Celebrating the Middle East’s Top Executives and CEOs

On the cusp of its 10th anniversary, Forbes Middle East celebrates the most influential business leaders in the Middle East for the seventh consecutive year.

In October, Forbes Middle East unveiled the region’s top executives and CEOs for 2019 at a spectacular Global Meets Local gala dinner. This was the seventh annual gala dinner where Forbes Middle East revealed its ranking of the Top 50 Regional Executives Heading Global Companies and the Top 50 International CEOs Heading Local Companies.

The 26 high-profile awardees included Melda Yasar Cebe from Kraft Heinz Africa & Middle East, Mazin Khoury from American Express, Norm Gilsdorf from Honeywell International Inc., Kez Taylor from ALEC and Les Male from Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, was revealed as the top international CEO heading a local company. “I am going to take this award as recognition not just of the ability to make Dubai Airports the largest and hopefully the most successful airport in the world but also on behalf of my team, drawn from 70 or 80 different nations across the world and for showing that the enterprise of Dubai can produce fantastic social and human results as well as some incredible economic successes,” said Griffiths after accepting his award.

Forbes Middle East also revealed that it will be celebrating its 10th birthday next year, having been producing cuttingedge business research and world-class interviews with business leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators in the Arab world since 2010.

“The connections, partnerships and indeed friendships that we have made over the last decade have been an inspiration to us,” said Justina Eitzinger, Chief Revenue Officer, addressing the crowd. “Looking ahead, we are full of gratitude and excitement.”

The gala was hosted in partnership with Humansoft as platinum partner, EFS as facilities management partner, GBM and Skyline University College as gold partners, ITL World as preferred travel partner, the Ghassan Aboud Group as strategic partner, SEDCO Capital as support partner, and Patchi as preferred chocolate partner.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports and Khuloud Al Omian, Editor-In-Chief of Forbes Middle East as she presents his award

Amr Refaat, Machines CEO at Gulf Business

Alexa Siersdorfer wife of Dietmar Siersdorfer, CEO of Middle East at Siemens, receives his award on his behalf

Welcome address by Justina Eitzinger, Chief Revenue Officer of Forbes Middle East

Caspar Herzberg, President, Middle East & Africa at Schneider Electric

Melda Yasar Cebe, Managing Director at Kraft Heinz Africa & Middle East

Tariq Chauhan, Group CEO and Board Member at EFS Facilities Services Group

Alaa Samir Al Ali, Travel and Tourism CEO at Nirvana

Nader Haffar, Chairman & CEO of KPMG in the Lower Gulf (UAE and Oman), his wife Racha Abdrabbo; from Gulf Business Machines (GBM), Sajdah Al Riyami, Brand & Communnications Specialist; Carlos Robles, Head of Marketing & Communications; and Cherif Morcos, Vice President of Digital Business Solutions

From Ghassan Aboud (L-R): Rajesh Ram Mohan, General Manager - Spare Parts & Lubricants; Jamil Semmak, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing at Ghassan Aboud Cars and Jawed Ali Khan, General Manager - Commercial Vehicles & Heavy Equipment Division

Andrey Dvoychenkov, Managing Director, Arabian Peninsula & Pakistan at Nielsen

Mazin Khoury, CEO, Middle East & North Africa at American Express Middle East

Mostafa AlGuezeri, Managing Director, U.A.E. & Near East Countries at ABB

Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director Middle East & Eurasia at Canon

Salah El Tawm, Senior Director - Operations; Syed Saad Yousuf, General Manager - Oil & Gas Operations; Tariq Chauhan, Group CEO; Satinder Pal Singh, Executive Director; Aliya Dias, Senior Executive - Group Communication; Najwa Makhlouf, General Manager - IWP Operations; and Collin Meyers, Director, Procurement & Supply Chain

From Skyline University College, Firas Al Tabbaa, Deputy Director Marketing & Public Relations and Rakesh Gaur, Director - Marketing & Creative Communications

Naveen Joseph, Co-Founder and Regional Director Operations, iMile Delivery Services and Habeeb Furqan, Head of Sales

Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, Senior Vice President - Technology, Middle East, Africa & Central Eastern Europe at Oracle

Georg Schroeckenfuchs, President & Head, Middle East & North Africa at Novartis Pharma Services

Lubna Yazji, Regional Business Development & Channel Partners Manager at Eaton-ME with guest

Ghassan Mirdad, President, Eastern Middle East at Schlumberger

Nader Haffar, Chairman & CEO at KPMG Lower Gulf

Talal Chihabi, Sales Director, Al Marjan Island LLC

James Michael Lafferty, CEO at Fine Hygienic Holding

Pushpa Nair, General Manager and Iqbal Khan, CEO at the Caterer

From L-R: Schneider Electric’s Ahmed Khashan, Cluster President, Gulf Countries; Caspar Herzberg, President Middle East and Africa; Khuloud Al Omian, Editor-In-Chief at Forbes Middle East; Firdaus Shariff, VP Marketing, Communications and Digital Customer Experience, MEA at Schneider Electric; and Justina Eitzinger, Chief Revenue Officer at Forbes Middle East

Norm Gilsdorf, President, Middle East, Russia & Customs Union at Honeywell International Inc.

Zhang Junguo, Chairman, Middle East at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

Ranjeev Menon, Group CEO at Gulf Warehousing Company

Massimo Falcioni, CEO at Etihad Credit Insurance

Kez Taylor, CEO at ALEC

From Leader Healthcare Group (L-R), Nadeeka Maheswaran, Global Head of Marketing; Sonal Sachdev, Director of Strategic Planning; Sukhdeep Sachdev, Global CEO and Sabu Thomas, Chief Operating Officer

Benjamin Schroeder, SVP, Head of Communications, Siemens Middle East and Alexa Siersdorfer, wife of Dietmar Siersdorfer, CEO of Siemens Middle East

Kavya Pinto, Marketing & Distribution Manager at Forbes Middle East and Reka Sepsy, Director of Corporate Communications, The aurora agency

Yu Tao, President & CEO, Middle East at China State Construction Engineering Corporation

Richard Teng, CEO, Financial Services Regulatory Authority at Abu Dhabi Global Markets

Luciano Poli, President, Dow India, Middle East, North Africa & Turkey at Dow Chemical Company

Les Male, CEO at Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange