“A good leader is one who can connect a bird’s-eye view with a worm’s-eye view of the world.” That’s how N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys, describes leadership. Having spent 12 hours with His Excellency Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Dubai World and its subsidiary companies at sea level in the Algerian port of Djen Djen and at 45,000 feet aboard this private jet, I am qualified to say he is someone with a very good view of the world from any altitude or angle.

Dubai World insiders say that the group operates as ‘state within a state’. With over 100 subsidiaries in diverse fields such as logistics, tourism, various kinds of real estate projects and offerings, private equity, ecommerce, media, energy and natural resources, it is not hard to understand why the ‘state within a state’ tag sticks. “We are a very diverse group but whatever we get into we have to be the best,” Bin Sulayem says while multitasking with his Macbook Air.

Surely there asks to be a favourite amongst the 100 of companies he heads? “Logistics is close to my heart,” he says. “It’s what we started with and what I spend a lot of time engaged in.”

A graduate from Temple University in Philadelphia, Bin Sulayem was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from the Middlesex University in recognition of his “dedication to excellence and commitment to the economic development of the UAE and the Arab World, and his inspiring community leadership”.

The key factor in Dubai World’s success according to Bin Sulayem is its knowledge capital. “We have consultants but we try our best to gain as much in-depth knowledge ourselves before we get into anything.” And when he says “in-depth” he means it literally too! “Before we started work on the Palm, I took my core team of designers and engineers diving at the site to get a better understanding,” he recalls.

Bin Sulayem likes to fit horse riding into his hectic schedule. In fact, he arrived in Algeria straight from Malaysia where he competed as part of the UAE endurance team. The team claimed the only medal that was missing from their list of achievements – the team gold in a World Endurance Championship. Bin Sulayem finished third in the individual tally. He is also a bronze medalist at the Doha Asian Games.

Not bad considering that he took up riding only eight years ago. A sound example that when he says Dubai World “has to be the best in everything it does”, he means it from all angles.

Thomas Varghese seems angry. He doesn’t mince his words. That’s not to say he’s having a rough day or that he doesn’t like his job. He loves being a driver, he says and likes the three-tonne pick up he drives all around Dubai and Sharjah making deliveries for his company Nikai Electronics.

But still I get the impression he feels life could have been better. From when he was little, Varghese wanted to be in the military defending his country. “But God did not help me,” he says. He flunked his pre-degree exams when he was 18, which left him with almost no options. He could either choose to work on his family’s medium-sized rubber plantation in Kerala or do something else. He chose to drive taxis around his small town for a living. Soon, he was good enough to drive buses, too.

After getting married and settling down with his little family in his father’s house, an artificial flowers company in Saudi Arabia offered Varghese a position as driver. He grabbed the opportunity and left India to make a better living. Since his parents have passed away, Varghese’s wife was left to manage the plantation which he co owns with his brother.

Ten years ago, he came to Dubai and has been working here ever since. “This is a good place to work. I don’t want to go back and work on my plantation, as I manage to make good money here and also save for my daughter’s education and wedding,” he says. “My daughter is going to be a nurse once she passes her BSc in Nursing.” He is very proud his elder son is already a qualified nurse, working at the Apollo Hospital in Kolkata.

So what is his typical day like? He wakes up early to wash clothes, cook, eat breakfast and leaves his crowded accommodation around 7.30am to report for duty at Nikai’s Dubai Investments Park office. “I don’t manage to cook daily,” says Varghese, so on those days it’s the hotels and many cafeterias around the city he relies on for lunch and dinner. Once he reaches the office, he picks up all the deliveries he has to do for the day and goes about his routine.

His beat used to be Ras Al Khaimah and Abu Dhabi but those areas are now being covered by newer recruits. So, although Sharjah and Dubai are congested, he still prefers working in these cities, “as it’s less dangerous on congested roads than on roads that are relatively free”. Being with the company for six years gives him a little bit more freedom than others to choose the areas he has to cover.

Weekends are spent cooking and watching television. Even after all these years of cooking on his own, he hasn’t yet managed to replicate the perfect fish curry his wife effortlessly conjures up in minutes whenever he visits.

December this year is the time he goes to Kerala on his annual leave and according to Varghese, “It cannot come soon enough.”

After a few minutes of conversation, however, Shafi comes across as a man who has risen to the top of his profession not through cutthroat competitiveness, but through proper manners and controlled decisions. It is his job, after all, to manage a team of relationship managers who work with HSBC’s multinational corporate clients, which include Emirates, DHL, Aramex, GAC and A.P. Moeller Maersk.

