- Category Group:
- Individual Professional Categories
- Category:
- Most Innovative Leader of the Year
- Organization Name:
- Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism
- Organization Description:
Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) is the principal authority for the planning, supervision, development and marketing of Dubai's business and tourism sectors. It is also responsible for the licensing and classification of all types of businesses, including hotels, tour operators and travel agents.
Mr. Ahmed AlFalasi, CEO of the Dubai Business Registration and Licensing Corporation at Dubai Economy and Tourism, is a globally distinguished public-sector innovator whose leadership has redefined how governments design, govern, and scale economic services. He transformed Dubai from fragmented, transaction-based administration into a unified, data-driven, and AI-enabled economic platform, positioning the emirate as an international benchmark for investor-first government, regulatory trust, and digital competitiveness.
Under his leadership, Dubai achieved one of the fastest Ease of Doing Business improvements worldwide, [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]. This leap was delivered through structural reinvention rather than incremental digitization. At its core was the Dubai Unified License, which created a single economic identity for all businesses, eliminated duplicative registrations, and enabled trusted data reuse across government and free zones. This was complemented by the Dubai Investor Number, which established a unified investor identity and significantly reduced repeat compliance, onboarding friction, and verification cycles across the investor lifecycle.
Mr. AlFalasi also led the launch of Invest in Dubai, enabled by Dubai Services 360, a first-of-its-kind citywide shared channel unifying the end-to-end investor journey across more than 40 government and private-sector entities. These reforms raised customer satisfaction to 96% and reduced average business setup time from over five days in 2023 to less than one day in 2024. To further accelerate time-to-value, he introduced Activity Activation, enabling businesses to commence operations immediately after licensing and reducing activation timelines from over seven days to less than one day.
Beyond business services, he sponsored the Seamless Visitor Check-In system, a citywide, one-time, contactless hotel check-in solution and a global first, redefining the visitor experience through secure integration of tourism, identity, and regulatory data. In parallel, he embedded Investor Total Experience as an AI-native government capability, enabling predictive insights, proactive issue resolution, and continuous improvement, while strengthening investor confidence and investor happiness indices at scale.
At the economic level, these innovations materially improved investor attraction, reinforced Dubai's global competitiveness, and supported sustained foreign direct investment growth. At the national level, his regulatory and data-alignment initiatives contributed to the UAE's removal from the Financial Action Task Force grey list through consistent AML and KYB implementation. Collectively, his leadership underpins Dubai's D33 ambition to double GDP over the next decade by converting digital government excellence into measurable economic growth, long-term resilience, and enduring global advantage.
Mr. AlFalasi's work demonstrates originality, scale, and execution discipline, setting replicable international benchmarks for how cities compete, attract capital, and govern complex economies in the digital age. It reflects visionary leadership that aligns policy, data, and technology into a coherent economic operating model. Well-articulated innovations, strong leadership, and timely implementation deliver results globally, consistently, and at scale. This leadership model continues to scale across sectors, institutions, and future economic cycles without loss of integrity.