Associate Strategy and Performance Manager (UAE National)

Life at Dubai Future Foundation

Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) aims to realize the wise vision of Dubai's leadership to keep Dubai 10 years ahead, institutionalizing future-oriented thinking and forward-looking methodologies that position Dubai as the leading city of the future.

In collaboration with government entities, global institutions, startups, and innovators, DFF drives collective efforts to imagine, design, and execute the best possible future for humanity.

Under the supervision of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of DFF, the Foundation oversees a portfolio of initiatives that include the Museum of the Future, Area 2071, Dubai Future Accelerators, Dubai Future Labs, Dubai Future Academy, Dubai Future Forum, Dubai Centre for AI, and the Dubai RDI Program

.
Through these platforms, DFF institutionalizes foresight, enables innovation, builds talent, and designs the systems and industries that will keep Dubai 10 years ahead in every dimension of its futur

e.For more information on the initiatives, projects, and programs of Dubai Future Foundation, please visit the website: www.dubaifuture.

ae

Where does this role fit into the bigger pic

tureThe Associate Strategy and Performance Manager reports directly to the Senior Strategy Manager, Strategy and Performance, within the Strategy and Strategic Capital Department at

DFF.This vertical focuses on delivering with intention — owning strategic planning-cycle management, portfolio governance, the institutional PMO, capital allocation, operating-model and process design, enterprise digital transformation, and the performance frameworks that keep DFF's initiatives aligned, funded, resourced, and on t

rack.

Why this role is im

portantThis role is the bridge between DFF's strategy and its delivery. By translating moonshots into mandates, holding the portfolio accountable against measurable goals, keeping a disciplined eye on capital and human-capital alignment, and modernising how DFF operates, you ensure leadership can steer every initiative toward measurable, well-funded, well-resourced impact — and that the organisation itself stays fit to keep Dubai 10 year

s ahead.

Associ

ate ManagerAs the Associate Strategy and Performance Manager, you will act as the connective tissue between leadership intent and execution — translating DFF's vision, moonshots, and annual priorities into clear mandates, and surfacing project realities, risks, and trade-offs back to leadership in decision-

ready form.
Your remit runs beyond individual projects: you will help shape DFF's operating model, support its digital transformation and adoption of new tools, and partner with Finance and HR to keep capital and human-capital growth aligned to budget. The role demands a rare dual capability — the strategic mindset to connect every initiative to DFF's moonshots, and the delivery and financial discipline to make sure it actually ships, on budget an

d on impact.

Strategic Needs Translation (Corpor

• ate ↔ Project)You will build a deep, current understanding of DFF's needs at both the corporate level (vision, moonshots, annual priorities) and the project level (objectives, constraints, dependencies, del
• ivery status).You will engage continuously with project teams to understand their needs first-hand and anticipate problems before
• they escalateYou will translate high-level strategic direction into clear, actionable mandates for project teams, and surface project-level realities, risks, and trade-offs back to leadership in a structured, decisi
• on-ready form.You will maintain a living, enterprise-wide view of the portfolio so leadership always has an accurate picture of what is in flight, what it is delivering, and where it stands aga

inst strategy.
Portfolio Alignment, Orchestration & Cross-Func

• tional DeliveryYou will align efforts across the portfolio — identifying overlaps, gaps, dependencies, and synergies — and ensure every initiative is explicitly mapped to DFF's moonshots, challenging or escalating effo
• rts that drift.You will establish and run portfolio governance — prioritisation frameworks, stage gates, and decision forums — that keep resources flowing to the highe
• st-impact work.You will conduct analysis on the innovation funnel and initiative readiness, advising which initiatives are ready to advance,
• pause, or stop.You will manage cross-project dependencies and resolve conflicts in scope, timing, or resourcing before they compr
• omise delivery.You will coordinate directly with project owners and verticals to monitor progress, remove blockers, and unblock initiatives where they are stuck, and drive a consistent cadence of portfolio reviews, status reporting, and mile

