Sami Kayyali is the founder and managing director of Rekarda, one of the most specialist communications businesses in the UAE. But the work he does is not what most people think. He is not building slides. He is sitting behind the scenes of the rooms where the most consequential decisions in the region get made, shaping how CEOs, government entities and multinational boards communicate before they walk into the moments that define their careers.
With over 20 years of experience, Sami has watched brilliant leaders with brilliant ideas lose the room, not because the idea was wrong, but because nobody had ever told them the truth about how they were coming across.
This conversation covers building a specialist consultancy from the ground up in Dubai, the hidden work behind high-stakes presentations, what AI is doing to leadership communication, and the one pattern he sees in every single boardroom that almost nobody is willing to talk about.
Timestamps:
0:00 Who Sami Kayyali is and the work that happens before leaders walk into high-stakes rooms
3:30 What brought him to Dubai and the gap in the market he spotted that nobody else was filling
10:00 How a presentation design business became a full strategic communications company
16:00 The moment he realised the problem was never the slides, it was always the thinking behind them
22:00 The biggest communication mistakes CEOs make and why nobody ever tells them
30:00 What actually happens behind the scenes before a major board meeting or investor presentation
38:00 Can you tell within minutes whether a leader is a strong communicator and what gives it away
45:00 How AI is changing executive communication and why most leaders are getting worse, not better
53:00 The Kernel, cybersecurity and why it is a leadership problem, not an IT problem
60:00 Failure, what success means to him now versus ten years ago and the advice that changed everything
66:00 Quickfire: favourite books, the worst phrase in any business deck, the most underrated communication skill, PowerPoint loved or hated, AI as a creative shortcut or a creative risk, and one thing every CEO should fix tomorrow
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