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Hani Naja, partner at Baker McKenzie: We kick off our weekly My Morning Routine column, where we look at how a successful member of the community starts their day, with a special Ramadan edition, where we also check in on how they adjust to Ramadan and what they look forward to in the holy month.
Each Friday, My Morning Routine will look at the daily routines of different members of the community — be it C-suite execs, diplomats, or founders — while throwing in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us today is Hani Naja (LinkedIn), partner at Baker McKenzie.
I’m a Lebanese lawyer, but I’ve been in Dubai for 17 years now, 12 of which have been with Baker McKenzie. I am a corporate lawyer specializing in corporate structuring, reorganization and market entry. I’m also the lead partner for a lot of our big international clients in the Middle East, especially in the technology and the healthcare space. I also work with luxury retail.
I help clients come to the market, set up their presence and connect with their distributors and agencies. I am trilingual, so I studied in France and in Lebanon, in French and in Arabic, but all my practice has been in English. That actually helped me a lot with the diversity of my clients.
In my career in Dubai, the past 18 months to two years have been the most exciting from a legislative perspective. It’s been very active, and we’ve seen many changes. A lot of what we do is try to understand these changes, but we’re lucky to also be in a position where we’re seen as market leaders by the legislators and the different authorities, so they come to us to consult on some of these new legislation.
I work a lot with foreign companies doing business in the UAE, so the foreign direct investment relaxation and the changes in corporate tax are very important. These changes are resulting in a lot of restructuring, which is the core of my practice. A lot of companies who used to have joint ventures with local partners because that was required under the law are now renegotiating.
The UAE in general, and Dubai specifically, has really opened up for foreign investors in the past three years, more than probably the whole history of the UAE, and that is attracting so much foreign investment.
The healthcare sector is seeing the most consolidation, by far, out of my three focus industries. This sector is getting big interest from stakeholders in the Middle East, including the UAE government and investment funds, as well as Saudi investment funds.
When it comes to my routine, my week is split into three slots. My wife is a senior corporate banker, so she has a very busy life as well. So, we split the week in terms of morning responsibilities between me and her. Otherwise, we can’t do anything during the weeknights if we’re both going to wake up very early every day. So there’s the days where I wake up with the kids and there are the days where I don’t wake up with the kids.
My favorite is when I wake up with the kids at 5:45am. I have two two kids, a seven and a five year old. We prepare and have breakfast together, and then we put them on the bus at 6:45am, so we spend a good hour in the morning. Those early mornings are my favorite because the day starts early, and I have a really long working day, so I love the peace and quiet in the morning. That’s why I don’t do my sports in the morning. I prefer to play sports at night, after everything is done to clear my mind. My morning hour is for me, whether I sit in the garden and have my coffee, read an article, or call my friends.
I usually start my workday around 8-8:15am. To avoid Dubai traffic, unless I have a meeting, I don’t come to the office very early, and we’re lucky to have that flexibility around working from home. So I do 8-10am in my office because I don’t want to spend hours commuting. I use that time slot to go through all the emails that came in from the night before.
Because we’re a global firm, we have clients from all over the world and most emails and work comes in overnight, especially from the West Coast, where all the technology companies are. I don’t leave home until I’ve sent out my instructions for the day to all the team members, so by 9:30-10am, everybody knows exactly what they have to do for that day.
I’m lucky to have an amazing team where everyone has very good knowledge of their clients, which is something that I really encourage. In our industry, a lot of partners would have the client relationship, but the way I do it is I push down the relationship to all my team, so the most junior person in my team knows everything about that client. This helps me get the work done faster and much better.
I try not to schedule client meetings except between 10am and 2pm, since the office is in a very busy part of town. I don’t do a lot of calls during that time — this is when I see people. From 3pm to 6pm, I’m looking at what the team has prepared and worked on from my instructions in the morning.
I take a pause between 6 and 8pm where I go home, be with the kids and see my wife for a bit.I try not to do any work in those two hours. Working with the US means I still have some work to do most nights, and those two hours are my only constant. Then if I have something to work on, I’ll do that and then play sports with my wife, like tennis, or we go to the gym or see some friends. I try not to schedule any client dinners, because I’m more of a morning person — I prefer client breakfasts.
My favorite compliment is when a client tells me they feel that I’m a part of their organization — that’s my goal. I don’t like to just give advice, I want to understand their business. I have a couple of clients — and I’m very proud of this — who have us interview their hires, or who send their hires to our office for half a day as part of the induction.
Ramadan doesn’t really impact our working day, it just shifts it a few hours, because of the nature of our industry and the fact that our clients are international. The night is a bit longer in Ramadan, and the day starts a little bit later. But that six to eight is still my six to eight, just now over iftar.
But within the local community here during Ramadan, you see less business meetings.Work is still happening — this is still a hustling and bustling city — but business meetings get swapped with more social gatherings.
I love to engage with our clients during Ramadan. There’s a lot of things to do and it’s a very peaceful month, so we also take advantage of Ramadan to go meet our clients without talking business and just break bread.
Playing tennis at least three or four times per week is essential for me. If I don’t do that, I go completely mad. It’s a great way to relieve stress and organize the mind, and it’s probably the only hour in my day where I don’t think about anything else. Because if you think about anything else, you’re gonna lose. It forces me to disconnect.
Looking ahead, we’ve moved to this new office four or five months ago because we have great plans for growth. It fits twice as many people as it has right now, so in the next three to five years, I want to double my team.
The best advice I’ve ever gotten is “this too shall pass.” I got it from my dad, who is someone who never gets too low or too high. After every victory, you enjoy it and then you come back to the grind. After a low, know that it’s going to pass.
We’re lacking philosophy, and I really enjoy the work of Lebanese scientist Dr. Khaled Ghattass who’s a very modern philosopher and a public speaker, and I really enjoy listening to him on podcasts. He also wrote a book of short stories that I’m enjoying — it’s very philosophical, and each story carries a small message.
