Thought leadership and Networking in Dubai

Having spent the past few days meeting business owners and speakers in Dubai, I can happily report that there is a robust sense of positivity amongst the business community over here. The best thing, though, is something I suspected but needed to prove: there is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom within this community that is still largely untapped and just waiting to burst forth.

Reg Athwal who runs the Professional Speakers Association for the Middle East was on top form as he explained his new venture OneTVO (an Internet TV channel for business that is going to spead to 24 countries!) I had already referred to Reg in my REAL Thought Leaders talk, but I wanted to give him some more exposure.? Reg is all about helping entrepreneurs unleash and express their talent, whether it’s through his speaking, writing or executive consultancy.

Proof that networking works: At 8am Wednesday morning, I had a meeting with Bijay Shah, executive director for BNI in the Middle East. Bijay introduced me to Dave Crane who became one of my best friends in the space of about 20 minutes, as well as Clive Power who runs an excellent tutoring company called PowerTutoring and whose positive energy and enthusiasm for helping kids is infectious. His book is going to be amazing!

Reg introduced me to Kelly Watkins who was speaking earlier in the week, and we have lots to follow up on as well. I even managed to introduce two of my clients to each other (the lovely, hilarious Audra Lamoon from Your Impact and the inspirational NLP trainer Carol Talbot from MatrixDubai) and we met Carol’s friends as well.

And I heard exciting ideas from 18 other leading edge professionals during my time here and all I can say is… I’ll be back! Week of 11th May in fact, if you are interested.

A great flow of thought leadership is about to emanate from the desert reborn as Dubai and I am very excited to be here to witness, guide and support it.