Mohamed Al Hashemi is an Emirati CEO, author, speaker, and mentor based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Union Coop, one of the largest consumer cooperatives in the UAE, where he oversees a workforce of more than 2,500 employees across retail, real estate, and investment divisions.
His career did not follow a straight line. Over nearly two decades, he has led teams in banking, healthcare, entertainment, and retail. Each time, he walked into an industry he had not worked in before. Each time, he delivered measurable results. That pattern is not accidental. It reflects a particular kind of leadership: the willingness to take on problems that do not come with a manual.
The chapter that put his name on the map was his time at Majid Al Futtaim in Saudi Arabia. Between 2018 and 2023, he led the introduction of commercial cinemas to the Kingdom after a ban that had lasted more than 35 years. It was not just a business launch. It was a cultural moment. He built a team of over 1,300 people, navigated a regulatory environment that had never dealt with this industry, and secured market leadership for VOX Cinemas across the country. As he later told Entrepreneur Middle East: "There was no playbook. We were building the plane while flying it."
"I consider my failures the tuition I paid for success. The one thing you can bet on is things won't go exactly as planned, and that's okay. Adaptation is the real superpower."Mohamed Al Hashemi, Entrepreneur Middle East
Before Saudi Arabia, he spent years at Majid Al Futtaim in the UAE. He managed treasury and financial operations for Carrefour, then led business development and marketing for the healthcare division. Before that, he built his foundation in corporate finance at Emirates Islamic Bank, managing relationships across aviation, construction, and retail. Each role taught him something different about how organizations grow, stall, and recover.
At Union Coop, he brought that cross-industry perspective to a traditional retail environment. When he noticed checkout lines were a persistent pain point, he did not commission a year-long study. He piloted a new payment system in a single store, measured the results, and rolled it out chain-wide. Under his leadership, Union Coop has earned the Nafis Award for Emiratisation and the Golden Spoon Award for Innovation in Food and Grocery Retail.
Beyond the day job, Mohamed holds a number of positions that reflect his broader influence. He is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, a distinction given to individuals under 40 who are shaping the future of their industries. He is a member of the Forbes Business Council, where he publishes regularly on leadership, governance, and business transformation. He serves as Chairman of the Grocery and Hypermarket Business Group within the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of Atelier Digital (a retail-focused artificial intelligence technology firm), and a board member of the UAE Food Platform.
He is also a Certified Board Director through the Hawkamah Institute for Governance and a mentor with the Endeavor Organization, where he has supported high-growth entrepreneurs across the Middle East since 2019. He teaches entrepreneurship at the New Economy Academy in Dubai, where he contributes to the Emirati Entrepreneurship Program at Emirates Towers. He also contributes to programs at the New Media Academy, a digital education initiative launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Mohamed speaks regularly at industry conferences, business forums, and leadership summits, sharing perspectives drawn from nearly two decades of operational experience across banking, healthcare, entertainment, and retail.
"Leadership is not about the title you hold. It is about the decisions you are willing to own when nobody else will."Mohamed Al Hashemi
He has authored three books: Investable, Leading When Everyone Is Watching, and The Execution Gap. All three are available on Amazon. Each one draws on real operational experience rather than abstract theory. He writes regularly on Forbes, Medium, and LinkedIn about the practical challenges facing today's leaders, from the structural failures that kill good strategies to the governance gaps that undermine even the strongest organizations.
His education spans Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford, Cambridge Judge Business School, the University of Cape Town, and Accenture New York. He holds an Executive MBA in Strategic Management and a BA in Business Administration from the UAE.
Mohamed Al Hashemi lives and works in Dubai. He can be reached at [email protected].
