The boat is full and about to head out to sea. The cover shoot team, the camera gear, the luggage with the designer looks and the Tiffany jewels are all stowed away. But at the last moment someone leaps on board and plops herself into the final empty seat, her legs hanging over the arm rest, a travel coffee mug in her hand, and a bright smile on her fresh face. It’s our cover star, Nadia Zaal. She is the mastermind behind Zuhha Island, our cover shoot destination, which is just a 12 minute boat ride off of the coast of Dubai. There she sits, in jeans, and a white tank, with a cool oversized leather jacket and her thick dark hair loosely framing her face, looking both relaxed and energised to take on the day.
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She radiates a sense of confidence but one that feels approachable, not arrogant. It’s easy to imagine her being the most popular girl in school, who effortlessly gets along with everyone, but is also the driving force behind all the annual school projects. It’s an image that is reinforced once we land on the Island. Zaal waves off the buggy waiting for her, offering it up to be used to transport all the gear to shoot. Instead she wants to walk the property, which counts 30 luxury villas and has already started to welcome its first families. As well as a still under construction boutique hotel and spa, restaurants and an expansive beach club. “It’s so nice to have a blank canvas to just create,” she says.
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“Space dictates a lot of your lifestyle.” Over three years in the making, the property is at once massive in scope and intimate in execution. Everything feels friendly, and inviting, with lush surroundings framing 6-bedroom dream homes that count four stories, three pools and private ocean access. As Zaal walks to the villa that will be the backdrop for our shoot, she asks her staff if the kids that just moved onto the island caught the boat to make it to school on time. She snaps photos of things she wants to fix, and leaves a few voice notes of actionable items that need to be addressed. She is also simultaneously chatting with the cover shoot team, asking about their lives and families. It’s clear that, for Zaal, property development has never been about buildings alone. “What excites me is creating that community. And communities that have a focus on nature and really looked at the detail of not just the bricks and mortar, but how a human being would interact with the space,” she says about her creative process.
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The language is telling: human first, architecture second. “When you think about communal spaces and how people are going to come together, that’s where the magic is,” she explains. This is why Zaal likes to design from the inside out, she ideates with family interactions in mind. How the flow of a main living room will subtly invite moments of connection, or the lower ceilings of a bedroom will telegraph a more cosy feeling, and she has also thought of spaces designed for that all important alone time as well. Not to mention some impressive walk-in closets, and bathrooms with great natural light for morning makeup application. Important touches that perhaps only a woman might take into consideration.
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Belonging, Zaal believes, is not accidental. It is designed. “If you have a beautiful bath with a sea view, you’re much more likely to spend time in that space and wind down,” she says. “It changes how you live.” The same logic applies outward. “Bringing nature indoors, creating places where people slow down and connect, those things really fascinate me about developing.” Her sensitivity to belonging starts from a personal place. “Growing up, the house that I spent most of my childhood in felt very disconnected,” she shares. “It didn’t naturally bring us together.” In contrast, she remembers visiting friends’ homes. “They had multigenerational homes, one compound, everyone together, and that feeling, I didn’t have that in my house.” That absence became a driver for Zaal. “I think that pushed me the other way completely.” However, when Zaal first started out, she didn’t dream of working in construction. Instead the goal was, after getting her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Politics from the University of London in the UK, to return to the UAE and work for the government. Which is exactly what she did, becoming a financial analyst for the UAE government in Abu Dhabi. But Zaal quickly discovered that a career in government was a bit too structured an environment for her creative side to flourish. “I realised that I’m not really the conforming type,” she says with a sly smile. So in 2005, with the free hold boom in full swing in the UAE, she teamed up with her father, Zaal Mohamed Zaal, to spearhead their landmark $6.4 billion Al Barari development in Dubailand. And while Zaal felt a sense of equality during her time working with the government, the world of construction was a whole other dynamic.
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Being a female boss working in a male dominated field made her determined to earn the respect of the men she employed. “I decided to spend a lot more time on site and lead from the front line, so that they would eventually feel a sense of connection with me,” she shares. This meant eating in the cantines with the men, spending days on building sites and in general letting her actions show her dedication and intentions. “When we started it was basically just a piece of sand,” she recounts. But today Al Barari is, “one of Dubai’s lowest-density green communities.” With the success of that massive project under her belt, Zaal decided to strike out on her own in early 2008, founding Zaya, a boutique real estate development company. Her first major project – Zaya Nurai Island sitting just off of Abu Dhabi. However, anyone who knows their history will not soon forget the global housing crisis that hit at the end of 2008. It was a moment of deep learning, and perseverance for Zaal. “I was over leveraged,” she remembers. “I overspent on things that were not necessary, and I still have PTSD from that time. But it made me so much better at my job”. Today she still runs her company in the streamlined way she honed during those dark days – despite its impressive revenues. “I like to keep things lean and in-house,” she shares about how that time impacted her as a leader. And she freely admits that she is a little bit of a control freak. “I’m always on site. I’m involved in every aspect of the development cycle from acquisition to delivery.” After successfully delivering Nurai Island, Zaal went on to create Zaya Hameni, a 31-story tower building conceptually grounded in a message of wellness, and notably the Al Fanar school in Nad Al Sheba 4. A project built out of her desire to offer an alternative learning structure for her three youngest children.
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“I’m a bit of a social connection junkie myself, and I want that for everyone else,” says Zaal. Al Fanar is a perfect embodiment of that ethos. It is a pioneering, nature-based primary school offering a holistic British curriculum for children aged 2 to 11 that also incorporates aspects of Emirati culture and the Arabic language. It focuses on childhood development through a more organic, low-tech, play-based approach that introduces learnings in accordancy with the natural cognitive growth of children. For this project, instead of a blockyor high rise structure to house the school, Zaal came up with a design that pushed outward, not upward. The property is dominated by groupings of rounded single story school rooms, verdant gardens that are nurtured by the students, a chicken coop, tree houses and a few fast-moving, freerange tortoises that call the school home. It’s a pretty idyllic place to grow and learn and one that Zaal is immensely proud of. “A lot of parents that are attracted to my school are very clear about what they want. They are very dedicated, very involved,” says Zaal, who appreciates, and can relate to, that sense of commitment. As the shoot moves from the interiors of one of the island’s villas to its welcoming beach club, Zaal gets the news that the two remaining villas on the property have been snapped up, and its high-fives all around. A momentous moment the mogul happily shares with the team. Then, after a communal meal that Zaal had prepared for the crew – a smorgasbord of pesto pasta, roasted vegetables, seared beef and lots of sharing dishes to be passed around the tables – it was back to posing for the camera. And again Zaal proves herself to be a team player, game to swap out different Tiffany parures, outfits or hair styles in pursuit of the perfect shot.
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She understands well the power of fashion. And admits to often turning to her wardrobe when looking for armour to take on the world. “I love fashion. It can be such a deep form of self-expression. And you can wear it like a cape of protection,” she says. Zaal, who freely admits she would wear couture to the supermarket if she could get away with it, is a big believer in statement clothing that balances strength and femininity. Her go-tos include brands like Alaïa and Saint Laurent. “Minimalism doesn’t do it for me,” she says with a laugh. But if creating communities for others is the driving force of her career, it is Zaal’s family, her husband and her four children that are at the centre of all of her choices. Family time, like Sunday dinners together and school pickups, are non-negogotiable. “Having family time really charges my soul,” she says.
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Right now she prefers the quiet evenings at home with her kids, as she knows her time with them is finite, already the oldest is off to college. “I get invited to so many events… and they must think I’m really so obnoxious [for declining] but my priorities are my family and work and it’s not possible for me to do anything else – and that’s okay.” She talks about how she loves to watch each of her younger children as they begin to come into their own. “My eleven-yearold definitely has started to get interested in what I do. He comes to work a lot and just sits in my meetings.” Her daughter, the Benjamin of the family, is artistically inclined. “She loves the creative process and is always looking at designs with me.” And her youngest son? “He just wants to be in nature all the time. He is not interested in the material world at all,” she recounts. That range, ambition, creativity, groundedness, mirrors Zaal herself. “I can be very corporate and capitalist and very earth mama,” she admits.
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Perhaps the most striking thing about Zaal is her honesty about ambition and self-doubt. As Zuhha Island nears completion, she is now considered to be one of the leading independent developers in Dubai. Yet Zaal still finds herself battling imposter syndrome from time to time. “I ask myself sometimes, ‘is this real’. All of these people are putting their trust in me. It’s such an honour and validation of what I have done. But there is definitely still a part of me that doesn’t believe it, and doesn’t feel worthy of it.” She doesn’t hide her ego, either. “If I’m brutally honest, I’m doing it just to prove that I can,” she says of the next ambitious development project she is taking on called Lunaya by Zaya in Jebel Ali. A new residential development focused on lagoon living slated for completion in 2029. She calls it what it is. “A part of what drives me is my insecurity, and I have no shame in saying it. I want to prove to myself that I can do it on my own.” But she also wants to make sure that the women in the region who look at her career understand one thing and that is: “you don’t have to do everything. It’s just not possible.”
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Her advice, hard won over 20 years of working at the highest level of a highly stressful job, is actually quite simple, “choose your priorities, what truly matters to you and be happy with them.” For Zaal the concrete outcomes of her work, she believes, justifies her drive. “I’m creating beautiful things, I’m building these beautiful homes,” she says while hinting at possible other exciting projects on the horizon – a wellness getaway in Hatta, a farm in Fujairah. As for legacy, that matters to the entrepreneur, but not in a hollow way. “I just want to contribute to my country, give people memorable places to live, and places to make memories.” And with that she is off. Back on the boat heading to Dubai to take her next meeting or grab dinner with her family. But whatever she is up to next, one thing is for sure, Zaal is doing it all on her own terms.
Talent: Nadia Zaal
Senior Editor: Jessica Michault
Photographer: Michel Takla
Fashion Editor: Camille Macawili
Jewellery: TIFFANY & CO.
Photographer’s Agent: Jorge Agut Rosell
Makeup: Hamta Babaei
Hair: Loui Ferry
Videographer: Ekaterina Shirshova
Fashion Assistants: Kareena Adlakha and Anshika Yadav
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Images: Supplied
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: emirateswoman.com
