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The Arab world has weathered many false starts, from Dubai's 2009 debt collapse to the Arab Spring and the disruptive rise of Isil and falling oil prices. Yet the region's appetite for trade and investment endures.
Resembling enormous containers stacked like tipping books, Arena is a striking addition to Jeddah's Al Nahdah roadside. That was precisely the intention, says general manager Hussein Madi, for a gym that preaches and practises doing things differently.
Strolling through the glass-roofed atrium of Coutts' Strand headquarters, Mohammad Kamal Syed offers an impromptu history of philanthropy, pausing beside a portrait of Angela Burdett-Coutts, the Victorian heiress and friend of Dickens who gave her fortune away.
Over four decades, the World Economic Forum has grown into the annual gathering of the world's leading chief executives and politicians. At over 1,500 metres, the Alpine town of Davos lends them rare perspective.
As a child, Yasmin Agha spurned dolls and toy cars for receipt books and branding, casting her parents as customers. Years later, poised to begin a PhD in England, her plans took an unexpected turn.
In tempestuous times, a rare breed of trader still posts incredible returns. Meet Philippe Jabre, the Franco-Lebanese star and founder of one of Europe's best-performing hedge funds, born in Beirut to a brewing dynasty.
As I make my way through the busy streets of Ashrafieh, it might be due to my biased perception but my eyes are drawn to Maktabis everywhere. And all of them in the carpet business. There’s Nivine Maktabi’s Oumnia, with its modernist tribal rugs, Hadi Maktabi’s traditional Oriental carp…
Founder of womenswear label Dough, Dima Kassis began in Morocco, recasting the region's colour-rich, heavily embroidered caftans as minimalist pieces in muted navies and blacks, softened with lace yet faithful to their original silhouette.
An athlete, adventurer and entrepreneur, the Dubai-based Yousuf Al Hashimi carries wisdom well beyond his 27 years. Co-founder of Ahdaaf Sports Club, he is on a mission to get the Middle East moving and its waistline shrinking.
In our part of the world, family businesses hold profound weight, their inherited wisdom guiding decisions for generations. The world's most enduring luxury brands, our writer finds, regard their own pasts in much the same way.
Founded by an Indian family from Kerala, this third-generation, Dubai-based group has grown from a single 1960 school into an educational empire valued at as much as 550 million, with bold plans for the decade ahead.
Anna Karenina's famous opening, that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, frames our writer's argument. Family businesses, like Tolstoy's families, tend to command attention precisely when their fortunes falter.