Georgia Tolley
Moderator
Sessions (7)
Sessions featuring Georgia Tolley at LIVEX | Investor Stage
From Interest to Entry: The Mechanics of Investing in Abu Dhabi
The core message of the session is that Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a place where investors can move from interest to on-the-ground commitment with confidence, clarity, and practical support. Host Georgia Tolley framed the investor-stage programme around a single question: “How do I participate?” She explained that the event would move from the investment case for Abu Dhabi into sector opportunities and then into capital-allocation decisions, with each conversation intended to give investors something concrete: a pathway, pipeline, partner, or number. His Excellency Hamed Saeed AlMajali then opened by asking where investors can commit capital confidently while retaining the ability to scale globally, setting up Abu Dhabi’s answer around predictability, reach, and clarity of direction. AlMajali argued that long-term investment requires rules that hold, a clear economic strategy, efficient services, trusted regulation, and a government that sees itself as an enabler of investment. He described Abu Dhabi’s geographic and financial reach as a base for serving developed and emerging markets between east and west and between north and south. He also highlighted four economic clusters launched since 2023: smart and autonomous vehicle industries; agri-food growth and water abundance; health, endurance, longevity, and medicine; and fintech, insurance, digital, and alternative assets. Together, he said, these clusters are projected to contribute almost 284 billion to Abu Dhabi’s GDP, create more than 130,000 jobs, and attract over $217 billion in investment by 2045. The panel then shifted from the investment case to the mechanics of entry. Saeed Al Awar of Rothschild described Abu Dhabi’s evolution over the last ten to fifteen years from a source of capital for asset managers into a place where businesses are encouraged to establish substance. He pointed to ADGM as a key part of that shift, alongside incentives that encourage investment professionals and business operations to be based on the ground. He also stressed that Abu Dhabi’s livability—venues, education, schooling, entertainment, airline connectivity, and urban development—has become part of its investment proposition, because businesses need people who want to live where they work. Snow Li of SABA Investment provided the most personal case study of moving from interest to entry. She traced her relationship with Abu Dhabi back to a 2019 delegation visit from Shanghai and a first visit to Louvre Abu Dhabi, where the cultural respect shown to different histories and nationalities made a strong impression. After returning during Chinese New Year in 2020 and staying through COVID, she began spending 60% of her time in Abu Dhabi, became a founding patron and individual donor of Louvre Abu Dhabi, and expanded her business presence. She cited culture, infrastructure, friendly people, Abu Dhabi’s role as a hub for MENA and Africa, ADEO incentives, and the ease of establishing in ADGM as reasons her family and business became comfortable investing and operating from the city.
Compute Is the New Concrete: The AI and Digital Infrastructure Build-Out
The core message of the session was that AI should not be understood as software alone: it requires a physical and institutional build-out of compute, power, sustainable energy, connectivity, chips, networks, researchers, universities, institutes, regulation, and adoption. The moderator framed Abu Dhabi’s opportunity around what is being built, how those projects may be financed, and how external investors could participate. Eyad Abdulla argued that Abu Dhabi is not simply “writing a check” for AI companies to build data centers, but is constructing an integrated ecosystem. Masdar City’s role, in his account, is to host and connect critical parts of that ecosystem, including Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, established in 2019 and described as the first university in the world specialized for AI, and the Technology Innovation Institute. He also described Masdar City’s six focus clusters: AI, smart mobility, life sciences, space technology, agri-tech, and power. Eddie Cheng explained the session title, “compute is the new concrete,” by describing how compute has shifted from general-purpose processing toward token consumption driven by large language models and AI-native applications. For Origen, this means transforming into an AI-native organization and delivering AI-native products and services. He contrasted traditional applications, which rely on rules, inputs, predefined outputs, and interfaces, with AI-native applications that are anchored around context, learn user needs, and complete tasks automatically. He emphasized the speed of adoption by comparing electricity, which he said took around a century to reach 90% of households, with the internet, which took about 30 years, and AI, which he expects to take 10 years, with large language models beginning in 2020 and the world already six years into that journey. The discussion then turned to what “the right kind” of compute means for ordinary residents. Cheng’s answer was deliberately human-centered: the right kind of AI should not compete for attention. He compared humans to AI models with daily token limits, arguing that people have limited energy and attention. Good AI products, in his view, should consume the minimum attention required to complete useful tasks; if they constantly demand engagement, users stop consuming AI and AI starts consuming them. Abdulla connected this back to city planning, saying AI is now part of the “concrete” of a city and must be planned into urban development rather than treated as optional. Abdulla closed the provided portion by breaking the AI ecosystem into three layers: infrastructure, capability, and adoption. Infrastructure includes servers, compute, and connectivity; capability includes researchers, engineers, universities, and institutes; adoption requires government, businesses, companies, residents, and citizens to use the technology. He described Masdar City as a global test bed, citing autonomous mobility, smart technologies, Encelco’s AI-assisted drug and prescription development, the Personal Rapid Transit system launched in 2009 that has carried more than 3 million people, level-four autonomous vehicle testing across roughly 2.5 kilometers, regulatory work with ITC, and the BioSphere lab for biotech collaboration. The provided transcript ends as Cheng begins explaining why AI adoption is moving faster than electricity adoption.
