How do you define innovation today in an age dominated by AI?

I think that innovation always unfolds in two phases. The first is the breakthrough phase — the invention of a transformative technology, like large language models in the last couple of years made huge progress in generative AI. This is when excitement builds, expectations rise, and there’s often hype — usually overhype. But then comes the second phase: application. This is when we move from fascination to real-world utility, when corporations, startups, and individuals learn how to apply the technology across industries, workflows, and daily life.

Right now, I believe we’re transitioning from the first phase into the second. The foundational models are already powerful, they can write, reason, create, and assist in numerous ways. But the real wave of innovation is just beginning – not in building better models, but in expanding the list of their applications and reimagining products, services, and experiences using them.

What makes the transition from foundation models to Agentic AI so important?

Foundation models are extraordinary at processing users’ input; they can write, translate, and create. Agentic AI introduces autonomy, allowing systems to reason, plan, and act on behalf of users in real life. Rather than offering ten options or giving a list of next steps to follow, an intelligent agent interprets intent, executes a series of steps, and delivers a result. Yango Group’s ecosystem works toward making life easier and more intuitive. For example, an AI system could help a user find a nearby restaurant, reserve a table, and arrange transport – all within one connected experience powered by a shared intelligence layer.

This shift is especially relevant in high-growth economies like the UAE, which have already invested heavily in AI infrastructure. Success in AI will increasingly depend on developing application-specific solutions that can seamlessly interact across systems, navigating multiple functions, making calls, and executing sequential, real-world actions.

How does localisation influence AI adoption at Yango Group?

For AI to work, it must first be understood linguistically, culturally, and socially. Yango Group designs products that adapt to each market instead of exporting one template worldwide. Yango Yasmina, a bilingual voice assistant tailored specifically for the Middle East, was trained on extensive Khaleeji Arabic data, refined by regional linguists to be authentic. This localisation philosophy aligns with the global trend of nationalisation of technology, where over 60 countries have introduced national AI strategies to promote sovereignty and data protection. By investing in local data infrastructure and regional expertise, Yango Group ensures that innovation feels native rather than imported.

How do the UAE’s AI policy and regulation frameworks shape Yango’s work?

The UAE’s frameworks encourage responsible experimentation. There is an ecosystem where companies can innovate confidently, knowing the guardrails are clear and credible.

From the National AI Strategy 2031 to the Charter for the Development and Use of AI and the Ethical AI Toolkit, each initiative emphasises accountability, transparency, and human-centric design. Yango Group experienced this first-hand when it earned the Dubai AI Seal Tier S certification, a rigorous benchmark assessing safety, privacy, and governance in AI. Beyond validation, the certification unlocks access to government projects and wider participation in Dubai’s AI-driven economy. Such frameworks are vital in an era when cyber risks grow alongside innovation — global cybercrime costs surpassed $9tn in 2024, while the Middle East recorded its highest breach costs in a decade. With this in mind, we value the UAE’s transparent policies and regulatory frameworks that support innovation while ensuring accountability in the sector.

Beyond business efficiency, how do you see AI contributing to community life?

AI is quietly becoming part of everyday life in the UAE, so much so that 97 per cent of residents now use it in some form. From getting groceries delivered to finding the fastest route home, technology is no longer just about efficiency; it’s about enriching how people live, connect, and even have fun.

In Dubai, Yango Group’s use of autonomous delivery robots is a glimpse of how AI can improve daily living, reducing traffic, saving time, and supporting the city’s goal to build smarter, more sustainable communities. When innovation focuses on people, it improves the rhythm of city life and strengthens the sense of connection that defines the UAE’s progress. But its impact goes beyond convenience.

AI is also bringing a ton of creativity and entertainment into everyday life. From generating and improving images to possibly turning a simple idea into a short animated story, there are dozens of ways AI can be used to entertain and spark creativity in us.

This is the power of AI. It doesn’t just optimize one thing, it enhances many, quietly adding innovation into the rhythm of daily life.

Looking ahead, what defines the next phase of AI?

