense potential. We’re continuing to see a strong relationship between water security and economic growth. In the emerging anticipation of climate change, sustaining clean and safe water supplies has become even more critical.
Metito is a key enabler of this. We work closely with governments and industry stakeholders in achieving national water security targets, particularly in countries of acute water stress.
As the water-energy nexus is becoming progressively critical, our experience in developing water Public-Private Partnerships gives us the edge, particularly in desalination, the most used application to secure potable water across key emerging markets.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Over the years, we’ve built a resilient business model with human capital at its core. With our empowered and committed leadership, we had in place a business continuity management plan and were quick to respond to the fast-evolving situation.
We’ve also invested in growing our teams across key functions and in augmenting the company’s digital infrastructure and assets, all to ensure that we continue our growth trajectory despite the challenges.
We are fully operational and back to “business as usual” in most markets but continue to be proactive and vigilant.
What advice do you have on how to adapt and overcome challenges?
Experience has shown that companies with a resilient business model have increased chances of emerging from downturns stronger and more competitive. Strong leadership with the right combination of capabilities are key. This has been the core to our success.
Name: Nerio Alessandri
Company: Technogym
Designation: CEO and Founder
Sector: Fitness
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
After two years of restrictions people want to live, to meet, to socialise and of course to exercise. They will do it quickly and with a different approach and an unprecedented digital attitude, acquired in recent months.
Talking about our sector, with no doubt health and wellness has become a key priority for people at global level. People will be ready to spend more time and invest more money on their health and quality of life, that’s why I see a very positive outlook for the fitness and wellness industry.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
Technogym business strategy is based on an ecosystem approach that includes connected smart fitness equipment, digital services and on-demand training contents to offer people personalised wellness experiences anytime and anywhere: at home, at the gym, at hotels, at work and outdoor.
This strategy has allowed us to adapt very quickly to the different conditions during the pandemic: during lockdown we have been reaching our customers at home and helped, thanks to our digital platform, fitness clubs to provide their classes and programmes to members at home.
What fundamental changes, if any, has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
We believe that the future of the fitness and wellness sector will be hybrid. People in the future people will train both at home and at the gym, exactly the same way they go to the restaurant and at the same time use the home delivery service.
People will train sometimes in the convenience of their homes but they will also go to fitness clubs to look for relationships, variety of equipment and activities and professionalism of the service.
Name: Paul Griffiths
Company: Dubai Airports
Designation: CEO
Sector: Aviation
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
Considering the consistent rise in passenger traffic at Dubai International (DXB) throughout 2021 and especially during the final quarter – a surge that compelled us to revise our annual forecast by an additional 2 million passengers, we are very optimistic about 2022. Of course, there are still many unknowns including the risk that new variants of the Covid-19 virus pose and more importantly the way in which governments around the world will respond to it, but we are cautiously optimistic. DXB is expected to welcome 28.7 million passengers in 2021 while the forecast for 2022 currently stands at 57 million passengers.
How have you adapted your business throughout 2021?
It was very clear from the outset of the pandemic that the key to a rapid recovery was timely and effective decision-making. The Dubai Government demonstrated exceptional leadership for us to follow at every stage in our road to recovery. Right from the beginning of the pandemic our approach was to be proactive and always prepared to respond quickly to the evolving situation.
Even as we temporarily shut down normal passenger operations at DXB between March 25 and early July in 2020, we were busy utilising the down time to make our facilities safer and better for our customers. Thanks to our readiness and agility we were among the first international hubs to restart passenger operations and the head start helped us consolidate our growth throughout 2021 and cement our position as the world’s busiest airport for international passengers. We reopened Terminal 1 and Concourse D, home of more than 60 international carriers, in June 2021 and returned DXB to 100 percent capacity with the opening of Concourse A – the purpose built A380 facility that serves Terminal 3, on November 24. We also hosted the Dubai Airshow 2021 – the first major international Airshow and the world’s largest in-person event of its kind, in November.
What fundamental changes has Covid-19 caused in your sector?
The pandemic has put health and wellbeing at the forefront and travellers are now more aware of hygiene and safety standards. Travellers also demand more flexibility in managing their plans and their journeys because of the element of uncertainty around travel regulations that differ from country to country and can change suddenly.
Most importantly the pandemic has accelerated digital adoption worldwide including within the travel sector. The development and adoption of initiatives such as electronic health passports, touchless kiosks and biometric driven check-in and passport control, really picked up speed over the past 20 months, resulting in significant enhancement in airport experience from the kerb to boarding gate.
Name: Hussain Sajwani
Company: DAMAC Properties
Designation: Founder
Sector: Real Estate
Country: UAE
What is your outlook for 2022?
The UAE’s rapid response to the Covid-19 pandemic has attracted the world’s wealthy investors, who continue to flock to Dubai, snapping up the most expensive homes.
The UAE looks set to become a global economic centre of gravity in post-Covid era. Because of its successful strategy to handle the pandemic and quick roll out of its vaccination drive, it has a potential to attract up to $450 billion investments in real estate sector.
The demand is driven by how Dubai and the UAE government have handled the pandemic. A lot of people are relocating from Europe, the US, India and South Africa. People are moving here because they feel safe and because the pandemic is under well control.
The UAE, the Arab world’s second-largest economy, accelerated the vaccination programme to prevent the pandemic from spreading. According to official data, more than 21.3 million vaccine doses have been administered as of November since the start of last December.
I anticipate human capital will grow exponentially as there are so many ambitious plans across the UAE for expansion and growth.
The recent passing of the 100 percent foreign ownership law in the UAE has also boosted human capital in the UAE and attracted businesses here. More and more skilled expats will come to the UAE and make it their home, especially after a slew of legal and economic reforms were passed boosting the country’s value proposition.
These decisions will make the UAE more attractive as a regional destination for foreign companies.