The UAE Gets Community. CEOs Won’t.
The UAE just announced 2025 is “Year of the Community” and dropped $1.65 billion on community building. Not team retreats or Slack channels—actual economic strategy disguised as human connection.
While Western executives will likely panic-hire Chief Community Officers and build internal social networks nobody uses, Dubai will quietly convert conversations into capital. 190+ companies connected. Founders meeting funders. Startups solving corporate and life problems. It’s measurable ROI from relationship architecture.
The Predictable Western Response
Watch the corporate theater unfold:
Hire expensive community consultants. (Might as well start with Heard.)
Launch engagement platforms measuring vanity metrics
Host networking events aiming for numbers, stale bagels and 5-person panels
Wonder why "community doesn't work"
What Dubai Actually Did
They built strategic relationship orchestration. Not random networking—curated connections between people who can solve expensive problems for each other. Government. Meeting. Startups. Investors meeting innovators. Global corporations meeting local solutions.
The result? A self-reinforcing ecosystem where success breeds more success.
The Real Lesson
Community isn't about making people feel good. It's about making economics work better.
The UAE figured out what business schools won't teach: human connection, done right, creates more value than traditional business development. They're not building culture—they're building competitive advantage.
We predict most CEOs will confuse community building with online engagement and wonder why follower count didn’t drive revenue.
The smart ones will study Dubai's playbook and start architecting valuable relationships, create a flywheel and brag about a winning community-led growth strategy to the board.
Your move, Chief.
