Page 226 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

208 Dubai & Co.

of Muslims living in the West—in fact several prominent firms have
brought in Muslims from the West or other OECD markets to lead
their GCC businesses.
As awareness of the Middle East and the GCC grows
around the world, an increasingly wider range of people will
develop genuine passion and affinity for the region. In 2005,
for example, nearly 100 students enrolled in Harvard University’s
“Arabic A” elementary language course—about double the number
who did so 10 years prior. 28 The high volume of interest at
universities is likely to be sustained as the Middle East region
remains headline news, attracting students from all backgrounds.
Leading executive-search firms, in recent years, have been rapidly
expanding their GCC capabilities, reflecting the demand for
top-notch talent in the region.

BRIGHT AND EARLY: MEDIUM-TERM
STRATEGY

For the medium term, multinationals should strive to attract and
retain high-caliber nationals from GCC countries in the early stages
of their careers. Experienced senior and middle managers of Gulf
origin are extremely difficult to attract to multinational firms,
because their opportunities in the public sector and in local busi-
ness in the Gulf are simply too attractive. The Emirati national tal-
ent pool provides no shortage of examples. A midlevel staffer
whom I met at the office of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid (then
Dubai’s Crown Prince, now its ruler) in early 2003 was, less than
three years later, put in charge of a large-scale capital project far
more ambitious than anything a multinational firm could offer him.
An Emirati alumnus of the Harvard Business School, with prior
experience at a leading global energy firm, found it more worth-
while to attend to his family business in the UAE than work else-
where. His firm subsequently raised an unprecedented amount of
capital in a wildly successful 2005 IPO.
One sector from which multinationals could draw local talent
with experience in best practices is that of leading professional
services firms. Worldwide, these firms—whose core assets are their
people—have differentiated themselves by attracting the very
best talent from elite universities very early in their careers.