I believe the next phase of AI won’t just be about enhancing existing products but about reimagining them from the ground up. We’re moving beyond simply adding AI as a feature. The real transformation lies in building entirely new experiences where AI is not just a tool, but the foundation.

This means rethinking workflows, interfaces, and user expectations. Many traditional processes will become obsolete, and not partially, but entirely, replaced by intelligent, agentic AI that anticipate needs, act autonomously, and adapt in real time. The future belongs to services designed for the AI era, not enhanced with AI but rebuilt from scratch to unlock capabilities we couldn’t achieve before.

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) made a strong return to GITEX GLOBAL this year, underscoring its commitment to Abu Dhabi’s digital transformation goals. The exchange unveiled three major AI-driven solutions designed to simplify investor interactions, streamline internal operations, and enhance accessibility through the TAMM platform.

In this conversation, Marios Kampouridis, chief technology and digital officer (CTDO), discusses how ADX is positioning itself as a digital-first exchange, balancing innovation with regulatory rigour, and embracing AI’s transformative potential.

ADX was at GITEX after many years. What was the key focus of your presence, and how does it align with Abu Dhabi’s digital strategy?

It’s been great for ADX. We are very proud to announce three new AI initiatives that have come to the market. These initiatives are very much in sync with Abu Dhabi’s digital strategy. Our goal is to launch solutions for investors and issuers to make their lives easier and position the exchange as a digital-first, key hub.

You are launching three specific AI solutions. Can you quickly run us through the key function of each of these tools?

We are launching three tools that provide friendliness, ease of use, and more insightful detail for all stakeholders.

1. AI Financial Insights: This tool takes lengthy financial statements (sometimes more than 100 pages) and uses an AI agent to talk through the key points, highlighting specific references in the document. A major advantage is that you can pause the agent and ask any question, such as comparing net revenue across different years, cutting analysis time from hours to minutes.
2. AI Court Order Agent: Used by our post-trade teams internally, this solution addresses the significant overhead of processing court orders. The agent can analyse the court order, take action, email the concerned party, and close the case in just five minutes, dramatically down from the usual 30 minutes.
3. TAMM for ADX Investors: We’re integrating with TAMM, Abu Dhabi’s unified government services platform. As an investor, you will be able to start trading, see your specific portfolio status and, in the longer term, subscribe to IPOs. Non-investors can also create an account. Crucially, you can query an AI agent within TAMM for an insightful knowledge base, comparing your portfolio versus the market or specific assets versus others.

As you roll out these powerful tools, how does ADX balance the need for rapid innovation with stringent security and regulatory considerations?

We are always very close with both the regulator and our security team. We use spring-based methodologies that ensure security is at the heart of everything we do daily. We do not leave the security assessment for the end; instead, we work with security at every milestone, allowing us to continuously improve and stay in line with the necessary standards.

As a CTDO, what is your perspective on how AI will change the landscape of traditional jobs and business in the coming years?

AI is here to stay, and I don’t believe this is a bubble like the early 2000s, as the technology is being proven daily with use cases that make a serious impact on productivity. I believe that in a very small number of years — single digits — we will see routine and mundane traditional jobs start to be done better through AI. This will allow humans to focus on less mundane tasks, elevating business output.

Where do you see the biggest challenges or negatives in the current deployment of AI for a financial institution?

One major challenge is that while AI can deliver something I might traditionally take a month to do in five minutes, it’s often “not mature enough” to deliver it exactly how I need it, especially concerning security and regulation. This creates significant overhead because it takes more time to “clean up” after it. We have to ‘babysit it’ to ensure the code quality is up to standard for financial applications.

What is your vision for helping ADX be seen as a digital-first exchange globally?

Our job remains finance and exchange, and we take great pride in our history and what we’ve achieved over the last 25 years. Over the last three years, we have brought ADX to the forefront using cutting-edge trading engines and platforms.

My biggest focus now is to keep up with the traditional way of being in business while continuously putting in innovative and productive solutions to help my teams and the business produce better products in the coming years.

Finally, what is the one phrase that always brings you focus the pace of things gets frenetic?

Look at the foundation and remember the fundamentals — it always pays off.

