Meraas Hosts Delegation from Manchester Business School

•    International Students Tour CITY WALK and BOXPARK

Dubai-UAE: 17 March, 2015 – Dubai-based holding company Meraas today hosted a delegation of 18 student executives from the Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program offered by Manchester Business School (MBS), the UK's largest campus-based business and management school.

The initiative aimed to provide GEMBA students with insights into the local economy and provide an overview of the complexities of international business operations.   

The GEMBA students, all C-suite executives from Europe, America, Africa, Asia and the GCC region, visited the Meraas corporate office to observe the functioning of a Meraas business and gain an understanding of the diverse sectors that Meraas entities operate in. Senior executives from Meraas also offered pointers on strategy, marketing, leadership, innovation, and project management. The tour concluded with a visit to CITY WALK and BOXPARK, two projects recently launched by Meraas.  

Randa Bessiso, Director Middle East, Manchester Business School, said: “Our program aims to transform our participants both on a professional and personal level. In offering the students an opportunity to interact with businesses and enjoy an in-depth experience by learning through observation, we provide them with a platform that allows them to better absorb the practicalities and techniques involved in managing evolving business growth and challenges.

“Meraas is an ideal case study for our student executives to discover and learn from. The holding company is developing projects that redefine the industries in which they operate. We are confident that our program participants have benefited from this visit which offered them an overall view of how a local company with huge ambitions is able to scale up and mark its presence in an extremely competitive market such as Dubai.”

The students’ visit to Meraas entities reaffirms Dubai’s leading status as a global business hub. As of June 2014, more than 160,000 companies were registered with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce – making it one of the largest chambers of commerce in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Dubai has also been ranked among the top 10 economies in the world that have improved the most according to ‘Doing Business 2015’ report released by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation.

Hamda Al Enazi, Business Development Manager, Qatar Exchange, said: “The visit to Meraas today was an eye-opener. I always heard about the company. Today I was given a chance to understand what Meraas actually does and the massive projects it is involved in developing.  I was also impressed by the management’s flexibility and openness to new ideas. BOXPARK is a great example of how concepts can be imaginatively brought to life. I have realized how even the simplest ideas can achieve great results.”

Another participant at GEMBA, Andrew Evans, Former CFO Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks, said: “Today we were part of an extremely insightful discussion with senior executives covering the history of Meraas, its impressive growth and current portfolio of projects. The rapid pace of projects from concept to completion is incredible. The briefing was followed by a visit to the unique development of BOXPARK, which is unlike anything I have ever seen. It is both modern and functional and is a natural fit to the area it borders.”

Diane Millward, Head of Operations and Finance, Reclaim Fund Ltd., said: “I was very impressed with the visit this morning. MBS made an excellent choice by coordinating this visit to Meraas. We got to experience the real flavor of Dubai. Meraas representatives were open and generous in sharing their insights. It was good to visit BOXPARK and actually see first-hand what we had learned during the presentation.”