Dr. Mahmoud AlBurai is currently serving as a senior director of real estate policies and innovation at the Dubai Land Department. In addition, he is a senior advisor to the Director General of the Dubai Land Department and a senior advisor to the Dubai Police Emergency and Disasters (Resilience) Centre. Before this, Mahmoud served as the CEO of the Dubai Real Estate Institute for 10 years, during which the institute graduated 80,000 real estate professionals from the region, and for 4 years as the Director of Real Estate Sector Development in Dubai. He has been an Alumni of the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Leadership program (Government Leaders Program) since 2014. Reflecting his commitment to global sustainability and resilience, Mahmoud is the Chairman of the UNDRR ARISE network in the UAE and was recently elected as the Vice Chair of Global Arise (UNDRR). In 2021, he was selected as one of 10 City Changers by the World Urban Campaign of the UN Habitat, recognizing his role in advancing SDGs and addressing climate change. He served as the Chairman of UN Global Compact UAE from 2015-2020 and represented the MENA region on the UN Global Compact advisory board from 2016-2018. In this capacity, he led many SDG-driven initiatives, including establishing youth ambassador programs in seven UAE universities, leading the Women Empowerment Principles platform, and launching the SDGs Pioneers UAE to celebrate sustainability success stories. Furthermore, Mahmoud leads the affordable housing working group at the World Economic Forum. In the academic and advisory fields, Mahmoud serves as an assistant professor of Management at the American University in Dubai (since 2013) and the Director of the Middle East Cities Centre at the same university (since 2020), focusing on sustainability, resilience, and competitiveness. He is also a Faculty member at the Mohamad Bin Rashid School of Government, where he has trained over 500 government officials on leadership and sustainability. Additionally, he serves as an advisor for the MENA region at Happy City Lab, which works on integrating happiness into urban design. Dr. AlBurai holds several prominent positions within global real estate organizations. He is the Vice President of the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) for Arabic Countries, Chairman of FIABCI Emirates, and sits on the board of the global FIABCI network. He has also served on the board of the International Real Estate Society (IRES) for 5 years and on the board of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) for 2019-2020. His extensive educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the American University, a Master’s in Real Estate from the National University of Singapore, and an MBA in Finance from the American University of Dubai (2010). He furthered his studies with a Master of Cities at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2019), a DBA at Grenoble Ecole de Management in France (2020), and a Master of International Business Law from Paris-Pantheon-Assas University in France (2022).
