Building For The Future

As CEO of WASL Asset Management group, he Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim is responsible for one of the largest real estate management companies in Dubai. In an exclusive interview, he talks growth, iconic projects, and the fate of the Emirate’s real estate market.

- Neil King

A LOOK AT SOME OF Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim’s recent diary entries will probably tell you all you need to know about the non-stop nature of his high-level commitments.

Prior to making some key announcements at GITEX Technology Week, the CEO of wasl Asset Management Group was in Bali for the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group. And just days earlier he launched wasl gate onto Dubai’s freehold property market – the latest project to come out of the Dubaibased real estate management company.

The high-profile appointments he keeps are testament not only to his business acumen in a number of fields, but also to the widespread respect he commands in the UAE and across the globe.

You don’t need to take my word for that. As well as his main role with wasl, Al Qassim is the vice chairman and managing director of Emirates NBD, chairman of Emirates Islamic Bank, vice chairman of the Dubai Real Estate Corporation, chairman of BNP Paribas Egypt and board member of such companies as Etisalat, DIFC, Amlak Finance, National General Insurance, International Humanitarian City, and more.

Yet with so many hats to wear, the man who has led wasl since 2007 has remarkable clarity of vision, as demonstrated when we meet at the company’s o ces in Bur Dubai to discuss the city’s real estate landscape.

“Thee state of the real estate market is exactly where it needs to be,” he assures, as we talk about the market’s recent dip.

“Every prosperous economy is bound to go through a cycle, and this is Dubai’s calm before the storm that we are taking advantage of by evaluating our next ventures and carefully studying the market.