Abdul Aziz Al-Ghurair

After taking over from his father, Abdul Aziz Al-Ghurair went against advice to put his own vision in place.

Abdul Aziz Al-Ghurair has taken MashreqBank from strength to strength

When Abdul Aziz Al-Ghurair succeeded his father as chief executive of MashreqBank in 1990, his closest confidants gave him one piece of advice: "If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it." The Dubai bank was already a successful financial institution. As Al-Ghurair says in an interview with Euromoney: "It was quite challenging to take over from my father."

However, as a man who has never rested on his laurels, he decided to go against the advice that was offered. "I thought we could do even better. I wanted the bank to serve our clients even better and to benchmark us against the best not only in banking but in other industries too," he says.