Martin Whittet

'We were having increasing difficulty in finding staff in Jersey and Guernsey,' he explains. 'The licensing regulations for importing labour have become very tight, and we thought Dubai would be an alternative base to recruit the right talent.

'Dubai has an attractive lifestyle for the kind of young creative people that we employ, and they immediately like the sunshine and nightlife. The tax-free status is really secondary but of course it helps too.'

However, Omnia almost immediately found that its clients from the financial sectors in the Channel Islands and London were interesting in coming to Dubai as well, more specifically for the upcoming Dubai International Financial Centre.

'It was not what we planned at all but this has been a fortunate turn of events for us,' he says. 'In the past six weeks we have been showing a number of clients around Dubai and they seem to like what they see.'

For a company with a client list like a 'Who's who' of the financial sector - from Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds, Julius Baer, ABN Amro to Credit Suisse and Ansbacher - the DIFC is clearly a potential pot of gold.

'We are creating a centre of excellence for marketing here, and are currently recruiting from the US, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Eastern Europe' explains Mr. Whittet, who used to live in Dubai 15 years ago.

'What we do is mainly marketing consultancy work. We can do everything from a marketing strategy to full implementation, and are strong in print and radio advertising as well as presentations and e-marketing.'

Omnia is a middle-ranking marketing consultancy with 34 staff of whom 12 are based in Dubai. But Mr. Whittet intends to double the size of Omnia within the next year, hence his very active recruitment programme.
'We have to focus on finding the right people and that is never easy in any market. However, Dubai is a young person's environment with a 'work hard, play hard' atmosphere and we appeal to those disillusioned with living in the UK for example.

'Perhaps surprisingly it is security that is mentioned time and again in interviews. Even in the UK people do not feel safe going out at night which is certainly not a problem in Dubai. Maybe you can understand South Africans' concerns rather more easily but this is a worldwide issue.

'Dubai is like Hong Kong or Singapore a few years ago. It is growing very strongly and has a kind of dynamic about the place. There is also a lot of work for people to do, and some great opportunities for creative talent.'