“My job is to grow the business, to increase profits for the bank, but at the same time I’ve got to make sure the bank’s money is safe,” says Shafi. “That’s the fine balance that I have to maintain.”

Any time a bank lends money, guarantees money or writes a letter of credit; it takes on an element of risk, says Shafi. “That’s what banking is all about. It is a challenge, but there are systems in place, there are methods that we employ which we have honed over a period of time.

This method gives us the expertise, and we get it right most of the time.”

But surely, amongst all this experience, there is room for error? Shafi gives the example of mid-transit currency fluctuations, in which the importer is expected to pay a higher price for the goods upon receipt than when he initially ordered them. “If this happens on a large scale, the trader can actually go bankrupt,” he says.

Sometimes Shafi says he has to rely on his instincts. “We have very well-laid out procedures. It is much more science than art,” he explains. “But there is an element of using your gut. That comes in when you ask, ‘Is this deal right?’ The numbers stack up, but you still feel uncomfortable about some of the projections or premises that are used in a business model. Those decisions have to come from experience.”

Many bankers around the world are likely feeling sick to their stomachs thanks to the recent global financial crisis. “When you see banks like Lehman Brothers going bust, you begin to wonder what’s going on in the banking world,” says Shafi. “The uncertainty is a little troubling.”

Amidst all this uncertainty, Shafi still says he is not particularly risk averse. “You’d be surprised, but most bankers are not risk takers,” he says.

Still, one gets the feeling he likes to drive fast. “If this is on the record, I drive as per the speed limit,” he says with a smirk.

Mohammad Shafi chats with Kathryn Semcow at the HSBC office in DIFC

Hussein Hachem, CEO – GCC, Aramex

Hachem joined Aramex in their Management Trainee programme in 1990, right after he graduated from the American University of Beirut.Beirut was recovering from a civil war and Hachem took the job as way to leave the country. At a time when opportunities were limited, Hachem considers himself lucky to have gotten out.

And, luckily, Hachem’s career grew with the company. “When I joined, I was sent to Jordan for eight months of training,” he says. “After that I went to Kuwait to set up a new office. It was very exciting as we were witnessing the construction and rebuilding of the city after the Gulf war.” The company’s growth in Kuwait was staggering, says Hachem – a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

After eight years in Kuwait, he moved on to Sri Lanka, what he describes as the logistics hub of the Indian Subcontinent. Four years later, in 2002, he moved to the UAE. “When I came to Dubai, I was handling Dubai and the Northern Emirates, then I moved to handling UAE and Oman and now I’m running the Gulf,” he says proudly.

Hachem even refuses to talk about his himself without taking Aramex into consideration. In fact, he knows himself very little outside Aramex. “I do not know myself as a professional outside the industry because I haven’t worked anywhere else,” he says.

The courier business is his comfort zone. “I’m a demanding, aggressive and results oriented person,” he says. “For me things have to happen now.”

But he is not fiery enough to shout at his staff. He believes in nurturing his employees, giving them the right work environment and a satisfying career path. He feels because Aramex has been around – through price fluctuations, depression, war – the company has been able to evolve its culture, its leadership and its customer confidence. This in turn has given employees an environment of transparency, mutual support, competitiveness and aggressiveness.

Hachem says, “We let our new recruits exercise their ideas. We self-criticise and challenge each other for the best of the company. It’s not an individualistic but a group approach.”

Being in an industry where every minute counts, Hachem says that he is accessible 24/7, even when he is on holiday with his family. But he enjoys spending time with them most. After seven years in Dubai, he feels he is at home.

Hachem also seems comfortable with his routine, commuting from Barsha to either the Aramex office near the Dubai Airport or the office in Jebel Ali, if he is not travelling. And by 10:30 am, he is on his third cup of coffee. “I like my coffee,” he says, “and I like to smoke.”

Tom Ronell, CEO, Istithmar World Aviation Holdings

In fact, the son of Swiss musician parents who grew up in both “Mafioso” Brooklyn and “Soprano Country” New Jersey tells the story of a very serious career as if it were a joke.

“I credit myself for making the worst career move in aviation history,” he proclaims, explaining how he left his position as Vice President of Sales with Airbus to set up a western- style business airline in Russia for Boris Yeltsin.

This was 1991, however, when Gorbachev sent troops into Latvia and Lithuania and started cracking down on entrepreneurial business activities.

“In four quick months, I went from being Vice President of Sales for Airbus to being an unemployed fugitive of the KGB,” he recalls.

Three days after the fall of the U.S.S.R, however, Ronell returned to Russia to help start the airline Transaero. “We had the first western aircraft in the Soviet Union,” he says proudly.