Read: ADX lists region’s first thematic ETF focused on quantum computing

Why even the best-intentioned inclusion strategies fail, and how leaders in the Middle East can turn awareness into lasting cultural impact

Inclusion has evolved from a nice-to-have aspiration into a strategic imperative, and yet many organisations struggle to translate intention into impact.

What makes some inclusion efforts stall or even flop? In my work with different teams in the Middle East, I’ve seen pervasive derailers undermining progress that often occur below the radar of leadership.

Below are five of the most common points of pitfalls, along with how leaders in the region must address them to ensure inclusion becomes sustainable rather than symbolic.

1. Treating culture as a one-size-fits-all template

A frequent misstep is believing that a “best-in-class” inclusion framework can simply be implemented into the Middle East without adaptation. Culture can’t be standardised – especially in this region, where expatriate and local dynamics, generational mix, and linguistic-ethnic diversity coexist. We have been seeing an increasing shift toward microcultures, recognizing that multiple cultural layers exist within large organizations rather than enforcing a single uniform culture.

When inclusion is treated as a rigid external template, it often feels alien, imposed, or tokenistic to local teams. How to avoid this? Co-creation. Core organizational values should be blended within the local context, but the flexibility for each individual to express their identity should remain. Inclusion grows when people feel the framework reflects them, not when they must fit into it.

2. Ignoring the maturity of the business

Inclusion strategies should align with a business’ lifecycle and transformation journey. An early-stage startup, for instance, has a fluid structure and more tolerance for experimentation. A large, legacy enterprise may require more structural reforms and mindset shifts before bold inclusion initiatives take hold.

While many organsations prioritise inclusion, they often struggle with execution capability. When inclusion ambition exceeds organisational readiness either in systems, leadership, or employee culture, initiatives stall, become superficial, or provoke resistance. This can be avoided by conducting a diagnostic of maturity before launching programmes: assessing governance, changing capacity, communication systems, and leadership bandwidth.

Ambitions should be aligned with readiness – over time, inclusion accelerates as an organisation evolves.

3. Weak leadership accountability

It is not enough to delegate inclusion to HR or diversity teams without visible, sustained commitment from the top. Very few organizations connect inclusion outcomes directly to business metrics such as profitability or productivity. Without this alignment, inclusion becomes a side project, not a strategic enabler.

Employees pay more attention to what leaders do than what they say. When senior executives sponsor initiatives, mentor diverse talent, lean into discomfort, and integrate inclusion into performance metrics, they send a signal that inclusion matters. Without that signal, efforts become fragmented or lose credibility. Inclusion goals should thus be made measurable and part of leadership scorecards by implementing inclusive behaviour, feedback loops, and learning journeys at the senior level.

Fifty-four per cent of women in the UAE versus 43 per cent of women globally have confirmed that opportunities provided to them by leadership is a key enabler for success at work. Leaders should therefore be held accountable to ensure that inclusive career advancement isn’t a discretionary effort, but a core leadership responsibility.

4. Neglecting psychological safety

Inclusion cannot thrive in an environment where people fear judgment, exclusion, or reprisal. Psychological safety (the belief that one can speak, question, or make mistakes without penalty) is not optional. It is foundational. If managers do not create psychological safety on their teams, inclusion initiatives plateau; diverse voices remain silent, ideas go unshared, and trust erodes.

Psychological safety is a cornerstone of team collaboration as it allows for the creation of norms around safe dialogue by encouraging dissent, reward vulnerability, and transparent feedback response. Safe spaces, structured reflection, and inclusive facilitation should be built to reinforce safety over time.

5. Reducing inclusion to gender equality

Focusing solely on gender misses the breadth of what inclusion must cover. To name a few: abilities, generational diversity, neurodiversity, cultural backgrounds, and thought diversity. Narrowing inclusion to a gender-only model leads to ceiling effects as it gets siloed into women’s programs while other dimensions weaken.

Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2025 report revealed that 20 per cent of women in the UAE have experienced non-inclusive behaviours in the past year compared to 28% globally. Less than half of these women reported their concerns, however, caused by a fear of consequences. This highlights a wider cultural resistance to inclusion that goes beyond gender lines. It is therefore imperative to monitor sentiment and behaviour across all dimensions in the workplace.

Expanding inclusion

Inclusion does not thrive by accident. It is sustained when leaders align culture, accountability, and safety. The Middle East’s unique mix of nationalities, evolving business models, and ambition demand inclusion not as a checkbox but as a living business principle.

For leaders in this region, the path forward is clear: diagnose your organisation’s maturity, commit publicly, build psychological safety, and expand inclusion beyond gender. The real success lies when the intention becomes embedded in everyday decisions, behaviours, and outcomes. Inclusion isn’t a separate programme – it’s a leadership journey, and the real test isn’t in launching initiatives, but in ensuring people feel safe, seen, and empowered every day.

The writer is the MD and Purpose, Culture and Inclusion leader at Deloitte Middle East.

Across the GCC, leadership has emerged as the most valuable determinant of performance — more than capital, regulation, or technology. In a region investing heavily in transformation under national visions such as UAE Vision 2031 and Saudi Vision 2030, the ability to attract, align, and sustain top talent through purposeful leadership is becoming a defining competitive advantage.

Explain purposeful leadership affects employee retention.

Retention is not a perk problem — it’s a purpose problem. Across sovereign enterprises and high-growth family firms, people stay where they feel part of something bigger than a paycheck. Purpose gives work meaning, and meaning anchors loyalty.

“Purposeful leadership strengthens pipelines and improves retention.”

A purposeful leader connects vision to daily work. In the GCC, where national ambitions already create a shared sense of direction, leaders who align corporate missions to these broader agendas attract and keep exceptional talent. When employees see their contribution tied to national progress and innovation, loyalty deepens. The result: less attrition, more advocacy, and organisations that become magnets for talent—not training grounds for competitors.

The role of leadership in building organisational resilience.

Resilience is the ability to absorb shocks without losing shape. In an era of pandemics, oil-price swings, and technological disruption, leadership determines whether a company bends or breaks.

Resilient organizations are led by those who are adaptive, transparent, and calm under pressure. They invest in capability before crises hit and invite diverse viewpoints because resilience depends on options, not obedience.

During the pandemic, Gulf champions did more than survive — they reinvented. Emirates Group reported record profits of Dhs22.7bn ($6.2bn) in FY 2024/25, up 18 per cent year-on-year even after corporate tax, with revenues of Dhs145.4bn and cash reserves of Dhs53.4bn. ADNOC Gas achieved its highest-ever quarterly net income in Q2 2025 — $1.385bn, up 16 per cent despite lower prices. Saudi Aramco maintained profitability, posting $24.5bn in Q2 2025 through disciplined capital allocation.

These examples show resilience is deliberate — a result of leadership choices that turn adversity into advantage.

How leadership gaps affect strategy execution

Even the best strategy collapses at the point of leadership weakness. Execution depends on alignment, not just planning.

Leadership gaps appear in three areas: clarity, capability, and cohesion. When clarity falters, priorities conflict; when capability lags, decisions stall; when cohesion breaks, silos multiply. In many GCC organisations, fragmentation — not strategy — is the obstacle. Once alignment was restored through coaching, facilitation, and disciplined decision cadences, execution accelerated without rewriting the plan.

Leadership as a core business asset

Leadership activates every other asset: capital, technology, and brand. Investors already price it in. Private-equity firms assess leadership quality before acquisition; sovereign funds evaluate CEO bench strength before deploying capital.

Leadership is renewable intellectual and emotional capital that compounds returns. The companies that manage leadership with the same rigor as ESG or cyber risk will define the next decade of outperformance.

Best practices for leaders

Effective leadership in the GCC starts with communicating for context, not control—shaping understanding so people can act with judgment. It continues with a coaching stance, especially in young, ambitious workforces where ownership matters more than directives. The best leaders model strategic calm: in fast-moving markets, composure is the new charisma. Decisions stay anchored in values, because technology accelerates choices but ethics compound them.

