Hussain Sajwani

Hussain Sajwani, a UAE national, is the founder of the global property development company, DAMAC Properties.

A self-made billionaire, Sajwani has been recognized as one of the most powerful Arabs, among many other accolades.

Sajwani is a pioneer of the property market expansion in Dubai. In the mid-90s, he built several hotels to accommodate the growing influx of people coming to the emirate to do business and trade. In 2002, he identified a growing market opportunity and established DAMAC Properties, which has grown to become one of the largest property development companies in the Middle East.

Today, DAMAC Properties has several prestigious projects in key global cities like Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, Baghdad, Toronto, Maldives, Miami, and London, employing nearly 2,000 professionals.

To date, DAMAC Properties has delivered c. 39,400 homes and has c. 28,000 at various stages of progress.

As a market leader, DAMAC Properties has also joined forces with some of the most recognizable lifestyle brands, to bring distinguished living concepts to the market. Projects include luxury apartments and villas with interiors by Italian fashion house Versace Home, Fendi Casa, and Just Cavalli and the uniquely conceptualized Paramount Hotels & Resorts, which delivers serviced living at its most opulent.

As an astute businessman and investor, Sajwani also has a proven track record of successful forays into the global equity and capital markets.

Under his strategic investment arm, The DICO Group (www.dicogroup.com), he currently holds investment portfolios of securities in a number of regional and global markets. DICO focuses on investments in new concepts, private equities, mergers and acquisitions and holds majority and minority holdings in publicly traded companies and industries like luxury fashion, real estate, hospitality, manufacturing, and more.

The most recent acquisition for The DICO Group was of the Italian fashion group Roberto Cavalli SPA which was finalized in December 2019.

Some of the DICO Group’s most notable investments include DAMAC Towers Nine Elms in London, a luxury resort in the Maldives, and shopping malls in Iraq.

Today the DICO Group’s global footprint extends across North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

A graduate from the University of Washington, he started his career as a Contracts Manager in GASCO, a subsidiary of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company). After a short period, he established his own catering business in 1982.