Ronell can also be proud of making some of the smartest moves in aviation history.

The Wharton Business School graduate had earned his position at Airbus by the time he was 30, after all, he convinced the European company to market planes to the US.

At first, Airbus thought he was joking.

“Everybody said, ‘You’re crazy! That’s like selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Nobody in the US is going to buy a European aircraft.’”

But within months after Ronell started in 1984, his team had sold 12 white tailed A-300s; and, by the time he left the company, sales in North America had reached US$50 billion.

“That was really the coming-of-age of Airbus in North America,” he says.

After his Transaero stint, Ronell made it a habit to start or restructure carriers, setting up a carrier in Turkmenistan, as well as Trans International Express in New York and Leisure Air, a charter for European fans to and around the US for the 1994 World Cup. He also helped privatise Air Aruba and Puna, the national airway of Uruguay and restructure Panama’s Copa Airlines.

Now, he is in charge of Dubai World’s aviation and aerospace investments, grouped under Istithmar World Aviation Holdings, an entity worth at least US$1 billion. Assets include major stakes in Air Djibouti, Spice Jet, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise and SR Techniques, the Swiss Air maintenance centre in Zurich. He also manages Dubai World’s corporate jets and has turned its executive jet operations commercial. “We want to make Istithmar the premier executive jet operations in the Middle East,” he says.

But Ronell wants to take this new organisation even farther – as far as outer space. “My goal is to move into space operations and turn the Maktoum Airport into the Maktoum Airport and Spaceport,” he proclaims. “I would like to make Dubai the world centre for commercial space activities.” And something tells me he’s not joking.

Tom Ronell entertains Kathryn Semcow at his office in Emirates Towers, Dubai

Ghaith Al Ghaith, Executive Vice President for Commercial Operations Worldwide, Emirates and Chief Executive Officer of Dubai’s new low -cost airline

“It’s one of these things that show you how dramatically things have changed here,” he adds.

Al Ghaith does know that he was born in a neighbour’s house in Shindaga, shortly after the sea swept his family’s house away in a storm. They later moved into one of the newest houses in Dubai. “It was one of the few houses made of concrete,” he recalls, as he describes the building of the Shindagha Tunnel and Port Rashid.

He describes himself as “just like any kid”, and remembers disliking school. “Any kid from that time will tell you they hated school. You look at your peers and say, ‘They didn’t go to school, what’s the deal?’ But school was also something that people respected. If you didn’t succeed you would dishonour your family. That was a driver.”

Al Ghaith moved to the United States for university, graduating from University of Arizona with a business degree. He says he was fortunate enough to have travelled to the US before moving, describing the experience of going to an American restaurant with other UAE nationals. “I knew that you can eat a steak
well-done, rare and medium,” he recalls. “They said, ‘how did you know that?’”

But Al Ghaith didn’t always get it right, like when he once ordered pizza. “I thought the large size was for one person, so I ordered two large pizzas for two people,” he remembers, laughing.

In 1986, following graduation, Al Ghaith began his career as a sales trainee for Emirates. “Eighy-six, I know that year for sure,” he says smiling.

Another year Al Ghaith will likely remember is 2008, as he was recently named CEO of Dubai’s new low-cost airline. The Emirates’ Group will assist the new carrier in its initial stages, but the yet unnamed company is slated to stand alone.

While Al Ghaith remains silent on details of the organisation, the airline is scheduled to operate within the next year, initially flying within the GCC and neighbouring countries.

“I am confident that with Ghaith as the CEO, this new airline will be very successful,” His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Group and the new company, told press shortly after the announcement.

“I have all the confidence knowing that I have the Emirates platform to work from, at least in the start,” says Al Ghaith on his assignment. “And, of course, having the backup of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who is not only a good boss, but a good friend, is something that adds an extra twist of pressure.”

Is he stressing out? “It is going to be very busy, because the volume of work in the beginning is naturally more,” he admits. “It is an exciting busy, though, rather than bad busy. Not a lot of people have the opportunity to cap their career by doing something like this.”

“In the past 17 years I have not turned off my mobile phone,” says Mahmood Amin, Chief Executive Officer, Group Security & Dubai Security Services, who often receives phone calls in the middle of the night. “But all the time I am smiling when I answer it,” he adds.

Mahmood Mohd. Amin, Chief Exec Officer, Group Security & Dubai Security Services

It’s no surprise Amin receives calls at all hours, considering he heads the security department for over 50 of Dubai’s most important organisations, including DP World, JAFZA, Dubai Maritime City, Tejari, Istithmar, Port Zayed and Dubai Drydocks World.

The UAE national, who started his career as an engineer for Dubai Aluminium, says he never stops thinking about security, even when he is spending time with his three daughters, whose ages range from three months to seven years. “I don’t talk to them about security, but I know how to drive them to do things in a secure way,” he explains. “I tell them, ‘If you walk here, your shoes will be dirty, then I will not let you into the house.’ But my point is security – that the grass is wet, and they might slip.”

Having attended over 970 seminars on the subject, Amin says you can never have too much security. “Security is like gold. Anything you pay for to be more secure is like gold,” he says.

“I’ve come to know that this is the place you can always make changes,” he says. “There are always new policies, new procedures, different activities; instead of a routine job where you sit looking at documents coming in which are always the same. It’s also a good way to help a lot of people, support a lot of people.”

Amin says his organisation wants to set Dubai’s security standards above all others, and is looking into technology such as biometrics, which involves facial recognition and fingerprinting.

“Everything has become electronic,” he says. “Security today is not carrying a gun around in your pocket and running around. Security today is perimeters and systems, which will allow you or stop you depending on whether or not you are authorised.”

He says Dubai’s greatest security challenge is conforming to both European Union and United States standards. “Europe is going one way, and the US is going the other way,” he says. “If they could just bring their policies together, to become one policy and one standard, then security can streamline it’s operations and fully support business."

Amin says Dubai’s greatest danger is not terrorism or nuclear obliteration, but rather traffic accidents. “Our biggest threat is the some of the drivers’ educations,” he says, explaining that his department has worked with Dubai’s Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) department to improve road signage. “We found the solution, that pictures work better than writing,” he says proudly.

He says the emirate is one of the safest places in on earth. “Thank God, the past has been kind with no major incidents," he exclaims. “We want to tell everyone we are working to maintain this security record through becoming even more advanced in our systems and processes.”

When she worked as a business development manager in the IT industry, Nermeen Mahmoud managed a team of men in Saudi Arabia without ever going to the Kingdom. Because women are not allowed to work in Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud would travel from Dubai to Bahrain twice a month to meet up with her team.

“I never really needed to go there,” says the Cairo native, who now works as Business Development Manager for Dubai Logistics City (DLC), as she nibbles at a blueberry muffin at Costa Café in The Greens.

Mahmoud studied telecommunications in Egypt, and started her career fixing computers before moving into the marketing and, eventually, the business development side of IT. “I’ve always loved anything related to microwaves, radiofrequency, waves in general,” she says. “I just love those things that you don’t see, but they affect your life.”

And now, she loves logistics. “It’s almost the same concept as telecommunications. It’s something you don’t see that much, but it affects your life tremendously.” When DLC consultants hired Mahmoud in the last quarter of 2004, she and Project Director Roland Zibell worked alone for fivemonths to set up the entire business, choosing everything from the telephone system to computer programs. “It was so exciting at that time, because we were developing everything from scratch, including the rules and regulations for DLC,” she says.

Mahmoud says she has become emotionally attached to the project. “It’s my baby. I am so passionate about it.”

“It hurts you big time when something goes wrong, because you need your baby to have a healthy environment and grow up healthy.”

As for being a woman in the logistics industry, Mahmoud has no complaints. “Oh come on,” she says. “I don’t think the industry is male dominated, maybe in the top positions, but that’s just because they don’t know how smart we are.”

But it’s hard to imagine anyone doubting Mahmoud’s intelligence. In fact that’s the first thing her close friend and colleague Christa Soltau, Managing Director, Dubai World Central Airport, mentions when she walks by our table during her lunch break. “Nermeen is so smart, she’ll take my job,” she says.

Nermeen Mahmoud, Business Development
Manager, Dubai Logistics City, chats with Kathryn
Semcow at Costa Café in The Greens, Dubai

Des Vertannes, Executive Vice President, Etihad Crystal Cargo

It seemed every congress exhibitor and visitor was waiting to meet him, eager to pay his or her respects and talk business.

While he is far less frightful than Don Corleone – and will likely never make anyone sleep with the fishes – Vertannes does share on thing with the ‘Godfather’ – a commitment to family and community.

The executive vice president – cargo, Etihad Crystal Cargo, beams when he speaks of his wife of 37 years, four children, two grandchildren and one on the way, He says he is still setting into Abu Dhabi, while his wife – "Godbless her" – is helping their youngest child finish her GSCEs in the UK. "The hardest part is being away from the family," he says.

