It is an honor for me to welcome you as the first president of the Harvard Business School Club of the UAE, and I would like to thank the members for having nominated me for such a prestigious position.

I am lucky enough to have called Dubai my home since 2005, and I have found excellent friends in the HBS community here. When I first looked at the directory, I remember having seen five alumni names in Dubai and ten in the whole of the UAE. We now have 186 alumni residing in the UAE, and the list keeps growing.

Over the last five years, I have met many alumni, including twelve dynamic personalities who are now serving on the board of our Club. It has been a pleasure working with them to organize and structure our Club during its first year of operation.

Our mission statement is "to serve the interests of our members by furthering their education and encouraging fellowship and mutual communication between them, advancing the interest and welfare of HBS, and carrying on the Harvard ideal of service to community, country and the region."

As the HBS Club board, our intention is to strengthen the Club's relationship with the School, in particular by encouraging young men and women from the region to apply HBS. In addition, we hope to foster contacts between local employers and current MBA students and local alumni - a difficult task given present market conditions, but one that we are pursuing as much as realistically possible. I certainly hope that, with the economical recovery currently underway in the region, we will soon be able to push this agenda much further.

During my term as president, I look forward to laying down the foundations for a solid club that will be of strong and continuous interest to our members, and will expand and evolve over time, in line with the UAE economy.

Goulam Amarsy

May 2010