How Indian-Origin Operators Are Scaling GCC Real Estate From the Inside Out

The Operator Gap in GCC Real Estate

The narrative around India and the Gulf Cooperation Council in real estate has long centred on capital corridors — sovereign wealth flowing westward into Mumbai commercial towers, Indian family offices acquiring Dubai apartments as portfolio hedges. The story is familiar, well-documented, and increasingly incomplete.

What it misses is the emergence of a distinct operational class: Indian-origin and cross-cultural executives who are not merely channelling money between geographies but building, managing, and scaling real estate platforms from within the GCC itself. These are professionals who sit at the intersection of institutional capital, Islamic finance structuring, sovereign wealth deployment, and ground-level asset management. They represent neither the ultra-luxury developer archetype nor the family-capital bridge. They are the execution layer — and they are reshaping how the Gulf builds.

Figures such as Amit Goenka of Nisus Finance, Puneet Kataria at Gulf Islamic Investments, Navid Chamdia at Qatar Investment Authority, and Amine Bouchentouf of Atlas Mena Capital illustrate this shift with precision. Each operates at a different node of the GCC real estate value chain, yet together they reveal a structural transformation: the professionalisation of cross-border real estate operations in a region historically dominated by relationship-driven dealmaking.

The transition from investor to operator is not cosmetic. It is the defining shift in GCC real estate's next chapter.

Who Is Amit Goenka and Why Does His Model Matter for GCC Real Estate?

Amit Goenka, through Nisus Finance, has built a platform that actively bridges Indian capital with Dubai real estate — but not in the manner most commonly associated with cross-border Indian investment. Rather than targeting the trophy assets and branded residences that dominate headlines, Goenka's focus sits squarely on structured debt and equity instruments aimed at affordable and mid-market housing segments.

This positioning is strategically significant. The GCC's residential markets, particularly in the UAE, face a well-recognised tension: an oversupply of luxury inventory coexisting with acute demand pressure in the mid-market and workforce housing segments. Operators who can structure capital to flow into these underserved segments — using instruments familiar to institutional Indian investors while complying with local regulatory and Sharia-compliant frameworks — occupy a niche that pure-play developers and sovereign funds have largely left open.

Goenka's cross-border playbook relies on three operational pillars. First, structured finance origination that packages GCC real estate exposure in formats palatable to Indian institutional allocators. Second, on-the-ground asset-level oversight that ensures deployment discipline in a market where development risk remains meaningful. Third, relationship infrastructure that spans both Indian regulatory environments and GCC free-zone and mainland jurisdictions.

Amit Goenka's approach demonstrates that the India-GCC real estate corridor is maturing beyond trophy acquisitions into institutionalised, segment-specific capital deployment.

This model does not operate in isolation. It reflects a broader professionalisation trend that GRI Institute has tracked across its GCC and India programming, where conversations among senior members have increasingly shifted from deal-by-deal capital matching toward platform-level operational partnerships.

How Are Cross-Cultural Executives Redefining GCC Real Estate Operations?

The significance of this emerging operator class extends well beyond any single individual. Consider the breadth of the operational map these figures collectively draw.

Puneet Kataria, as Global Head of Real Estate Investments at Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), manages cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and investment mandates structured through Islamic finance vehicles. His role sits at the confluence of two of the GCC's most distinctive characteristics — the scale of institutional Islamic capital seeking real asset exposure, and the region's ambition to be a global hub for Sharia-compliant investment structuring. Kataria's work at GII involves not just deal origination but the complex layering of Islamic finance instruments — ijara, murabaha, diminishing musharaka — onto real estate assets across multiple jurisdictions. This is operational sophistication of a high order, requiring fluency in both global institutional standards and the specific jurisprudential requirements of Islamic finance.

Navid Chamdia operates at an entirely different scale as Head of Real Estate at Qatar Investment Authority, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds. QIA's real estate portfolio spans global gateway cities and regional strategic assets, and Chamdia's role involves directing sovereign capital into a diversified portfolio that must balance geopolitical considerations, long-duration return requirements, and Qatar's national development objectives. The operational demands of managing sovereign real estate allocation — from underwriting to asset management to disposition — represent the apex of institutional complexity in the sector.

