Mohamed Ali Rashid Alabbar

The Burj Khalifa was first drawn at 90 floors. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's response to that design was that Alabbar should try harder, and after roughly two more months of rework the tower came out at 828 meters, the tallest building in the world.¹ Alabbar is the founder and chairman of Emaar Properties, the publicly listed Dubai real estate developer that built it, along with Downtown Dubai and The Dubai Mall, and that builds and operates large-scale mixed-use master communities, shopping malls, and hospitality assets. Alabbar also founded the e-commerce platform Noon.com and the investment firm Eagle Hills, and chairs the food and beverage company Americana Group.

Background

Alabbar was born on November 8, 1956, in Dubai, then a small port town of date palms and fishing dhows, before oil transformed the peninsula. He was the eldest of 12 children. His father, Ali Rashid, captained a traditional Gulf trading dhow on routes linking India, Arabia, East Africa, and Persia, and the family lived in one room in the Rashidiya area. Alabbar has returned repeatedly to the dhow as a personal metaphor for risk, saying that as captain of a ship his father took risks and went into the unknown, and that a person has to be brave and learn how to make big decisions.²

On a UAE government scholarship, Alabbar studied at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics, earning a bachelor's degree in business administration and finance in 1981. Seattle University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2007. He has seven children.

Getting started

Alabbar returned to Dubai in 1981 and joined the Central Bank of the UAE as manager of banking supervision, a role in which he grew restless. He was later posted to Singapore as director of Al Khaleej Investments, a Dubai government investment vehicle. While there he founded RSH Limited, a retail conglomerate that grew to carry more than 70 international brands across over 40 countries.

Alabbar has said Singapore was where his central idea took shape: he watched the country's national modernization run through large-scale real estate development and concluded that the UAE, which then had no major real estate companies, held an equivalent opportunity. He also credits what he calls Chinese speed and efficiency as a formative operating influence.²

In 1992 he returned to Dubai to establish and lead the city's Department of Economic Development, working directly with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum for roughly five years, a period that built the government trust later underpinning Emaar. In 1996 he organized the first Dubai Shopping Festival, which drew 1.6 million visitors, and was named Advertising Age's International Marketing Superstar of the Year.

What he built

Alabbar founded Emaar Properties on June 16, 1997, with $150 million in initial capital from investors, with the Dubai government initially holding full ownership. In 2000 Emaar listed on the Dubai Financial Market, becoming the first UAE property company to offer shares to foreign nationals. By mid-2005 the company's market value exceeded $36 billion.³

Emaar's signature project is Downtown Dubai, anchored by The Dubai Mall, which spans more than 1.1 million square meters and ranks among the world's largest malls, and by the Burj Khalifa.³ Alabbar has recounted that the tower was originally designed at 90 floors, and that after Sheikh Mohammed offered the terse feedback that he should try harder, the design was reworked over roughly two more months to reach 828 meters.¹ Completed in 2010, it became the tallest building in the world, designed by architect Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with structural engineer Bill Baker.¹

In 2016 and 2017, after losing an eleventh-hour bid to acquire the online marketplace Souq.com, which Amazon bought for $580 million in 2017, Alabbar launched Noon.com with $1 billion in backing, split evenly between Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Alabbar with Gulf investors. Noon built what was described as one of the world's largest warehouses next to Al Maktoum International Airport and now reports more than one billion annual visitors. His other ventures include Eagle Hills, a regional real estate and investment platform, a chairmanship of Americana Group, and stakes in RSH retail, YOOX Net-a-Porter, and the digital bank Zand.

How he operates

Relationship-building with Sheikh Mohammed preceded every major venture, giving Emaar implicit political backing from its first day. He framed Noon in defensive, nationalist terms, saying he did not want one company to control the life of his people and that he would not accept that.

Alabbar says he is not driven primarily by profit. He has stated that he is driven by the wellbeing of his society, noting that he already makes about $2 billion a year net from his real estate business and asking why he should build again except out of duty. He believes durability comes from integrity, saying that a person who is not genuine can succeed for a day or a year or two but will never last.² He has named as his biggest mistake not bringing more good people around him earlier.

Where things stand

As of the mid-2020s, Alabbar remains active chairman of Emaar and Eagle Hills. He is expanding into new ventures, including the digital bank Zand and food and hospitality through Americana Group, and is pursuing regional real estate development beyond the UAE, including in Egypt and Saudi Arabia through Eagle Hills.² Noon.com continues to operate as a major e-commerce platform across the Middle East and North Africa at large scale.

Key facts

• Eldest of 12 children, raised nine to a room in a dhow captain's household in pre-oil Dubai.
• Founded Emaar in 1997 on $150 million of investor capital with no prior architecture or construction track record.
• The Burj Khalifa's final 828-meter height traces to a single line of feedback from Sheikh Mohammed to try harder.
• Launched Noon.com as a $1 billion venture after losing Souq.com to Amazon in 2017.
• Spent about five years inside Dubai's Department of Economic Development before founding a company.
• By his own account earns roughly $2 billion a year net from his real estate business.