Vardaraj — better known as Raj — Shetty runs one of the region’s largest home-grown hotel chains. The Ramee Group of Hotels and Resorts has 40 properties in its portfolio in the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and India and also runs a shopping mall in Chennai. That’s still not enough for Shetty, who’s planning to add two more five-star hotels in Dubai and Abu Dhabi over the next three years at a cost of roughly $200m. It’s been an incredible story for Shetty, who first came to the UAE in 1978 and won his first opportunity to run his own hotel aged just 25.