Mr. Hesham Heikal is the Chief Financial Officer of Emaar. A transformational leader, Hesham has more than 30 years of diverse experience, gained from the financial, operational, investment, and board-level roles he has held in the Middle East and USA.
During his career, Hesham’s responsibilities have covered areas such accounting, corporate finance, general management, and overseeing corporate support functions such as legal, procurement, administration, human capital, and information technology.
He spent the first 15 years of his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he worked in Cairo, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and with the firm’s practice in Silicon Valley, California. By the time he left PwC, Hesham had become a Partner in the firm, leading its Assurance practice in Abu Dhabi, covering several industries, with a particular focus on real estate, manufacturing (predominantly FMCG), telecommunications, and technology.
In 2015, he was appointed Group Chief Financial Officer of Dubai Properties Group, a position he held until 2019. His responsibilities included overseeing finance, strategy, contracts and procurement, information technology, and cost control. In addition to his main role, Hesham served on the Board of Directors of some of the group’s joint ventures in the UAE and Bahrain.
Before joining Emaar, Hesham was the Group Chief Financial Officer of Alrajhi Holding Group, a multi-billion-dollar Saudi Arabian conglomerate with investments in industrial, infrastructure, building solutions, contracting, financial services, and real estate. In that role, he reported to the Group Chairman and served as member on the Board of Directors of the group’s industrial, building solutions and contracting sectors, as well as two industrial joint ventures. He also served as a member of the Executive Committee and Audit Committee of a joint venture.
Hesham is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) from Colorado, USA, and holds an MBA from London Business School.