John Bamsey believes that, by fate or by chance, it can sometimes take a terrible event in life to bring about a change for the better.
Three and a half years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, just as he was about to take up his current position in Dubai as the chief operating officer for InterContinental Hotels Group's (IHG) Middle East and Africa region.
The illness was detected early, and could be treated relatively swiftly. But it is not something Mr Bamsey has forgotten so quickly.
"I'm wiser as a result," he says, although he adds it is not a subject he often talks about.
"You think you're indestructible. You're rushing through life all the time and suddenly you get these levellers that bring you back to earth and just say 'it's about today - appreciate what you've got'.
"It's a shock to the system and makes you evaluate what's important."
The experience had a lasting impact on his approach to the job, in which his main duty is to he oversee the performance of properties in the region run by IHG, the largest hotel group in the world.
"It made me approach it with more humility than I would have otherwise," Mr Bamsey says.
Today, sitting at the company's corporate offices next to the InterContinental Dubai Festival City and sporting a deep tan, the Briton is a picture of health.
Mr Bamsey, 57, entered the hotel industry relatively late, joining Hilton Hotels as the managing director for the UK in 1994, from a background in marketing.
In an industry where corporate roles are often filled by seasoned hoteliers who have worked their way up the ranks, washing dishes and dealing with customer complaints, colleagues sometimes treated him with a degree of scepticism after he came in at so senior a position, he said.
"I remember being asked in my very early days, 'what do you know about hotels?' My response was, 'I've been a customer for 30 odd years. That's a good place to start'," Mr Bamsey says.
Coming from outside the sector gave him the advantage of a dispassionate view. But once in, he was there to stay.
"Once you come into the hospitality industry it's virtually impossible to leave, because it's just so much more exciting and fun than any other business," he says
Mr Bamsey's early career included stints with Whitbread in the early 1980s, when he was the marketing director for Pizza Hut UK and saw the chain grew from 11 restaurants to 55 in the two and half years of his watch.
Later roles included running a laundries business and being appointed chief executive of the luggage chain Salisburys.
Mr Bamsey started out as a graduate trainee in the marketing department at Unilever after graduating with a degree in geography. But as a boy, he had always harboured other ambitions.
"I wanted to be a PE teacher because I loved sport," he says. "I had a headmaster who said 'you don't want to just go and teach PE, you need to take a degree in your best subject because when your knees collapse and you can no longer teach PE you need a subject to fall back on.'
"So I studied geography at university but as most people will tell you, I would have been a lousy teacher."
Before relocating to Dubai, Mr Bamsey had been IHG's area president for Europe. But he had visited the Gulf region before and had developed an affinity with the emirate, he says.
"I'd been coming to Dubai since the mid-'90s. I first came out here on work but then I just fell in love with the place, so much so that we were coming out here twice a year on holiday as a family.
"In 2004, I actually bought a property here on the Palm [Jumeirah], which in those days was just some sandbars and sand being blown out to sea."
The Palm is what he now calls home. "The great thing about being on the Palm is there's nobody else there. It's like being on your own desert island.
"One of the values of having this experience ? as a businessman and as a tourist, is when you come here to run a hospitality business you have an insight which is not developed when you do the job, it's developed from before you do the job."
With IHG expanding in the region there are constant challenges that include retaining talented employees, he says.
IHG's approach is not to stifle its staff but to empower them and give them room to grow, which reflects his own management beliefs, Mr Bamsey says.
"My biggest objective ? is not how many hotels did I open? How much did I grow the profits? What was the revenue?" he says.
"To me individually, it's about did I make a difference for the people, did the people grow, because then I made a contribution that's going to be a legacy.
"It's the legacy that you leave in terms of the impact you make with people, and in a people business that's what it's got to be."
Half of Mr Bamsey's year is spent travelling and working within different cultures, and that is an aspect of the job that he relishes.
"The patch covers a lot more than Dubai. Although I'd been to Oman and Cairo, I'd not been to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait."
The job also satisfies his competitive streak, he says. "As well as adding new hotels, we are dropping hotels out of the bottom. That's about upgrading the estate as you move forward.
"One of the big challenges here in the Middle East is that every new hotel that opens is bigger and grander than the one that opened last year. So a hotel that was opened 10 or 15 years ago, you get quite a gap.
"So we're having conversations with owners about how we manage that situation. We drop ones that clearly don't fit the brands as they're now developing. We dropped out of a Holiday Inn property in Yemen this year for example, which the owner will not invest in."
In Dubai, IHG was without a hotel under its InterContinental brand for four years, as it moved out of its old hotel at Dubai Creek to the new property at Festival City.
"It was quite clear that for InterContinental to compete in Dubai, the old property was just not good enough. We made what was a brave decision at the time that we would go without a property in order to get the right property."
Despite his busy schedule and passion for his job, Mr Bamsey says he is much more measured in his approach, making sure he takes time out to reflect and relax, be it reading, playing golf, sailing in his dinghy, or retreating on holiday to Menorca where he built a small villa.
"You've got to live for today, because if you keep planning for something else it might never happen. Today is what it is," he says.
"There is no yesterday and there might be no tomorrow. You've got to step back and appreciate where you are.
"If you're trying to live for something else, before you know you it, you'll be there and it'll be gone. And you'll have missed everything in between."
rbundhun@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
Roll%20of%20Honour%2C%20men%E2%80%99s%20domestic%20rugby%20season
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Springtime in a Broken Mirror,
Mario Benedetti, Penguin Modern Classics
Company%20profile
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Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Jimmy Shergill, Saiee Manjrekar
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Rating: 2.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Best Foreign Language Film nominees
Capernaum (Lebanon)
Cold War (Poland)
Never Look Away (Germany)
Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)
THREE POSSIBLE REPLACEMENTS
Khalfan Mubarak
The Al Jazira playmaker has for some time been tipped for stardom within UAE football, with Quique Sanchez Flores, his former manager at Al Ahli, once labelling him a “genius”. He was only 17. Now 23, Mubarak has developed into a crafty supplier of chances, evidenced by his seven assists in six league matches this season. Still to display his class at international level, though.
Rayan Yaslam
The Al Ain attacking midfielder has become a regular starter for his club in the past 15 months. Yaslam, 23, is a tidy and intelligent player, technically proficient with an eye for opening up defences. Developed while alongside Abdulrahman in the Al Ain first-team and has progressed well since manager Zoran Mamic’s arrival. However, made his UAE debut only last December.
Ismail Matar
The Al Wahda forward is revered by teammates and a key contributor to the squad. At 35, his best days are behind him, but Matar is incredibly experienced and an example to his colleagues. His ability to cope with tournament football is a concern, though, despite Matar beginning the season well. Not a like-for-like replacement, although the system could be adjusted to suit.
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
A%20QUIET%20PLACE
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The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?
If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.
Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.
Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).
Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.
Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.
By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.
As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.
Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.
He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”
This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”
Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Company%20Profile
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What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners