About

Formerly general counsel and senior advisor in the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior’s Social Security Fund, Nadim El Haj joined Abu Dhabi National Hotels Company (ADNH) in October 2016 and has blazed a very bright trail with the company in his position as head of legal ever since. Also a member of the executive management committee, El Haj’s successes include his strategic advice on the steering, negotiation and closing of the AED2.2bn acquisition of five Emaar Hotels in Dubai (‘one of the biggest local M&A transactions executed in the history of M&A transactions in the UAE hospitality sector’, as El Haj puts it) and the multiple projects he has enacted in support of the strategic shift of ADNH assets from a management to a franchise business model. An effective leader and manager to boot, El Haj has also positively affected the ADNH in-house legal function as a whole: ‘I have empowered the legal department team and focused on team spirit and cross-sharing of expertise between the transactional division and the disputes division. This has led to major cost savings, optimisation of legal protection in group standard agreements and avoidance of loopholes in the contractual drafting process across all ADNH business units (hospitality, transport, retail and catering) and across all ADNH departments’. El Haj believes the future for in-house counsel will include ever-closer synergy between legal and business expertise, which young in-house lawyers need to engage in at early stage. ‘The key skills required for the next era of in-house lawyers are strategy, emotional intelligence and negotiation skills. These are instrumental in both transactional and disputes work in terms of risk management and optimising the group results’, El Haj says.