The Longevity Economy: Anatomy of a Life-Sciences Investment
The core message of the session is that Abu Dhabi is positioning life sciences—and especially healthy longevity—as an investable opportunity by combining data, incentives, regulation, physical infrastructure, and public-sector orchestration. The moderator opened by framing the discussion for an investor audience: what Abu Dhabi has built, why life sciences are investable there, and where longevity-related opportunities may be underappreciated. Dr. Mohammed Bitar described Abu Dhabi’s vision as an ecosystem for healthcare, life sciences growth, and innovation, with longevity at its center. He highlighted HELM, an initiative with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office and the Department of Health, Abu Dhabi, standing for health, endurance, longevity, and medicine, designed to attract investors, researchers, and innovators.
The UHNW Economy: Wellness, Hospitality and Luxury as Asset Classes
The core message of the available transcript is that Abu Dhabi’s appeal to ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices is not being driven by property alone, but by the broader ecosystem around wealth, family life, investment access, wellness, culture and community. The moderator framed the conversation around the business models behind wellness, hospitality, dining, private clubs, retail and other lifestyle sectors, asking where investors might find opportunities over the next two years as wealthy individuals increasingly make Abu Dhabi their home. Andrew Cummings opened by arguing that the UAE has transformed since pre-COVID times, with a major increase in relocating wealth and a resulting shift in what developers must deliver: super-prime homes, differentiated design, branded residences and finishes comparable to what buyers expect in the UK, New York and Singapore.
Feeding the Future: The Agri-Food Deal Showcase
The core message of this session was that Abu Dhabi’s food, water and energy constraints create a clear investment case for agri-tech and desalination innovation. Host Georgia Tolley opened the investor-stage discussion by framing LiveX 2026 around livability and economic profitability, then narrowed the focus to food and Abu Dhabi’s agri-tech ecosystem. Dr. Philip Hart of the Technology Innovation Institute explained that recent conflict had sharpened attention on where the UAE gets both its food and water, making resilience a practical investment and technology challenge rather than an abstract policy topic. Hart first addressed desalination, stressing that water is inexpensive per cubic metre but costly at national scale because the UAE produces just over 7,000,000 cubic metres of water per day. The fundamental issue is the energy required to remove salt from seawater, so the objective is to make desalination cheaper and recover more fresh water from every intake. He then connected this directly to agriculture: the UAE imports about 90% of its food, and less than 5% of its land is suitable for growing crops. That combination means food production must extract the maximum value from limited agricultural land while using as little energy, water, fertilizer and other inputs as possible. Two near-term Technology Innovation Institute developments illustrated the opportunity. The first is a bio-based soil additive, planned for commercial launch toward the end of the year, designed to hold irrigation water in sandy soil so plants can draw on it over roughly twenty-four hours. Hart said it is made from materials such as old tree matter and releases natural fertilizer as it releases water, producing more crop for less water and therefore less desalination energy. The second is a ceramic desalination membrane, expected to go to market by the end of next year, intended to replace polymer membranes, last twenty years, and allow more water through for the same pressure. The discussion then moved from inventions to Abu Dhabi’s research-to-commercialisation model. Hart described TII as a government-funded agency that also undertakes private research, with most funding coming from the Department of Finance. Because scientists do not need to spend large amounts of time writing proposals, teams can move from idea to prototype in weeks rather than the year to eighteen months Hart associated with university funding cycles. Once work reaches pre-commercial stage, sister company VentureOne can spin up a venture, creating a route for external investors to back commercial products emerging from TII research.
