Banking boss Rick Pudner tops Arabian Business Expat Power List 2011

Emirates NBD CEO Rick Pudner has topped the third Arabian Business Expat Power List, after propelling the Gulf’s biggest bank to a fine set of annual results.

Pudner is the man chiefly responsible for steering Emirates NBD through the economic crisis, after joining the bank in 2006, and saw profits in the last quarter of 2010 more than double, year-on-year.

Staying in second place this year is James Hogan, the ebullient CEO of Etihad Airways, which is maintaining its spread across the world’s continents. By the end of this year, Hogan told Arabian Business recently, the airline will hit a profit for the first time ever.

Qatar Holding’s head of mergers and acquisitions, Anthony Armstrong slips two places to third, while Mukesh Jagtiani – chairman of Landmark Group – is fourth.

This year’s highest new entry is V Shankar, CEO, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas at Standard Chartered, reflecting once again the importance of the finance sector to the Gulf.

Emirates Airline president Tim Clark is the second aviation executive on the list, in sixth place, closely followed by Petrochem managing director Yogesh Mehta in seventh.

Altogether, there were eight new entries, with several players dropping out of last year’s list.

The transient nature of the expatriate community is evident here; Aidan Birkett, the chief restructuring officer of Dubai World – who placed fourth last year – has completed his job at the emirate’s conglomerate.

Jean Paul Villain, head of strategy at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, drops to fourteenth from third last year, and first in 2009, after a relatively quiet year for the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund.

To read the full Expat Power list 2011, click here