Dubai-it: "I’m the first person who’ll tell you – get on a flight and come to Dubai.”

Dubai: They call her ‘Ms Today’.

It’s a quiet recognition from her colleagues on how British expat Juliet McCann works at a pace that can at times befuddle people.

And it is this passion for quick, decisive and precise action that she came to Dubai with in 2007.

Nineteen years later, that passion for turning big ideas into reality has only grown stronger.

But she finally has a name to describe it – ‘Dubai-it’.

Last month, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched the ‘Dubai-it’ initiative, as a way to pass on Dubai’s work philosophy to the coming generations. Describing it as a verb, he said that to ‘Dubai-it’ is “to achieve something extraordinary with excellence in record time. It’s about turning big ideas into reality, just like Dubai’s incredible transformation from desert to global city in a short span.”

When the initiative was launched, it immediately struck a chord with people who had long called the city their home, witnessed its transformation first-hand and experienced that ambition trickle down to their personal lives.

“Honestly, I had been doing Dubai-it all along. I don’t think I could have survived in any other city except Dubai,” she said.

“It’s the energy of this place – the question is never can it be done. It’s more ‘Yes, it can be done’, and they already have a plan in place for things to get done. I love that – it’s perfectly suited to me and the pace I work at,” she added.

The British expat says she worked in the UK before moving to Spain and selling real estate for a few years. In 2007, as McCann was looking to work with companies that have a strong reputation, she discovered one all the way in Dubai – The First Group, which was a relatively new developer in Dubai at the time.

“My reputation is everything for me, so I would only ever join a company that had a good reputation. I saw this company which was new at the time but looked extremely professional. That’s what I really wanted,” she said.

That instinct proved to be right, because McCann went on to work for the same company for the next 15 years. She started off selling property through tele-sales with a small team of six people.

“I gradually moved up through the ranks and went into management, and built a team of over 150 tele-sales representatives, all from different nationalities. It was an amazing experience for me, because I had lived in London, which I thought was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. But honestly, it was nothing compared to what I experienced in Dubai. I worked with people who had all come to Dubai for different reasons, some from very difficult circumstances as well, but they were brave enough to take that flight to a new city to see what it could do for them,” she said.

One of the many projects she worked on was the world’s tallest hotel tower – Ciel Tower in Dubai Marina. In her role as a manager, McCann’s main role very quickly expanded from just selling properties, to building an enthusiastic team of people.

The more she tried to find out about what drove them, how to motivate them and how to make them succeed in the world of sales, the more strongly she felt about how the city would reward their ambition.

“Some of them were seeing their siblings through school or looking after their parents, and they had real passion – they had the will, they wanted to succeed. I am really proud of the people I have worked with and trained. To see them grow, come up through the ranks within the company and so many of them to go on and run their own companies … it was amazing to witness,” she said.

McCann too went on to become the first female VP at her company and today works as a Talent Acquisition Specialist in luxury real estate, calling herself the “biggest ambassador for Dubai”.

“I love Dubai because it has truly created a lot of opportunities and changed so many lives. I know nowhere else in the world that actively supports this ambition,” she said.

When McCann landed in the UAE, the world was about to enter one of its biggest economic downturns. However, she remembers how her team pushed through with telesales, even as global markets panicked. She can see the imprints of ‘Dubai-it’ as she looks back to that time of her life.

She spoke about how the company and its team adapted its approach and pitch, but continued reaching out to the right potential customers, while always being aware of the reality on the ground.

“That was the mindset of our company, that was our philosophy – when other people were running for the hills, we pivoted and we still closed sales. We survived the global downturn and came out even stronger,” she said.

She saw the same resilience play out around her during the next global challenge – the COVID-19 pandemic. But what hit closest to home was the UAE’s response to the recent regional conflict.

With the UAE’s defence capabilities on full display, McCann said people felt a sense of commitment to the country and pride in how the country dealt with the aggression from Iran.

“As a British expat in Dubai, we were fiercely batting for Dubai, especially because of what some of the international press was saying. Living in the country, we could see how things were being handled. The leadership of the country is just so forward thinking – they have a plan for every eventuality,” she said.

It’s this trust in the country and its leadership that makes McCann believe that Dubai is the city of the future.

“They got us through the global downturn, they got us through the pandemic sooner than everybody else and this recent situation, where we were absolutely directly targeted … I think that’s what really affected everybody at a personal level, and why we felt such pride in the country,” she said.

Even as she looks back at how she landed in Dubai almost two decades ago, McCann feels her future, too, is very much going to be in this city.

The city where ambition truly has no ceiling.

“This is where the future is. If you want to make something out of your life, I’m the first person who’ll tell you – get on a flight and come to Dubai.”