Fadie Musallet is in a hurry. The Dubai-based dealmaker is rushing to the airport to catch a flight to Miami, hopefully before Hurricane Ian takes full effect.
“It’s a 15-hour flight. By my calculations, given the speed of the hurricane, I think I will land with a about an hour to spare. But yeah, am sailing close to the wind,” he says.
Sailing close to the wind pretty much how Musallet likes to roll. Pick an influencer such as MoneyKicks (aka Rashed Belhasa) and it turns out Musallet has had a huge role to play in his success. Pick a superstar such as Kevin Hart or DJ Khaled, and again his fingerprints are all over some of their biggest deals. Lebron James has new drinks venture that is about to launch in the UAE. Who made it happen? You guessed it, Musallet, born and raised in Florida to Palestinian parents, was the key broker in that deal.
“You could say I juggle many plates, but you know what? I like it that way. Life should be fun, not boring. And the same goes for business. If you are going to be a success, then I really and firmly believe you should enjoy what you do,” he says.
Musallet certainly seems to be enjoying himself. Reported to have a starring role in the upcoming Dubai Bling Netflix series, he mixes dealing with A-listers with a huge amount of philanthropic work. He founded The Giving Family, that helped feed 150,000 labourers through Ramadan.
But after many years of effectively being the biggest player behind the scenes, Musallet is increasingly taking centre stage. “I am ready for people to see the real me now,” he says, adding: “I have worked with some of the biggest stars on the planet. But the best thing about doing that was not seeing all that fame and glory first hand, it was learning from them. I got to see close hand people like DJ Khaled. The outside world sees a superstar. I see one of the hardest working people you could ever come across, and that is what I take away from those experiences.”
So, what next for Musallet? A string of new business ventures is on the cards, and he doesn’t rule out rolling all his business interests into one “entertainment networking” type of operation that could one day sit on the stock exchange.
“Why not? Success is not just to be enjoyed, but to be shared.”
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