The Capital of Capital: Why Talent is the World's Most Valuable Asset
Khaled Bin Braik’s central message was that talent, rather than gold, oil, real estate, infrastructure, capital, or technology, is the world’s most valuable asset because people are the differentiator that make every other asset useful. Speaking from his work across the region, he argued that “the greatest wealth of any nation is its people” and that human capital development has been a cornerstone of national strategy, particularly in the United Arab Emirates. Infrastructure can be built, capital deployed, and technology acquired, but organizations and nations need people to use those assets effectively. He framed this as especially urgent because global challenges such as climate change and geopolitical developments are significant, while the potential to turn them into opportunities depends on cultivating adaptable, agile, creative leaders. He then identified three major shifts currently reshaping the talent landscape. The first is generational: younger workers entering the workforce have different expectations around career progression, development, flexibility, and benefits. Referencing PwC’s global hopes and fears survey of 50,000 workers across 48 countries, he described a divergence between AI-enabled workers who are positive and driven, and a larger share of workers who are anxious about finances, jobs, and access to growth opportunities. The second shift is the need to build and sustain critical capabilities, which in the UAE context includes nationalization and a shift in focus from how many people were hired to how far they progressed into leadership roles. The third, and most widely discussed, is AI’s impact on jobs and skills; he said the UAE is one of the fastest-growing AI talent markets and that demand for jobs with AI skills has tripled over the past couple of years. On the question of AI skills shortages, Khaled said the shortage is global, but emphasized Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem approach: government, business, and education working together on the skills agenda. Rather than only asking whether there is a skills gap, he urged leaders to ask whether there is a coordination and alignment gap across the ecosystem. He described government as the ecosystem orchestrator, businesses as the parties defining skills agendas, and education providers as the creators of platforms and learning journeys. He pointed to Abu Dhabi’s value proposition—opportunity, ambition, infrastructure, safety, stability, and healthcare—and highlighted the plan to make Abu Dhabi government AI native by 2027, including the claim that 95% of public sector workers are now trained on AI foundations. For the private sector and young professionals, the session closed on a practical and optimistic note. Khaled urged companies to double down not only on attracting talent but also on developing and retaining it, because AI is reshaping both jobs and skill sets. He predicted future roles will be hybrid, combining domain expertise, human judgment, and AI fluency. He also argued that organizations must move beyond AI literacy toward AI agency: knowing how to use AI, when not to use it, how to apply human judgment, and how to validate results. For young professionals in or considering Abu Dhabi and the UAE, his advice was to invest in learning and upskilling. While acknowledging global challenges and anxiety about job prospects, he said he remains “always glass half full” because the opportunities and human potential are greater.
Portfolio Construction in the Abu Dhabi Context
The session’s core message was that long-term Abu Dhabi exposure should be built around execution discipline, cash-flow monitoring, transparency and genuine diversification rather than excitement about headline pipeline announcements alone. Alia Saleh opened by arguing that, over a ten-year horizon, investors who have already decided to allocate capital to Abu Dhabi should focus on whether the parties delivering an asset can execute and whether capital is being deployed at an appropriate pace. As CFO of ISG Middle East, she emphasised watching cash flows closely: deployment that is too fast or too slow can signal issues that may affect returns. Brendan Gao agreed, framing execution as decisive from an M&A and portfolio-management lens and using Amazon as an example of how ideas alone are irrelevant without the ability to implement them.