Amine Bouchentouf, through Atlas Mena Capital based in Abu Dhabi, brings a complementary perspective rooted in the family office ecosystem. His focus on what the market increasingly terms "experiential real estate" — assets whose value proposition centres on user experience, placemaking, and community programming rather than pure yield metrics — represents a deliberate strategic choice. Bouchentouf has articulated a preference for value-add strategies over distressed asset plays, a stance that reflects confidence in GCC market fundamentals and a conviction that operational improvement, not financial engineering, drives sustainable returns in the region.

The common thread is unmistakable: these operators are not intermediaries. They are principals — building platforms, managing assets, and making allocation decisions that shape the physical and financial landscape of GCC real estate.

What Does This Operator Class Mean for the Future of India-GCC Real Estate Relations?

The strategic implications of this shift deserve careful consideration by every stakeholder in the GCC real estate ecosystem — from sovereign funds and institutional allocators to developers, family offices, and the advisory firms that serve them.

First, the emergence of embedded operators changes the nature of cross-border risk. When Indian capital enters the GCC through an operator who maintains permanent presence, local market intelligence, and direct asset oversight, the information asymmetry that has historically plagued cross-border real estate investment diminishes materially. This is not a trivial point. Real estate remains a fundamentally local asset class, and the gap between capital allocation and operational execution has been the source of considerable value destruction in emerging market real estate globally.

Second, these operators are creating new institutional pathways. Kataria's work at GII, for example, demonstrates how Islamic finance structures can serve as bridges for non-GCC capital seeking compliant exposure to Gulf real estate. Goenka's structured debt approach creates standardised formats that Indian pension funds, insurance companies, and alternative investment platforms can evaluate using familiar frameworks. These are not bespoke, one-off transactions. They are repeatable, scalable mechanisms that lower the friction cost of cross-border capital movement.

Third, the operator layer introduces competitive discipline. When professionals with global institutional backgrounds — trained at firms where underwriting rigour, fiduciary standards, and performance accountability are non-negotiable — take operational roles in GCC real estate, they import governance norms that strengthen the entire market. This professionalization is a necessary precondition for the GCC's ambition to attract long-duration institutional capital from global pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies.

The implications extend to talent markets as well. The presence of operators like Goenka, Kataria, Chamdia, and Bouchentouf signals to the next generation of real estate professionals — in India, across the MENA region, and globally — that the GCC offers not just investment exposure but career-defining operational opportunities. This talent magnetism creates a virtuous cycle: better operators attract better capital, which funds better projects, which draw better operators.

The Platform Imperative

The GCC real estate sector has entered a phase where execution quality, not just capital availability, determines competitive advantage. The region's ambitions — Saudi Arabia's giga-projects, Abu Dhabi's economic diversification, Qatar's post-World Cup asset repositioning, Dubai's continued reinvention — all require operational depth that outstrips the capacity of any single developer or sovereign fund.

This is where the cross-cultural operator class becomes indispensable. These are executives who understand Indian capital markets and GCC regulatory frameworks with equal fluency. Who can structure a Sharia-compliant mezzanine facility for a mid-market housing project in Dubai while simultaneously managing institutional reporting requirements for Indian limited partners. Who can evaluate a value-add hospitality asset in Abu Dhabi through the lens of global institutional standards while respecting the cultural and commercial specificities of the Gulf market.

The next phase of GCC real estate will be defined not by who brings capital, but by who builds the platforms to deploy it.

GRI Institute's GCC programming has increasingly reflected this reality, with senior members across the region engaging in discussions that move beyond capital raising to address operational scaling, governance standards, and cross-border platform design. The conversations happening within the GRI community — at flagship events and through dedicated research initiatives — mirror the market's own evolution from a deal-driven to a platform-driven paradigm.

For industry leaders tracking the India-GCC corridor, the message is clear: follow the operators. The capital will follow them.

GRI Institute connects senior real estate and infrastructure leaders across the GCC, India, and global markets through curated events, proprietary research, and a membership community built on trust and strategic exchange. For more on GRI's GCC and India programming, visit the GRI Institute website.