Senior Manager, Leasing – Majid Al Futtaim

Majid Al Futtaim operates some of the region’s best-known shopping malls and mixed-use destinations, and this Senior Manager, Leasing role sits at the center of how those properties generate and sustain revenue — negotiating and managing tenant leases across the company’s retail real estate portfolio in Dubai. Leasing is a relationship-driven, commercially sharp discipline: every retailer occupying space in a Majid Al Futtaim mall is there because of a lease negotiation that balanced the landlord’s revenue goals against the tenant mix and footfall the property needs to thrive.

Day to day, the role involves managing relationships with existing and prospective tenants, negotiating lease terms, renewals, and rent reviews, and working closely with asset management and marketing teams to shape a tenant mix that keeps a property commercially strong and attractive to shoppers. Strong organizational and leadership skills matter as much as negotiation ability, since the role likely oversees a leasing team and coordinates across multiple stakeholders internally.

This suits an experienced leasing or commercial real estate professional who understands retail real estate specifically — the dynamics of anchor tenants, specialty retail, and how a mall’s tenant mix drives footfall are different from office or residential leasing, and that domain expertise matters here.

Majid Al Futtaim’s mission of creating “great moments for people,” referenced in the company’s own description of the role, reflects an emphasis on tenant relationships and mall experience that goes beyond transactional leasing alone.

Leasing is the primary revenue engine for a shopping mall business — the rent a retailer pays, and the tenant mix that results from leasing decisions, directly determines a property's income and its long-term competitiveness against other retail destinations. A strong leasing function doesn't just fill space; it curates a tenant mix that drives footfall, which in turn makes the property more attractive to the next round of prospective tenants — a virtuous cycle that a weak leasing function can just as easily run in reverse. For Majid Al Futtaim, operating some of the most prominent retail destinations in the UAE, the leasing team's negotiating discipline and tenant-mix judgment directly protects and grows one of the company's core revenue streams. Getting lease terms wrong — too generous, or a tenant mix that doesn't fit the property's positioning — has consequences that play out over years, since commercial leases are typically long-term commitments.

Senior leasing roles at a company with the scale and profile of Majid Al Futtaim offer exposure to some of the most prominent retail real estate assets in the region, working directly with major international and regional retail brands as tenants — relationships and market knowledge that carry significant weight on a commercial real estate résumé. The negotiation, relationship-management, and portfolio-strategy skills built in a senior leasing role are highly transferable across retail real estate, commercial property management, and even broader real estate investment and asset-management careers. This kind of role also tends to build a strong internal and external network within the region's retail and real estate community — landlords, brokers, and major retail brands all interact with a company's leasing team regularly, and those relationships often prove valuable well beyond any single employer. For someone with commercial real estate or leasing experience looking to move into a senior, strategic leasing role with genuine influence over property performance, Majid Al Futtaim's retail portfolio offers a scale and profile that's hard to match elsewhere in the region. It also positions someone well for the eventual move into asset management or investment roles, since a leasing background gives direct insight into how a property's income actually gets generated in practice.

• Significant experience in commercial real estate leasing, ideally within retail or shopping mall environments
• Strong negotiation skills across lease terms, renewals, and rent reviews
• Excellent organization and leadership skills, with experience managing a leasing team
• Understanding of tenant mix strategy and how it drives footfall and property performance
• Strong relationship-management skills with both prospective and existing tenants
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field; real estate or property management qualifications are an advantage