Before he had his own family, Vertannes listened to his mother, who persuaded him to join the airline industry at the age of 18. "I was headed to teacherss college. I wanted to be a P.E teacher," he recalls. "My mother said, ‘We can’t afford to have three more years of you not earning money, so you need a job, son. I think you should join an airline, then you could take your mum and dad all over the world."

So he went to work for British European Airways as a cargo assistant. When BEA merged with BAOC to become British Airways four years later, however, Vertannes found himself one of 88,000 employees in an airline ready to downsize and he took a job as a marketing manager with another company.

When Jeff Bridges, the maverick head of cargo for British Airways, heard Vertannes was leaving, he called him to his office and said, "I don’t want you to resign, I want you to go work for me in Saudi Arabia and Middle East"

And suddenly Vertannes found himself cargo manager for the region, living with his young family in Al Khobar.

Vertannes describes Bridges, who passed away in 2004, as his mentor, a major contributor to his success. "I tend to be one of those that likes to innovate and likes to build, and Jeff gave me the platform to do just that.

"Jeff embraced people, he liked the relationship around the world, He wasn’t afraid of the media, he was very charismatic."

Vertannes has certainly held on to Bridge’s legacy, not only charming reporters, but maintaining tight friendships with people in the air cargo industry. In fact, he is quick to acknowledge the importance of relationships in much of his career path.

It was his friend Peter Smith, for example, who convinced him to integrate six independent handling companies acquired by Menzies World Cargo, and Ali Matazza, who had worked for Jeff Bridges 26 years earlier,who asked Vertannes to join Gulf Air. And when Vertannes moved from Gulf Air to Etihad nine months later, the whole cargo community knew about it.

"Air cargo is a global family," says Vertannes. "One thing I always tell youngsters today is if you stay in cargo for two yearsm you will never leave it, not because it gets into your blood, but because of the people you meet. Those people become your friends all over the world."

David Christmas, regional director, Middle East, DHL Exel

Although he hasn’t measured himself since he was 22, David Christmas says he stands at around 6 feet 4 inches. “I like being tall,” he says. “It gives you a bit of confidence.”

When asked if he believes the theory that tall people are more likely to be successful, he says he’s inclined to agree. “I think it’s probably true. I think confidence is important and I do think the way you look, the way you stand, the way you talk, helps.”

“In business, a lot of it is about impressions. You’ve got to have a lot beneath that first impression, but people do make judgments.”

“It doesn’t really seem logical,” continues the Henley on Thames native, “but I do believe being tall gives you that edge.”

At only 37 years old, Christmas is already standing tall with DHL Exel, as the company’s Regional Managing Director, Middle East. He spends his weekdays in cities such as Riyadh, Jeddah, and Muscat, and weeknights flying between those cities.

The weekends, he says, are devoted to family time with his wife Jo and eight year old son Sam who have enjoyed the expat social life of the UAE since they moved to Dubai two years ago.

In fact, Christmas was noticed at an early age. After university in London, Kuwait Petroleum took him on for their Graduate Training Programme, where he ran one of the company’s distribution companies. “At the age of 24, you’ve got your own fleet of oil tankers, your own sales people, your own administrators, you can buy and sell on the market.”

“It was a very good start,” says Christmas of his stint with Kuwait Petroleum. Since then, he says, he has headed half a dozen other businesses, including other divisions of Kuwait Petroleum and the European express service of British Royal Mail. He even did work for the Ministry of Health in Swaziland, helping to develop their emergency fleet.

His height and his career achievements are not the only things that stand out. Imagine having a last name like Christmas.

“At the first assembly at secondary school they would read out the register in front of 400 people,” he recalls. “They’d call out my name, ‘Christmas’, and I’d look at the floor and think ‘Crikey! Did they really have to call it out that loudly?’’

He laughs about waiting in line at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel to pick up a cooked turkey on Christmas Day. “There were 20 other people in the queue and the staff were shouting out names for people to pick up their turkey. I was hoping they would keep the noise level down, so people wouldn’t wonder why they were calling for ‘Christmas’.”

But he says his name can be useful. “There are 500,000 working for Deutsche Post, which owns DHL. A year or two down the road people will remember what company you worked for, but with a name like Christmas, they will also remember you personally.”

Christmas even made a friend from his name. A few months ago, another man named David Christmas, a Schlumberger employee living in Dubai, contacted him. “One day, he sent me a text message saying, ‘I hear you’re another David Christmas living in Dubai, fancy meeting up for a beer?”

The two Christmases met at the Hard Rock Cafe, but found each other only after they had ordered their drinks. The waitress brought two separate tabs to the table. “We both signed off as ‘David Christmas’,” he laughs. “It was quite funny.”