The UAE as a Hub for Private Equity, Asset Management and Institutional Investment

The UAE Is Not Just Attracting Capital. It Is Institutionalising It.

For much of the past decade, commentary around the UAE’s financial growth has focused on capital inflows, headline transactions and sovereign wealth deployment. That narrative is now incomplete. The UAE is no longer simply attracting capital. It is structuring, governing and deploying it locally. Decision-making is embedded in-market. Investment platforms are regulated within domestic financial centres. Leadership teams are based permanently in the region. This shift has material consequences for private equity executive search in the UAE, asset management leadership and institutional investment governance.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi: Scale and Institutional Weight

Dubai and Abu Dhabi perform different but connected functions within the UAE’s capital ecosystem. Most asset and wealth managers are based in the Dubai International Financial Centre. DIFC remains the higher-volume hub, reporting 7,700 active companies in the first half of 2025. It continues to attract global asset and wealth platforms, particularly those focused on regional distribution, fundraising and client coverage. Abu Dhabi Global Market hosts fewer firms by number but includes a concentration of larger global institutions. Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Brevan Howard, Apollo and Tikehau Capital operate from ADGM. By the end of 2025, ADGM hosted 161 asset and fund managers overseeing 220 funds, with assets under management 48 percent higher in the third quarter of 2025 than the same period in 2024.

The distinction is structural. Dubai retains commercial scale and energy. Abu Dhabi is increasingly positioning itself as a long-term institutional capital base, with governance architecture and regulatory development at its core. Private equity activity spans both centres. In the first half of 2025, the UAE recorded 271 M&A deals, the highest total in the Middle East during that period. Transactions are structured within DIFC and ADGM frameworks, including private credit regimes that allow managers to combine lending and equity.

What is changing is not simply deal volume, but depth and complexity. Private credit frameworks, hybrid capital structures, tokenisation regulation and sustainability-linked finance are becoming embedded in operating models. This signals ambition to compete with established global financial centres on legal clarity, regulatory sophistication and product breadth.

From Regional Coverage to Embedded Leadership

As capital platforms structure locally, the talent model is evolving.

Historically, regional roles often meant oversight from London, New York or Asia, supported by lean teams on the ground. Today, firms are localising governance, risk, investment and operational leadership within DIFC and ADGM-regulated entities. This structural shift is redefining private equity executive search in the UAE, as boards and executive teams must reflect regulatory accountability within the jurisdiction in which they operate.

We are seeing demand for investment professionals with both global deal exposure and regional regulatory fluency, CFOs and COOs experienced in operating within common law-based financial free zones, and risk and compliance leaders capable of navigating increasingly sophisticated frameworks. Investor relations professionals with deep understanding of sovereign and institutional capital are also in growing demand. Asset and wealth management leadership remains more concentrated in Dubai. Larger institutional and sovereign-linked platforms are increasingly anchored in Abu Dhabi. Private equity teams operate across both.

The market is becoming defined less by transaction experience alone and more by governance alignment, regulatory literacy and long-term capital strategy.

The Implications for Capital and Leadership

The UAE’s capital ecosystem is moving beyond growth metrics. It is embedding permanence. As platforms structure locally and build institutional governance in-market, the UAE transitions from being a destination for capital to being a jurisdiction of capital. For global private equity and asset management firms, the question is no longer whether to establish presence in the UAE. It is how deeply to institutionalise it.

Private Equity Executive Search UAE

Hanson Search Group advises private equity firms, asset managers and institutional investors on board, investment and functional leadership appointments across the UAE. Through our specialist Hanson Capital practice, we operate under an ADGM licence, with offices and senior leadership based in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai. T This allows us to support private equity executive search UAE mandates within ADGM and DIFC-regulated entities, working closely with clients on governance, investment and executive appointments aligned to the specific legal and regulatory frameworks of each jurisdiction. As the UAE’s private capital ecosystem continues to mature, leadership requirements will become more structurally defined, not less. Firms that recognise this shift early will build institutional depth rather than temporary presence.

If you would like to discuss how senior hiring requirements are evolving across private equity and asset management in the UAE, please get in touch with our team for a confidential conversation.