Finally, leadership becomes scalable when it’s institutionalised through repeatable rituals—decision cadences, reflection forums, and feedback loops that make good leadership a system, not a personality.

Companies in the GCC exemplifying leadership

Several regional organisations show what disciplined leadership looks like in practice. ADNOC combines governance excellence with Emirati leadership development. Emirates Group demonstrates agility and customer-centric innovation. Mubadala balances financial return with national capability, while Saudi Aramco pairs technical mastery with credible global storytelling. In the private sector, Emaar and Majid Al Futtaim reveal how founders can institutionalise culture so it outlasts individuals. Their shared hallmark: leadership continuity and deliberate talent cultivation—the invisible infrastructure of sustained performance.

Lessons the world can learn from GCC leadership.

GCC nations have mastered vision-led transformation — thinking in decades, not quarters. Vision 2030 and 2040 frameworks show that ambition can coexist with disciplined delivery. The region also exemplifies unity of purpose: where others debate direction, Gulf leadership moves with coherence.

Another lesson is resilience through diversification — transforming from oil dependence to technology, tourism, and sustainability. Diversification here is not just policy; it’s mindset—the ability to re-imagine identity without losing heritage. The GCC also demonstrates intergenerational balance, pairing heritage wisdom with next-generation innovation — a leadership model many mature economies now study.

What are the pros and cons linked to family businesses?

Family enterprises remain the heartbeat of Gulf economies, contributing a significant share of non-oil GDP. Their strengths lie in long-term vision, deep trust, and agility. When purpose and family values align, they outperform bureaucracy. Yet challenges persist: blurred boundaries, succession disputes, and resistance to professionalisation. The most successful houses — Al-Futtaim, Al-Ghurair, Kanoo — treat governance as stewardship. Independent boards, clear succession plans, and merit-based leadership protect both legacy and enterprise value. Family governance done well turns inheritance into impact.

Ten tips on handling leadership challenges

Leadership isn’t a title; it’s a responsibility to create clarity, momentum, and results. In the Gulf — where transformation cycles can move faster than budget years — the leaders who endure are those who stay composed under pressure, read context quickly, and act with discipline. Here are ten principles I share with boards and CEOs across the region when the stakes are high.

1. Lead with purpose, performance and prosperity.

Anchor every decision in meaning. When challenges hit, ask: What is the purpose here? Align on these 3Ps so the organization grows without losing its soul.

2. Understand the ecosystem before you lead it.

Map the terrain before you make a move — formal structures, informal power, cultural norms. Great leaders don’t just lead teams; they lead systems.

3. Align behaviours with values.

Culture is shaped by what leaders tolerate, not what they declare. When values and behaviors diverge, trust erodes. Make values visible through action.

4. Build your leadership brand on transparency and trust.

People follow what they can predict. Share context, invite feedback, and be seen doing what you said you would do. Consistency is credibility.

5. Use data and behavioural insight together.

KPIs reveal the “what”; observation and coaching reveal the “why.” Combine both to understand how performance and culture interact.

6. Cultivate emotional intelligence and situational fluency.

Read the room before you speak. Adapt tone, timing, and message to the moment. In complex ecosystems, emotional range is strategic agility.

7. Frame — don’t just inform.

Information overload kills clarity. Frame the issue: Why it matters, what’s at stake, what’s next. Great framing converts data into direction.

8. Lead in the invisible spaces.

Real influence often hides in corridor conversations and unspoken alliances. Listen between the lines; surface what others avoid naming.

9. Enable others.

Coaching, mentoring, and succession aren’t add-ons—they’re risk management. Build depth so leadership continuity becomes the organisation’s safety net.

10. Measure impact and embed change.

Leadership effectiveness is a practice, not an event. Define metrics, revisit progress, and reinforce behavious until they become default.

Bottom line: Handling leadership challenges requires composure and repeatable discipline — maintain situational awareness, make the next right decision, communicate it clearly, and reinforce the behaviors that compound over time — decisively, visibly, and with purpose.

The writer is the founder of Ribott Partners, a board and leadership advisor, and coach.

Read: Leadership lessons: What’s good about great?