Published on Dec 2025
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Mr. Akbar, it is our honor to welcome you into the fold of UniNewsletter’s distinguished industry figures for this first-of-its-kind interview. First, we kindly ask that you introduce yourself to our readers, including outlining what your current role at Thumbay Group entails.
Thank you for the kind invitation. It’s a pleasure to be featured in UniNewsletter. I currently serve as Vice-President of the Healthcare Division at Thumbay Group, a diversified conglomerate founded by my father, Dr. Thumbay Moideen, in Ajman, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Over the years, the Group has evolved from a single medical college into an ecosystem that spans education, healthcare, medical tourism, diagnostics, retail, wellness and lifestyle services.
In my role, I am responsible for overseeing the full spectrum of our healthcare operations, which includes Thumbay University Hospital— our 350-bed academic flagship hospital— our network of Thumbay Clinics and Day-Care Hospitals, Thumbay Labs and our retail healthcare brands such as Thumbay Pharmacy and Zo & Mo Opticals. Additionally, I lead our medical tourism division, which connects our services to international patients from more than 87 countries.
My work is not only operational but strategic. Healthcare in the UAE is highly competitive and regulated, and the expectations of patients are continuously rising. Therefore, part of my responsibility is to ensure that our systems are robust, our clinical standards match global benchmarks and our teams remain aligned with the Group’s mission of education-driven healthcare excellence. Another key aspect is integrating our healthcare network with Gulf Medical University (GMU), which forms a unique academic health system where students learn in real clinical settings, researchers identify real-world challenges and clinical teams help shape the future talent pipeline.
In short, my role involves balancing strategic leadership, innovation management, operational oversight and stewardship of a vision that my father initiated—one that aims to create a sustainable, globally-influential academic health universe rooted in excellence and community impact.
As you touched upon, Thumbay Group spans over 20 different business verticals—from education, healthcare, labs, medical tourism, to wellness retail and media. As Vice-President of the Healthcare Division, how do you balance entrepreneurial innovation (launching new ventures or verticals) with maintaining quality and regulatory compliance in highly sensitive sectors like healthcare and education?
Balancing innovation with regulatory compliance is central to leadership in healthcare and education. In our environment, innovation cannot be pursued at the expense of patient safety or academic integrity; rather, it must be embedded within a framework that respects
global standards. So the starting point for us has always been culture, that is creating a mindset across all teams that quality and compliance are not constraints, but enablers of sustainable growth.
For example, when establishing Thumbay Labs, we pursued CAP accreditation from the outset, not because it was required, but because we wanted international quality benchmarks ingrained in our systems from day one. This is a philosophy that we follow across our healthcare and education verticals—every new venture is built on a foundation of rigorous standards, measurable quality indicators and continuous training.
At the same time, innovation must remain alive. Healthcare is undergoing dramatic transformation— from AI-driven diagnostics to personalized treatment pathways and digital-first patient engagement. To stay ahead, we view innovation as a continuous responsibility. We encourage our clinicians, administrators and academic teams to identify inefficiencies, propose new ideas and pilot solutions.
Ultimately, quality and innovation are not opposing forces; they are mutually reinforcing. Quality creates trust. Trust enables innovation. And innovation, when executed responsibly, elevates quality further. That is how we grow while staying true to our responsibilities as healthcare and education providers.
You’ve initiated and overseen the expansion of Thumbay Labs (CAP-accredited), Thumbay Clinics, the retail divisions (like Zo & Mo Opticals, Thumbay Pharmacy, Nutri Plus Vita) and more. Could you share one or two ventures inside Thumbay Group that were especially difficult to launch, and what you learned from those challenges about scaling in new geographic or business domains?
Two ventures that were particularly defining in terms of learning were the establishment of Thumbay Labs and the expansion of Thumbay Clinics. Each presented distinct challenges—one focused on credibility and technical rigor, the other on community trust and scaling operations.
When we launched Thumbay Labs, our ambition was not simply to create a diagnostic service but rather to build a reference laboratory network that adhered to international standards. Achieving CAP accreditation required deep investment in talent development, quality management systems, infrastructure and audit-based process improvement. It showed us that excellence is both resource-intensive and time-intensive; credibility cannot be accelerated— it must be earned with consistency.
