Strategy Business Partner - UAE National

Life at Dubai Future Foundation

Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) aims to realize the wise vision of Dubai’s leadership to keep Dubai 10 years ahead, institutionalizing future-oriented thinking and forward-looking methodologies that position Dubai as the leading city of the future.In collaboration with government entities, global institutions, startups, and innovators, DFF drives collective efforts to imagine, design, and execute the best possible future for humanity.

Under the supervision of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of DFF, the Foundation oversees a portfolio of initiatives that include the Museum of the Future, Area 2071, Dubai Future Accelerators, Dubai Future Labs, Dubai Future Academy, Dubai Future Forum, Dubai Centre for AI, and the Dubai RDI Program.

Through these platforms, DFF institutionalizes foresight, enables innovation, builds talent, and designs the systems and industries that will keep Dubai 10 years ahead in every dimension of its future.

For more information on the initiatives, projects, and programs of Dubai Future Foundation, please visit the website: www.dubaifuture.ae

Where does this role fit into the bigger picture?
The Strategy Business Partner reports directly to the Director of Strategy, within the Strategy and Strategic Capital Department at DFF.

Embedded inside a specific vertical, this role is the vertical’s dedicated strategic partner — keeping its projects aligned to DFF’s moonshots, orchestrating its efforts into the central Strategic PMO, and bringing a feasibility, viability, and consulting-grade problem-solving lens to everything the vertical delivers

Why this role is important?
This role keeps each vertical pointed at DFF’s biggest ambitions and plugged into the wider portfolio. By bridging corporate and project teams, orchestrating efforts, and bringing a sharp feasibility and viability lens, you ensure the vertical’s work is both aligned to the moonshots and genuinely deliverable — and that its insight flows back to sharpen DFF’s corporate strategy

Business Partner

As the Strategy Business Partner, you will embed within an assigned vertical and act as its two-way bridge to DFF corporate — translating strategy down into clear direction, and surfacing the vertical’s needs and realities back up. You will keep every initiative aligned to DFF’s mission, vision, and moonshots, and orchestrate the vertical’s efforts so they connect cleanly into the enterprise portfolio and the Strategic PMO.

The role blends deep stakeholder trust with the rigour of a top-tier strategy consultant: pressure-testing ideas for feasibility and viability, applying structured problem-solving and strategy frameworks across the vertical’s projects, and turning complex analysis into decision-ready insight and compelling narratives for leadership.

Embedded Strategic Partnership

• You will live and work within your assigned vertical as its dedicated strategic partner, building deep familiarity with its projects, people, priorities, and challenges.
• You will build trusted relationships across the vertical, becoming the go-to thought partner for project leads on strategic questions.
• You will maintain a current, on-the-ground view of everything in flight within the vertical and how it connects to the wider DFF portfolio.

Strategic Alignment to Mission, Vision & Moonshots

• You will ensure every project and initiative within the vertical is aligned with DFF’s mission, vision, and moonshots, and challenge or escalate work that drifts from them.
• You will translate DFF’s corporate strategy and priorities into clear strategic direction for the vertical’s teams.
• You will keep the vertical’s strategic narrative coherent and consistent with the foundation’s broader direction.

Orchestration & Two-Way Bridging

• You will act as the two-way bridge between DFF corporate and the vertical’s project teams — representing corporate strategy within the vertical, and the vertical’s voice within corporate.
• You will translate business needs, problems, and opportunities surfacing in the vertical into structured strategic asks corporate can act on, and translate corporate frameworks, decisions, and expectations into practical guidance the vertical can execute against.
• You will orchestrate the vertical’s efforts — identifying overlaps, gaps, and dependencies between its projects — and connect them into the central Strategic PMO’s governance, cadence, and portfolio so the vertical’s work rolls up cleanly to the enterprise.
• You will facilitate alignment between diverse stakeholders — corporate leadership, project teams, and supporting functions — resolving tension, communicating context in both directions, and building shared understanding so decisions are made with the full picture.

Feasibility, Viability & Structured Problem-Solving

• You will pressure-test proposed projects and initiatives for feasibility and viability — strategic fit, practicality, resourcing, and likelihood of delivering intended impact.
• You will bring a structured, hypothesis-driven approach and proven strategy frameworks to how projects across the vertical are scoped, framed, and problem-solved.
• You will help teams define clear problem statements, scope, success criteria, and issue-based workplans in the style of top-tier consulting engagements.
• You will identify risks, dependencies, and assumptions early, and work with teams to address them before they compromise delivery.
• You will bring analytical rigour to decisions, ensuring choices are grounded in evidence rather than assumption.

Strategic Insight & Decision Support

• You will synthesise qualitative and quantitative analysis into executive-ready deliverables — memos, briefings, and recommendations — and craft compelling strategy decks that translate complex analysis into clear narratives for leadership.
• You will track the vertical’s KPIs, scorecards, and strategic milestones, monitoring performance against targets and surfacing clearly where the vertical is on- or off-track.
• You will provide the vertical’s leadership and project teams with sharp, decision-ready insight on strategic questions, and support the vertical in sharpening its strategic priorities, impact metrics, and resource decisions.
• You will contribute the vertical’s perspective and learnings back into DFF’s wider corporate strategy.

What Dubai Future Foundation offers?

DFF offers a dynamic and mission-driven environment that values collaboration, excellence, and measurable impact. You will work alongside multidisciplinary teams passionate about execution, innovation, and the future of Dubai. Expect diverse challenges, high-level exposure, and the opportunity to contribute directly to shaping Dubai’s readiness for the future.

Essential qualifications and behaviors

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Business Administration, Engineering, Finance, Economics, or a related discipline; an advanced degree (MBA, MSc) is a plus.
• 2–4 years of experience in a top-tier multinational consulting firm (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, Accenture Strategy, or equivalent), ideally with depth or exposure in a relevant sector/vertical.
• Exceptional structured problem-solving — comfortable breaking down ambiguous, complex challenges into clear hypotheses and actionable insights.
• Strong business judgment — able to assess feasibility and viability and tell the difference between a good idea and a deliverable one.
• Outstanding stakeholder management and influencing skills — able to build trust and bridge between corporate and project teams without formal authority.
• Proven ability to think in systems and at multiple horizons — from long-term mission and moonshots to near-term execution realities.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication; able to craft compelling executive narratives and influence senior audiences.
• Excellent PowerPoint and Excel skills — able to translate complex analysis into compelling, well-structured presentations with strong visual storytelling, and to build robust models and analyses in Excel; familiarity with BI, data-visualisation, and digital productivity tools is an advantage.
• Able to work natively with AI tools and emerging technologies, and to develop or meaningfully contribute to new AI-enabled tools and solutions that enhance how DFF operates.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias for action — able to move fast with incomplete information and iterate toward the right answer.
• Cross-functional collaboration skills across diverse teams, cultures, and seniority levels (Arabic is an asset).
• High attention to detail and accountability. Emirati candidates prefer