Mohamed Moinuddin, CEO and Founder, Vyne Global Fortunes Investment

Aviation is a fast-paced environment where you have to make quick decisions, decisions that can be life-saving, that carry real financial cost to the company, and that affect the passengers involved. It requires taking responsibility not just for yourself, but for your company and the people around you; it affects the environment, the economics, and the flow of the whole operation. What that taught me is to be resilient and fast in my thinking, to take calculated risks that minimize problems, and, most importantly, to stay calm. Staying calm is what lets everything run more smoothly. That’s really what aviation gave me: fast thinking, paired with staying calm at the same time.

I’ve moved across three industries: aviation, real estate, and finance. Aviation is a passion; I love to fly, to travel, to meet new people. Real estate came from family; my father taught me about real estate and property. Finance was something I was drawn to because everything, ultimately, is related to money. You buy lunch with money, you pay school fees with money, you buy property with money. So the question became: what makes money move? Just like flying a plane from one country to another, I wanted to be the person who can move money from one country to another in a proper, structured way, one that helps build communities. There’s no shortage of funding in the world; the money exists. We just need to source it and direct it to where it needs to go to build something real.

Vyne Global is a network, not a wine company, despite the name. We work with family offices, sovereign funds, capital companies, and banks, and we connect all of that to the right projects. My vision is for Vyne Global to be the company that connects A and B, where A is the money and B is the project. We’re also opening our own capital company under Vyne Global, which will become the funder itself, so we can keep the whole process in-house rather than borrowing other people’s money. That means we can allocate our own funds directly into the projects we want to develop, whether that’s real estate, infrastructure, real assets, ESG projects, or logistics, anything that helps build a better society.

Dubai is my home, so first and foremost, it’s where I feel safe. Beyond that, Dubai gives us access to the network the country has built over the years, and to the guidance of its visionary leadership, which has taught us that if you have an idea, you should just pursue it. Dubai has opened up the whole world for us. It doesn’t limit who you can work with; Dubai works with everyone, connecting the far reaches of the world, from the United States to Antarctica to Australia. Being based here means we’re connected to the world.

It was the decision I made around COVID. That period made clear that if you’re working for someone else, you’re essentially living for someone else’s plans. It completely changed my perspective. I decided I would rather build something myself, make my own mistakes, and take responsibility for my own outcomes than remain employed by someone else. I still fly, but only part time now; I’m not employed by anyone. Challenges often are opportunities. COVID was a shock to everyone in aviation and travel, but it also made clear that when you work for someone else, an economic crisis or a crisis like a pandemic can cost you your job overnight, and you’re left looking for survival. When you’re building something of your own, you’re in a position to take charge of your own life and support the people around you instead. I’ve been fortunate that everyone who works with me has kept their job and their salary through that period. We operated like a team passing the ball toward the same goal, and it made us closer as a result.

I don’t know that I’d call myself a business leader, but being a captain does give people a certain natural respect, the assumption that you’re automatically “the boss.” I don’t see myself that way. I’d rather work as a team. I consider myself a leader because I take responsibility, not because I sit above anyone. I wear the bigger hat, but everyone carries their own responsibility too. Right now there’s someone in my office who’s about to take responsibility for the next phase of his own business, and I’m the one funding it while he runs it. The important thing is understanding that we’re not “the boss.” We’re the ones directing, but we take in people’s knowledge just as much as we share our own, work through the real core of a problem together, and once that’s resolved, figure out how to build value from it, whether that’s through advisory work or a service. There’s always a way to create value.

I think we’re moving at the right pace. What we want most is global recognition, for people to know Vyne Global, understand what we do, and appreciate how we do it. And that goal isn’t just for me; it’s for everyone who works with us. I want the Vyne Global family to grow, because it’s a blessing to have a large family rather than a small one. We want more people to be part of it and to be able to reach us globally. That’s the reasoning behind the name: we’re not local, we’re global.