On the other hand, expanding Thumbay Clinics taught us a different lesson—healthcare is ultimately local. No matter how strong your systems are, trust is built one patient interaction at a time. When entering community-based markets, understanding cultural nuances, hiring doctors who resonate with local populations and ensuring a uniform patient experience across locations were crucial.
From both ventures, I learned that launching is never the hardest part—sustaining quality, culture and trust at scale is.
Medical tourism is one of the driving growth fronts for Thumbay, with outreach to over 87 countries, as you stated. Given the rise of telemedicine, AI diagnostics and cross-border regulations, how do you see the future of medical tourism evolving? Also, how does Thumbay prepare students and staff for working in this evolving global health services environment?
Medical tourism is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by digitization, accessibility of medical data and rising global mobility. Historically, medical tourism was about patients flying abroad for complex or cost-competitive procedures. Today, the journey often begins virtually through online consultations, second opinions and AI-supported diagnostics.
At Thumbay, we are strategically embracing this shift. We operate multilingual patient coordination teams, offer pre-arrival teleconsultations and support patients with digital follow-up care after they return to their home countries. Our medical tourism department works closely with embassies, government agencies and international insurance partners to reduce the friction points that often complicate cross-border care.
What truly differentiates us, however, is the integration with Gulf Medical University. GMU prepares students and medical professionals to work in diverse, multicultural and digitally enabled healthcare environments. Students learn not only medical science but also cultural communication, interdisciplinary collaboration and patient experience management—skills essential for global healthcare delivery.
The future of medical tourism will belong to institutions that combine digital accessibility with compassionate, high-quality care delivered in globally connected systems.
As you discussed, GMU and Thumbay’s academic hospital network are central to your model. As you expand the academic health system (hospitals, clinics, day-care hospitals, labs), how do you embed innovation, research and teaching simultaneously—without one function dominating the other?
The academic health system we operate is built on the principle that education, research and clinical service must reinforce one another rather than exist in silos. GMU is the academic nucleus, and our hospitals and clinics are the living ecosystem in which knowledge is applied, tested and refined in real time.
Students at GMU are trained in real patient-care environments, working alongside clinicians and researchers. This produces graduates who are not only academically strong but also deeply familiar with the realities of modern healthcare.
Meanwhile, research is driven by actual patient needs identified in our hospitals. Whether in areas like AI in diagnostics, biomedical innovation or translational clinical research, the academic and clinical arms co-develop solutions.
In essence, our healthcare system is not a transactional service model, but one that has learning at its heart.
As you outlined, your father, Dr. Thumbay Moideen, laid strong foundations for the group, including its first private medical college, and you’ve now taken on leadership of the Healthcare Division. How has your entrepreneurial vision diverged from or built upon the group’s founding philosophy? And where do you see the biggest entrepreneurial growth opportunities for Thumbay over the next five years—geographically or by sector?
My father’s vision was rooted in service: using education and healthcare to uplift communities and develop human capacity. That foundation remains unchanged. My role has been to expand, modernize and globalize that vision.
Where he focused on establishing institutions, I have focused on scaling them—internationally and digitally. Where infrastructure once defined our growth, today data, technology and collaborations drive it.
Looking ahead, I see significant opportunities in digital healthcare platforms, AI-driven diagnostics, specialized rehabilitation centers, wearable technology integration and expansion into emerging markets across Africa and Asia.
The next era for Thumbay is about becoming a globally recognized, tech - enabled, patient -centered academic health ecosystem.
To close, Thumbay Group has publicly set goals like scaling business almost ten-fold, increasing employee numbers, expanding globally and continuously innovating (e.g., digitization, accreditation, etc.). What are the biggest internal obstacles that you foresee in achieving these ambitious targets? And what strategies are you using to mitigate them?
Ambitious growth inevitably comes with challenges. The most significant are attracting and retaining global talent, maintaining culture and unity across more than 50 nationalities, ensuring financial resilience in capital-intensive sectors and driving digital transformation.
To address these challenges, we are investing heavily in continuous professional development, automation and digitization, leadership pipeline development and revenue diversification.
The key is balancing discipline with adaptability. Growth requires strategic clarity, operational consistency and a culture that celebrates learning.
With these foundations, we believe we are well-positioned to expand our healthcare and education ecosystem globally.