Summer Jobs, Dh1 Wage: Lessons That Shaped A New Generation Of Business Leaders

For the new generation, a family legacy is never simply something to inherit.

It can open doors, certainly. But it can also arrive with expectations, history and the knowledge that whatever you build will inevitably be measured against what came before.

That is perhaps the strongest thread running through The New Generation, the latest instalment of Global Indians of the UAE, a year-long Khaleej Times editorial series spotlighting Indian-origin entrepreneurs, thought leaders and trend-makers. These are stories of people born into families whose businesses had already been built, whose reputations had already been earned and whose legacies were already larger than any one individual. Across the stories of the 24 leaders featured in this instalment, responsibility emerges again and again as a recurring theme.

Many of their earliest lessons were deliberately ordinary.

There were summers spent in warehouses, hours on shop floors, rotations through sales, finance and procurement, and days spent simply watching parents and grandparents work.

Mohamed Jasir, Group Vice President, Digital & Business Excellence at Hotpack Global, remembers receiving Dh1 from his father at the end of a workday, a symbolic lesson that value must first be created before it can be earned. Adel Sajan, Group Managing Director of Danube Group, began spending summers in the family warehouse at just 13. Rohan Mehta, Managing Director of Petrochem Middle East, worked his way through frontline sales before moving into operational strategy. Yash Bhatia, Director of Uncle's Shop Building Material Trading, spent childhood summer holidays moving between his father's and grandfather's cabins and the common working areas, observing how business was done.

The lesson appears repeatedly: before leading a business, understand its heartbeat.

There is also a striking willingness to step outside the path laid out for them. Some built businesses of their own before assuming larger family responsibilities. Others spotted needs and opportunities that had little to do with the enterprises they grew up around.

Shifa Yusuff Ali, Founder and CEO of IdeaCrate, turned a mother's search for the right place for her daughter to play into a business that now spans children's entertainment and early education. Ziham Moopen, Founder and Managing Director of Toddler Town British Nursery, drew on her experience as a mother to create the early-years environment she wanted for her own children, while remaining connected to her family's healthcare interests. Amreen Iqbal, Founder of Piece of You, took a lifetime around jewellery and made it intensely personal, turning handwriting, drawings and memories into pieces designed to be worn and passed down.

And then there is technology. Across manufacturing, education, healthcare, retail, logistics and real estate, this generation is digitising, automating and rethinking businesses built in a very different era. Yet that technology is rarely presented as a rejection of the past. It is a way of protecting what matters while changing what must.

That may be the defining quality of this generation.

They are not trying to erase the legacy they inherited. They are carrying it forward, while ensuring that when the business passes to another generation, there is something unmistakably theirs woven into the story too.

Global Indians of the UAE: The Next Tech Generation Global Indians of the UAE: Shafeena Yusuff Ali on art, legacy, motherhood Global Indians of the UAE series: Women on the Rise

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