Guru Of Fintech

Gaurav Dhar, a tech investor and second-generation fintech entrepreneur in Dubai, has a keen eye on the sector in Africa, saying the continent will see larger and larger funds coming into enabling environments-and there are also some key lessons from the Middle East.

- Renuka Methil

At the Dubai Fintech Summit in May, Gaurav Dhar is outside the lavish Madinat Jumeirah hotel where the event is being held, walking out of the venue into the afternoon sun in a dapper blue suit. Like the weather by this chic coastal property, he is warm and welcoming, referring to our chat a few weeks earlier.

As the Group CEO of Marshal Fintech Partners, these are the events you will typically find him at in the spiffy Middle Eastern emirate, those that focus on investments, fintechs, startups, venture capital, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Just like Dubai, the city he was born and raised in, his specialties too are as dynamic and diverse.

Like any third-generation expatriate, Dhar says he has a great sense of pride locating his activities out of the glistening emirate, yet doing business for the world, even for Africa.

"I consider myself an ambassador of the UAE. I have Indian roots, but for all intents and purposes, I consider myself an honorary Emirati. Because there is this pride when you [have been] part of the story of building this country in some way, shape or form." Dhar's grandfather came to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the early 1970s to become the General Manager of General Motors, when the country had just been carved out as seven emirates from its hitherto existence as the Trucial States.

Dubai was still a dusty city being developed around a port, bringing in tidings and tidy profits from the sea.

"The UAE was its own little paradise, and now is this behemoth global player... Our business evolved along with the country-it was a very side-by-side story," says Dhar about how after his grandfather, his father, Anil, too followed in the late 1970s and took to "the landscape that was fresh, exciting, mixed and new".