We are sitting upstairs in Fitriani Hay's beautiful pink study. Like the woman herself, it's compact, elegant and feminine.
"It used to be just a cosy sitting room for me, but as I started to get busier and needed more space, it became my office," says the businesswoman, wife and mother. A heavy, dark desk and matching bookcase packed with boxfiles give the decorative space a sense of order and purpose.
"Because it's annexed to the bedroom, it means I can come and work here at night."
It's no wonder she needs to work all hours. As well as being co-director (with her husband) of the JMH Group, a holding group encompassing sport, construction and financial advisory interests, she is also about to launch Fitriani in London, a fashion boutique of which she is creative director, as well as Ray Ward Gunsmith, a sporting gun shop at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Not for Fitriani a life of shopping and parties. "Being joint shareholders, I have to know what's going on in our business. Every day I have to keep informed and I try to be there at all the meetings."
Then there are their horse racing interests. "My husband is crazy about horses and we own about 50 in three stables in the UK and South Africa. I like to get involved with them too. In the winter, I'll often get up at 5am to go with the children and watch them gallop," she says, referring to her two young daughters, ages six and 10.
Born and raised in Indonesia, Fitriani moved to the UK with her Scottish husband in 1998 and then to Dubai in 2003.
"We designed and built this place from scratch; it's been a very exciting project for me," she says of the eight-bedroom house in Dubai's Emirates Hills. "We have an office in town but we usually end up working from home. If there's an important meeting, everyone just comes here."
The warm pink walls are a world away from the cream and gold grandeur of the ground floor.
"I wanted this area to be casual, modern and simple. At night time with the light, the colour is beautiful," she says, pointing to the cluster of star-shaped wrought iron Moroccan lanterns that hang from the ceiling. "It's not fancy like crystal, but I like the patterns they make."
A rattan day bed lines the side wall. "I didn't want a specifically Indonesian look; I had enough of that in my house in Jakarta, but I brought this back from there," she says. "It's hard to find good rattan furniture here. I think it's quite different; a nice Italian sofa you can find anywhere. My daughter often curls up on it with a book while I'm working."
Two beautiful end tables in highly polished, gnarled wood, also from Indonesia, stand next to the day bed. The knotted branches, which act as the legs, bend and weave upwards to meet the smooth slab of the tabletop; they are crude and elegant at the same time, and strangely beautiful.
"They're each made from one piece of wood," she says. "My husband and I were in a village in Indonesia and we saw a man carving from a huge log. We went to his shop and ending up buying these."
Fine, gauzy curtains flutter at the windows by her desk, providing glimpses of the view out over the velveteen greens of the Montgomerie golf course and the city beyond. "I can keep an eye on my daughters swimming while I work," she adds, showing me the enormous, Balinese-style pool that dominates the garden. "They do crazy things in there," she laughs.
A zebra hide is spread-eagled across the floor, the tufty stripes of its mane sticking up to give it an eerily lifelike appearance; its extraordinary monochrome pattern adds a hint of masculinity to the room. Despite being the "control room" from which Fitriani juggles her many business commitments, elements of family life have found their way in. A wooden frame housing little gold animals sits on the desk.
"It's a Chinese zodiac and is meant to bring harmony to your home, but the children love playing with it. They choose different animals to play us."
A miniature Big Ben waits in a watery dome for the next snowstorm to begin.
"My daughter always likes to leave things here. My husband and I joke that she just wants to remind us that she's here. I can't keep sending the things back to their room, so some of them stay."
On the wall hangs a wooden medicine cabinet, full of trinkets and souvenirs from her travels.
"I found this fairy in Oxfam in London," she says, pointing to a green porcelain figurine. "It's one of six; this is my favourite, so it stays out of the children's reach."
A faded passport photograph of her husband in a decorated Victorian frame sits alongside two impossibly smooth marble eggs that she found in Singapore.
"I try to get things from wherever we go," she says, before opening a small silver bell, out of which spill 10 tiny teeth. "They're my daughter's - she doesn't know I'm collecting them!"
The home office arrangement clearly suits the Hays' busy lives. "The fact that we work from home is great for us but it's also nice for the children. We can get our work done, but if they need us, we're just here. It's the best of both worlds."
kboucher@thenational.ae
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
FIGHT%20CARD
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PROFILE BOX
Company name: Overwrite.ai
Founder: Ayman Alashkar
Started: Established in 2020
Based: Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai
Sector: PropTech
Initial investment: Self-funded by founder
Funding stage: Seed funding, in talks with angel investors
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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If you go...
Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.
Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50
Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
What is hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, which can lead to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E.
Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted through exposure to infective blood. This can occur through blood transfusions, contaminated injections during medical procedures, and through injecting drugs. Sexual transmission is also possible, but is much less common.
People infected with hepatitis C experience few or no symptoms, meaning they can live with the virus for years without being diagnosed. This delay in treatment can increase the risk of significant liver damage.
There are an estimated 170 million carriers of Hepatitis C around the world.
The virus causes approximately 399,000 fatalities each year worldwide, according to WHO.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The biog
Most memorable achievement: Leading my first city-wide charity campaign in Toronto holds a special place in my heart. It was for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women program and showed me the power of how communities can come together in the smallest ways to have such wide impact.
Favourite film: Childhood favourite would be Disney’s Jungle Book and classic favourite Gone With The Wind.
Favourite book: To Kill A Mockingbird for a timeless story on justice and courage and Harry Potters for my love of all things magical.
Favourite quote: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill
Favourite food: Dim sum
Favourite place to travel to: Anywhere with natural beauty, wildlife and awe-inspiring sunsets.
Film: In Syria
Dir: Philippe Van Leeuw
Starring: Hiam Abbass, Diamand Bo Abboud, Mohsen Abbas and Juliette Navis
Verdict: Four stars
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Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
