Onwards and upwards for the new A Team at DIFC

Two of the most prominent figures in the Dubai International Financial Centre have had good news in the past couple of weeks.

Ashok Aram, chief executive of Deutsche Bank in the region, has had his role expanded within the bank’s hierarchy, and now also takes on most of Europe with the exceptions of the UK and Germany. He was given charge of Africa last year.

Meanwhile, Arif Amiri, who has been deputy chief executive of DIFC itself for the past year or so, has been made full chief executive under governor Essa Kazim.

The statistical odds on two men with the same double initial letter getting significant promotions in such a short space of time must surely be long. You might call them the A Team.

Mr Aram’s leg up comes as part of the big restructuring of Deutsche’s global operations announced recently by the new joint chief executive, John Cryan.

Mr Cryan was given the top job – alongside co-CEO Jurgen Fitschen – at Germany’s most prestigious bank with the task of reducing costs and increasing capital buffers, and it was clear that some regions no longer fitted with Deutsche’s world view.

The bank is reducing its headcount by 26,000 and pulling out of 10 countries outside its German base, but so far the Middle East has avoided the axe.

Deutsche’s seven global regions are being reduced to five, one of which – Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) – will be Mr Ashok’s domain. He will probably be based in London.

Mr Aram has been with Deutsche for two decades, having been the youngest MD in the bank’s history.

He has been in charge of the Middle East since 2010, based in DIFC, following a Deutsche tradition that gained it a reputation as one of the centre’s most supportive members, going right back to the DIFC’s beginnings in 2004.

But the London posting will be something of a homecoming for him. He was in charge of global banking there for a number of years before the Middle East beckoned.

With his cosmopolitan background (born in India and educated in Tokyo) and multilingual skills (English, German, Japanese, Hindi, Tamil and improving Arabic), it should be a comfortable move for him.

But, as one of the most erudite and communicative of the DIFC’s elite, he will be missed in Dubai.

One compensation is that Mr Amiri’s promotion puts an equally sophisticated and approachable businessman in another of the DIFC’s top jobs.

Mr Amiri was made deputy CEO last year, coming from a successful career in real estate as chief operating officer at Emaar. Couple that with his earlier Emaar jobs in investor relations and corporate governance, and eight years learning the corporate banking business at HSBC, and he ticks the two main boxes – real estate and finance – required of a successful DIFC executive.

His training in aviation management at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida also ticks another important Dubai box.

Most recently, he was the architect of the strategic partnership between DIFC and the telecoms group du to give the centre a modern, efficient and price-attractive communications system.

Mr Kazim has obviously decided that Mr Amiri is exactly the person needed to guide the DIFC through its ambitious plans for the next decade. It will expand threefold in terms of physical presence, number of member firms and financial assets under management, at a time of increasing competition in the global financial scene.

Now that certainly is a job for the A Team.

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