COO search firm in Dubai.
Retained Chief Operating Officer search in Dubai and across UAE · Saudi Arabia · Qatar · Kuwait. COO is the most ambiguously-defined CXO role. We invest the first two weeks of a COO search shaping the brief — making sure the company actually needs a COO, and not a CTO, CRO or stronger CEO.
How we read a COO.
Every COO candidate we shortlist for a Dubai mandate is evaluated against five lenses, refined over two decades of COO placements across India and the GCC:
- 01Operating-cadence design and execution
- 02Cross-functional alignment under stress
- 03Cost-to-serve and unit-economics fluency
- 04Geographic and vertical scale lived through
- 05CEO-partnership maturity
₹3–8 Cr fixed + variable + ESOP / LTI
Typical COO band for Dubai-based mandates, fixed plus variable plus long-term equity / ESOP. Adjust upward for listed-company and PE-backed roles.
12–16 weeks
Kick-off to signed offer. Add 4–6 weeks for confidential CXO replacements and cross-border briefs.
Retained
Single-firm retainer, milestone-billed at 25–33% of target compensation. 12-month replacement guarantee.
From the ground.
We have placed COOs at PE-backed roll-ups, listed industrials and growth-stage technology businesses — we know when the role is real and when it isn't.
Our Dubai office runs leadership search across the GCC — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait — for banks, family offices, sovereign-linked businesses, GCC entrants from India and global multinationals.
- COO mandates in Banking & Islamic Finance
- COO mandates in Family Offices & Conglomerates
- COO mandates in Real Estate & Hospitality
- COO mandates in Energy & Renewables
- COO mandates in Healthcare
- COO mandates in Technology & E-commerce
Other Dubai search practices.
COO search across our offices.
Brief us on a COO search in Dubai.
A consultant from our Dubai office will be in touch within one business day.
Start a COO search