Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar recently revealed why he prefers hiring Indian professionals, citing their exceptional hard work and dependability. He shared that their willingness to be available at any hour, a trait he values immensely, is a key reason he trusts them to manage his global ventures.
Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar, the founder and managing director of Emaar Properties, and the man behind Burj Khalifa among many other properties, recently shared a viral perspective on why Indian professionals are his first choice. Alabbar avoided conventional business lingo during his speech at the Make it in the Emirates event in Abu Dhabi to emphasise how important dependability is to him.
“I always tell people, from my own perspective, my IQ is average, but my hard work is the best,” he said, according to Gulf News. “I believe in hard work.”
“The harder you work, the luckier you will get," Alabbar noted, citing a famous adage. But he took it a step further by linking it to his own experience with Indian talent. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard, and this is why I like to hire Indians—because they answer the phone even at one o’clock in the morning," Alabbar was quoted by Gulf News.
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According to Alabbar, Indian professionals are "highly committed and dependable," and their willingness to arrive prepared at whatever time of day bolsters his faith in their capacity to oversee his international endeavours.
Alabbar was astonishingly open about his personal story. He was raised in government housing in Old Dubai before creating a worldwide enterprise that includes retail, e-commerce, and real estate. "I always tell people that, in my opinion, my hard work is the best, but my IQ is average. I think hard work is important," he said.
According to his reasoning, Emaar's success—from the world's tallest skyscraper to the Dubai Mall—is based on a culture of perseverance. He emphasised that businesses that successfully navigate unpredictable conditions are those that maintain vigilance, regularly reevaluate risks, and encourage teams to produce consistently.
In light of significant disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis, Alabbar pointed out that companies need to develop resilience before problems happen. “There was hard lesson for everyone. We had some hard lessons during the COVID pandemic as well as other crises. When you learn from 2008 and from COVID, you have to build an agile and resilient business that can handle these circumstances," Alabbar explained.
