What makes a financial centre strong? For Alya Al Zarouni, the answer lies less in skylines and infrastructure than in people. The real test, she writes, is not only whether expertise arrives, but whether it stays, grows and is passed on.
She describes a new profile of talent, one that pairs deep specialist knowledge with the ability to work across finance, technology, data and regulation, and she names trust in a stable legal and regulatory system as the reason mobile professionals choose where to settle. Dubai serves as her example: more than 50,200 people work in over 10,000 companies registered at DIFC, and the DIFC Academy is set to grow tenfold, with room for up to 50,000 learners a year.
The opinion was published by DIFC on 28 September 2026.
The articles published here reflect the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the WAIFC.