Continental Group

Anslem Arulanandam has joined Continental as Executive Director, Employee Benefits & General Insurance.

He brings thirty years in insurance: running broking businesses, advising large corporates, placing complicated risks and seeing claims through to a fair outcome. His list of qualifications is long enough that we have stopped counting.

What caught our attention was where the first conversations went. Within minutes we had moved past products and were talking about how a client gets the same standard of care whichever of our advisers picks up the phone. Anslem has a simple way of framing it: Diagnose, Design, Deploy, Deliver. Understand the risk properly, build the right answer using the whole firm, and then do the work that follows the policy, which is most of the work. Reviews, claims advocacy, follow ups, and the persistence to keep going after the first no.

That last part is already how Continental operates. Anslem's job is to help us make it consistent and teachable as the firm grows, and to pick up a few things from us along the way.

The team has been told to give him ideas and argue with him. They will need no encouragement.

Welcome, Anslem.

The Continental Cheetahs were 42 for 5 in their semi-final, which is usually where a season ends.

Arslan and Vivek Mangela rebuilt it from there. Vivek made 51 off 35 with the innings leaning the wrong way, and the match award followed. Nuwan Wijesooriya's late runs turned the recovery into a total worth bowling at, and the bowlers made it feel bigger than it was.

OneHealth Jaguars deserve a word. They came within seven runs of the Cheetahs earlier this season, and for the first hour of this one they were the better side by a distance. The 49-run margin says little about how uncomfortable the afternoon was.

So Continental will have a team at the final of ICE Season 4. Getting there involved falling into a hole first, which the squad has agreed not to treat as a tactic. Good luck to both sides in the second semi; we will see one of them there.

Homes. Businesses. Gold. Funds.

Most portfolios grow one asset at a time, a property here, a fund there, some gold set aside "just in case." But few people ever step back and ask the one question that matters most: what is each of these actually for?

Nadir Ahmad, Associate Vice President at Continental Group, breaks it down simply: every asset is either working to produce income, or working to grow in value. Once you know which job each one is doing, your portfolio stops being a collection, and starts being a plan.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube - https://bit.ly/4yfVMrI

This video is for general information only and does not constitute investment advice. Speak with a licensed adviser about your own circumstances.

Continental has been named Best Financial Services Business of the Year for the UAE at the Finance World Review Awards 2026.

Business of the Year covers the whole firm, so most of this one belongs to people who never appear in our posts. Someone in claims spent most of a Tuesday on hold with an insurer so a client did not have to. Operations got every renewal out on time this month. Compliance read all of it twice. Advisers get the coffee meetings and the thank-you notes; the firm runs on everyone behind them.

Thank you to our clients, many of whom have stayed with an independent Dubai firm for well over a decade.

The 2026 list also includes audax Financial Technology in Singapore, Anaconda Invest in Geneva and Pacific Risk Advisors in Hong Kong. It is a strong list and we are glad to be on it.

Winners are published on the Finance World Review site.

Fifty one years ago today, the General Women's Union was founded. The date became Emirati Women's Day in 2015, and this year, for the first time, the country is giving it a month rather than a day.

The theme is We Emerge Stronger and Better. Read it as a description of an ordinary working week and it fits a few colleagues of ours rather well.

It shows up in small ways. A family that has dealt with Continental for three generations expects to be remembered, and is. A meeting slips into Arabic halfway through, because that is where the real question was waiting. None of it appears on a job description, and clients notice it long before we do.

To the Emirati women at Continental, thank you for making this firm belong here a little more than it otherwise would.

Happy Emirati Women's Day, from all of us.