Made in Dubai with Spencer Lodge

Michael's story goes far beyond business. Adopted as a baby, he grew up with parents who went on to foster around 300 children. Their example helped shape his approach to leadership, honesty and how he treats people. Michael also shares his experience of leading a business through a period of change,  the challenges of transforming its business model and the lessons he has learnt throughout his ca...

Michele Tarnow is the CEO and founder of Alliance Care Technologies, a company developing technology and partnerships to expand access to preventative health screening. Michelle explains how her technology can screen people in minutes, even in communities with limited access to doctors and healthcare facilities. She shares the example of 800,000 people screened for diabetes and cardiovascular dise...

Technology is changing the way hotels operate, from how guests choose where to stay to how businesses manage pricing and performance. But as Raki Phillips explains, hospitality still comes down to the experience guests have and whether they want to come back. Raki Phillips also shares his perspective on protecting room rates during periods of disruption, the resilience of the UAE's tourism industr...

From alternative ports and rerouting cargo to rising freight costs, limited capacity and the importance of keeping essential goods moving, Ayman explains how logistics companies adapt when the usual routes are no longer available. Ayman Kabbara also discusses pharmaceuticals, global trade, AI, blockchain and preparing for future supply chain disruptions. Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 1:08 What happ...

Reda Raad has spent the last 20 years shaping how one of the world's biggest car brands is seen across this region, and picked up international recognition along the way for his work putting the Louvre Abu Dhabi on the map. He talks to Spencer about the discipline he says most people are losing in the age of AI, and why some brands earn decades of trust in this region while others never get close....

Dean McGrail has spent over two decades building his career in the Gulf, and today he leads WSP's operations across the Middle East and Asia. He talks to Spencer about the humbling start that shaped his entire career, his approach to leading his team, and what it's actually taken, personally and professionally, to get to where he is now.   Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 0:28 What WSP actually does 1...

Jon Marchant is Group President at Memac Ogilvy, part of WPP, leading 450 people across one of the region's biggest advertising networks after 27 years in the industry. Jon explains why he believes the real threat to the advertising industry isn't AI, it's mediocrity, and what that means for agencies trying to stay relevant. He also opens up about why he believes vulnerability builds more trust in...

Nick Watson is a former Royal Marine who moved to Dubai in the late 1990s and later founded Team Angel Wolf, a nonprofit built around his son Rio, who is 23 and lives with a rare chromosome condition. The wider mission behind Team Angel Wolf, teaching communities and schools across the UAE what real inclusion looks like. Timestamps 0:57 Nick and Spencer meet after 21 years of near misses 2:12 Why...

Dr. Hasan Alogaily is a global expert in longevity, and he's here to cut through the noise. Peptides, supplement stacks and expensive therapies dominate the conversation online, but he says none of it matters if the basics aren't in place first. In this conversation, Hasan explains why lifestyle is the real foundation of a longer life, how often you should actually be getting your bloods checked,...

She grew up in a community that Nepal doesn't count. Below all 126 castes. Girls in her village had no access to education, healthcare, or transport. From the age of 11, they were sold. Hannah Badi was nearly trafficked at 9 years old. She escaped at midnight with 32 girls and a stone in her hand. She went on to rescue 682 children. Her sister is now a minister of Nepal. This is one of the most po...

Her son was 12. While she was on the waiting list for a donor liver, he went home and Googled everything she was too scared to search. She came through the surgery. And then sat with a question that stopped everyone in that room. Dr. Kaiser Raja, her surgeon at King's College Hospital Dubai, is also in this conversation. And Spencer does something in this episode that Nadia did not know was coming...

Most people in the UAE assume their company medical plan is there to look after them. Sam Douglas has spent 13 years on the other side of that assumption. This is one of those conversations that changes the way you think about something you assumed was straightforward. Sam is honest, specific, and genuinely good at explaining a world most employees never get to see inside. Time stamps 0:00 Introdu...

Most people in the UAE have spent years building a career and assuming their gratuity is sitting somewhere safe, waiting for them when they leave. Safa Bouzidi is one of the few people who will actually tell you what is happening to it. If you work in this country and you have never asked your company where your end-of-service money is, this is the conversation that will make you start. Timestamps...

