How Michael Chalhoub Took On Operating Responsibility in a Dubai Family Business

In October 2020, Chalhoub Group announced a reorganisation that put Michael Chalhoub in charge of strategy, growth, innovation and investment, with oversight of joint ventures. The Dubai-based group named David Vercruysse to lead a separate division covering distribution, franchises and concepts the group owned, including Level Shoes and Faces. Both assignments were part of a structure reporting to Patrick Chalhoub. Michael was the third generation of the family to join the group. What made his appointment legible to the people already working there was a description of which businesses and decisions would fall within his remit. Chalhoub Group’s October 2020 announcement

Michael became group CEO in January 2025, when Patrick moved from group president to executive chairman. Michael later told The National that the executive committee had considered internal and external candidates over six months. The announcement and the interview document two distinct decisions, separated by years. The first gave a family member an assignment within the business. The second put him in charge of the group. For a UAE owner deciding how much responsibility to give a relative, the useful questions are what the first assignment will let them demonstrate and how the company will judge that work before expanding it. Chalhoub Group’s 2024 sustainability report Michael Chalhoub’s interview with The National

Give outside experience a purpose inside the business

Before the 2020 appointment, Michael had pursued entrepreneurial work, including the sports media venture Sport360. Chalhoub Group also pointed to his experience in corporate finance, strategic consulting and developing businesses when it announced his responsibilities. He told The National that the pandemic prompted him to come into the business to help. In the same period, the company said it was accelerating a shift toward selling and serving customers across stores and digital channels. Those accounts explain the timing and the experience the group said it wanted to use. Michael Chalhoub on his route into the group The group’s reorganisation announcement

A family member who has worked elsewhere may bring methods the company needs and still have to learn why the business works the way it does. Someone who has built a digital product may know how to test whether customers will use a feature. A Dubai retail team may understand which problems a store colleague can solve without that feature and which customer expectations vary between branches. Put the two sets of experience to work on a specific problem. Ask the incoming manager to observe how it is handled today and explain what a change would cost the team in training, time and attention.

Consider a hypothetical retailer whose website receives requests for items that customers later discover are out of stock in the shop. A first assignment might be to diagnose the gap and pilot a fix at one branch. The candidate would have to learn how the system records stock, how the store handles reservations and what happens when a customer buys the last unit on the floor. The assignment has room for judgement, but its boundaries are clear. The candidate can show what they learned from the people doing the work and whether a proposed fix holds up on a normal trading day.

Define where the new manager’s authority ends

In Chalhoub Group’s 2020 structure, oversight of joint ventures and responsibility for the group’s owned concepts were assigned to different people. Level Shoes was already part of that business. The group’s timeline dates its Dubai Mall opening to 2012, and the retailer describes the Dubai flagship as combining product curation with services such as personal shopping and shoe restoration. This was an established retail operation with its own customer promises when the new group responsibilities were announced. Chalhoub Group’s company timeline Level Shoes’ Dubai flagship overview

Level Shoes’ November 2025 Instagram post presents a seasonal men’s footwear edit and directs customers to its own website.

Separating responsibilities on paper gives colleagues a starting point. The harder cases appear when a decision crosses the boundary. In a hypothetical retail group, a person leading a digital project might propose that stores handle more online returns. That change could improve convenience for shoppers. It could also add work at the service desk and change how a store accounts for inventory. Before a pilot, the project lead and the store operator need to know who can change the process, whose budget pays for the extra work and which results will determine whether the trial continues.

The incoming manager can ask existing leaders to test the assignment against three real decisions. Find a routine change, a decision that needs another function’s approval and a case where the manager should escalate. In the returns example, this might mean changing the text customers see online, altering how returns are recorded and approving additional staffing. Give the person explicit authority for the parts they own. Existing managers then know when to challenge a proposal, when to approve it and when to let the new colleague get on with the work.

Let the team see how the candidate responds to evidence

Family members may receive informal updates that other managers rarely see. That can speed up early learning, but it can leave colleagues guessing what was agreed. A UAE business preparing someone for more responsibility can hold an ordinary operating review with the people who own the work. For a store pilot, bring the manager responsible for the trial, someone from the floor and someone who can reconcile the numbers. The most useful evidence often comes from where their accounts differ. Online demand may look encouraging while staff report that a queue formed every afternoon.