We talked about what the advertising industry actually gets wrong, and why most agencies won't tell you. We got into Jaguar, Ferrari, data, creativity, and the uncomfortable truth about what really makes a campaign work. And then halfway through, he said something that had nothing to do with any of that. Sixteen years. That's how long he's been sitting with something most men in this part of the w...

Paul Evans is the CEO of Solutions Leisure, one of the most recognised hospitality brands in the UAE with 23 venues across the region. But that is not the reason we brought him in. He grew up dyslexic and spent years being told he wasn't enough, and the decisions he made in his early twenties landed him in a UK prison cell at 21. What followed was years of searching for something he couldn't name,...

Sami Kayyali is the founder and managing director of Rekarda, one of the most specialist communications businesses in the UAE. But the work he does is not what most people think. He is not building slides. He is sitting behind the scenes of the rooms where the most consequential decisions in the region get made, shaping how CEOs, government entities and multinational boards communicate before they...

Dennis McGettigan is the founder and CEO of McGettigan's, one of the most  recognisable  hospitality brands in the UAE. But the story behind it starts in Dublin, in a house with ten children  run  "like a business", where the kitchen was locked at 7pm and every kid got jobs and five pounds a week. His father started as a dishwasher on the QE1 at nineteen, bought his first pub for eight thousand po...

In 1981, a young Emirati woman convinced her father to let her travel to America to study. On her very first exam in a class of 75 Americans, she came first. That woman is now Vice Chancellor of the University of Sharjah.   Dr. Amina Al Marzouqi's story is one of the most inspiring journeys Spencer has covered on this show. After graduating in the US, she came home and was made deputy director of...

Known to millions as Mrs. Moneypenny from her  16 year  Financial Times column, Heather has been an investment banker, executive search entrepreneur, Edinburgh Fringe performer, off Broadway actress, PhD holder, chartered accountant and now Provost of Heriot-Watt University Dubai, overseeing 5,500 students and 600 staff. She qualified as a chartered accountant three weeks before her 60th birthday....

Most people arrive in Dubai thinking the opportunities will find them. Jason Grundy has spent 25 years watching that assumption  play  out badly.   As Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa at Robert Walters, Jason has seen every side of the hiring market. The candidates who oversell themselves. The companies that leave great people waiting a month for feedback and wonder why they lost t...

Eight years. Four hundred episodes. And Spencer still  can't  quite believe it.   For the 400th episode, Spencer sits down to reflect on the podcast that has shaped him as much as he has shaped it and revisits four conversations that moved him, changed him, and that he  hasn't  been able to stop thinking about.   None of this happens without the people who have shown up every single week for eight...

"The Doctor Is Not Always Right"   Hein Van Eck  is a healthcare actuary by training ,  a breed of thinker who sits at the intersection of data, ethics, and human  behavior.  He started in insurance in South Africa, was handed his career-defining job after answering a single ethical question  correctly, and  has spent the last 20 years on the provider side watching an industry transform in real ti...

Katy Keenan has turned the British Chamber of Commerce Dubai into one of the most respected business communities in the UAE 1,200 members across 29 sectors, a board that's now 50% women, record profits donated to charity, a 98% satisfaction rating, and a LinkedIn following that grew from 6,000 to nearly 33,000 with no marketing budget whatsoever. Just authentic storytelling, genuine relationships,...

Ossama El Samadoni leads GBM, one of the most respected technology organisations in the region, with over 300 employees, triple-digit million dirham revenue, and clients across the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Russia. The disappointment that derailed his dream is exactly what built him. But this isn't a story about career pivots. It's a conversation that should make every business leader in thi...

He opened his first venue from a counter so small it could barely fit a table. No hotel background. No hospitality degree. Just restlessness, a borrowed chef, and a bet on Dubai. Twenty years later, he runs 112 venues across 26 countries, employs over 7,000 people worldwide, and is navigating one of the most uncertain periods this city has ever seen.   In this episode, Spencer sits down with Anton...