Start with a baseline the team can explain. For the stock availability example, count how often an item shown as available cannot be handed over, then compare similar trading periods during the pilot. Keep a note of promotions, unusual deliveries and other changes that might affect the comparison. Ask who will review exceptions and what would cause the group to stop or revise the trial. If a candidate inherits a strong branch or a difficult month, the starting conditions help reviewers understand which decisions were theirs and what happened afterward.

A candidate also needs a way to hear feedback that travels outside the family. Ask the managers affected by the work what they would do differently on the next assignment and invite them to be specific about the candidate’s choices. An employee may be more willing to say that a promised report arrived too late than to make a broad judgement about a relative of the owner. The company can act on the specific observation. It can also check whether the candidate changes the reporting schedule or keeps making the same promise.

Decide what would justify the next assignment

Michael’s description of the CEO selection process provides a public account of competition for the role. The group’s report confirms the appointments. Those two sources tell readers who took which job and how he describes being selected. The selection criteria and the committee’s assessment remain private. The progression is useful to smaller UAE businesses because it raises a practical question they can answer for themselves. Before expanding a family member’s role, what evidence would make the same decision reasonable for any candidate? Michael Chalhoub on the CEO selection process The group’s account of the leadership change

If the initial assignment was to run a UAE store pilot, the next role might cover several branches. That requires evidence that the candidate can teach the process to another manager, respond when results differ and establish who has authority at each site. One smooth pilot supervised personally by the candidate leaves some of those questions open. A second branch run by its own manager can show whether the first result depended on the candidate being there every day. It can also surface reasons to adapt the process to the site.

If the next job is much broader, review more than the pilot result. Can the candidate judge when to escalate a partner dispute? Can they explain the cash tied up in a decision and the effect on staff? Have they worked alongside people with different priorities and resolved a genuine disagreement? Ask every candidate for examples that answer the same questions. Give reviewers a chance to examine the evidence before discussing impressions. A family member may already have wide visibility inside the business, while another candidate may have exercised more authority in a smaller unit. The comparison becomes easier when each describes the decisions they actually owned.

Keep partner oversight and store management visible

A joint venture can require a manager to work through decisions with a partner that has its own priorities. An owned retail concept may give the parent more direct control while still depending on a local leadership team to deliver the work. In the 2020 announcement those activities had separate leads. A smaller Dubai business may have one person working across both. It can still write down which decisions belong to the partner relationship and which belong to the people running the shop. Chalhoub Group’s October 2020 announcement

For example, a partner could agree to a promotion while the stores lack the stock and staffing to support it on the proposed dates. A manager can ask each side to identify what it has committed to and where the plan needs to change. The family member's contribution might be to resolve the timing or bring a decision back to the people with authority to approve it. A review can look at whether the people carrying out the promotion understood the final agreement and whether the new manager recognised the problem early enough to give them options.

What the incoming manager can ask before accepting

Ask for the outcome, the resources and the person who will review the work. If the task is to improve an operation, find out whether you can see the data and spend time with the staff involved. If you are expected to manage another team’s contribution, agree how that work will be requested and who resolves a conflict between priorities. Ask what the current leader expects to keep doing during the transition. The answers help you give colleagues a consistent account of what has changed.

Then agree what will happen if the assignment goes poorly. A pilot can be stopped, a budget can be reduced and a manager can be given another assignment. Discuss those possibilities before trading conditions or family expectations make them harder to raise. Define who makes the call and what evidence they will use. That gives the person room to bring forward a problem early and gives colleagues somewhere to go if the project is imposing costs they cannot manage.

The Dubai case shows a documented remit in 2020 and a separate group appointment in 2025. A UAE family business can apply the distinction on a smaller scale. Give the incoming manager work with a clear owner, observable results and a reviewer who can say where the evidence is thin. When more responsibility is on the table, the team can assess what the person did with the authority they already had.