stone tracking.
Goal-Setting, OKRs & Score

• card SupervisionYou will set, review, and approve project and portfolio goals — ensuring they are ambitious, measurable, and explicitly tied to DFF's moonshots — and hold initiatives accountab
• le against them.You will develop and supervise OKR-based scorecards across the portfolio, cascading objectives from corporate strategy down to initiative level and keepi
• ng them current.You will track and maintain portfolio-level KPIs and scorecards, giving leadership a clear, current view of where the portfolio stands
• against target.You will translate delivery and performance data into early-warning indicators, flagging at-risk initiatives and recommending course corrections with supp

orting analysis.
FP&A, Financial Oversight & C

• apital AllocationYou will build and maintain a clear FP&A view of each project — budgets, spend, forecasts, and variance — and consolidate these into a portfolio-level f
• inancial picture.You will partner closely with Finance to support DFF's annual budget cycles, building the bottom-up and top-down inputs that connect portfolio
• plans to budget.You will work with HR to ensure DFF's human-capital growth and headcount plans stay aligned with budgets and port
• folio priorities.You will support capital-allocation decisions — helping leadership direct funding to the highest-return initiatives and challenging spend that is not e
• arning its place.You will apply business-case discipline, linking project spend to expected impact and strategic return, and translate financial data into clear de

livery decisions.
Operating Model &a

• mp; Process DesignYou will help design and evolve DFF's operating model — structures, roles, decision rights, and ways of working — so the organisation is set up to deliver
• against strategy.You will document and critically assess DFF's existing strategic and operational processes, mapping how work actually flows across
• the organisation.You will design, optimise, and institutionalise processes that improve clarity, consistency, and speed of execution, and lead process re-engineering initiatives end-to-end — diagnosis, redesign, an
• d change adoption.You will apply lean, agile, and design-thinking methodologies to continuously improve how DFF plans, gove

rns, and delivers.
Digital Transformation, Tooling

• & AI EnablementYou will support DFF's digital transformation agenda at the enterprise level — extending the PMO's mandate beyond individual projects to how the organisation o
• perates as a whole.You will support the adoption of new tools and platforms across DFF, helping drive and measure uptake so investments translate into real change
• in ways of working.You will map processes to DFF's available tools, identify where tooling is underused, duplicated, or missing, and optimise th
• e process–tool fit.You will work natively with AI tools and emerging technologies, and develop or meaningfully contribute to new AI-enabled solutions that enhanc

e how DFF operates.
Governance, Reporting & St

• akeholder ManagementYou will establish and maintain PMO standards, templates, and reporting frameworks that bring consistency to how projects are planned, tracke
• d, and communicated.You will develop and own a central project-management dashboard as the single source of truth on portfolio status, milestones, financials, and risks, keeping it continuously and
• accurately updated.You will produce executive-ready briefings, portfolio reviews, and board-level presentations that turn dashboard data into clear, persuasive decisions
• and recommendations.You will identify, track, and mitigate portfolio-level risks and issues, maintaining clear escalation path
• s and decision logs.You will manage relationships with internal stakeholders across seniority levels, building trust an

d driving alignment.

• 
  Who We're Looking ForBachelor's degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Finance, Economics, or a related discipline; an advanced degre
• e (MBA, MSc) is a plus.4–6 years of experience spanning both strategy and delivery — for example, a top-tier consulting firm (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, Accenture Strategy, or equivalent) combined with PMO, programme/project-management, or st
• rategy-execution roles.Project/portfolio-management certification (PMP, PRINCE2, PgMP, or Agile/
• Scrum) is an advantage.Strong dual capability: the strategic mindset to connect work to vision and moonshots, and the delivery discipline
• to make sure it ships.Solid FP&A and financial acumen — comfortable with budgets, forecasts, and variance, supporting annual budget cycles and capital-allocation decisions, and keeping human-capital gr
• owth aligned to budget.Experience in operating-model design and/or enterprise digital transformation — including driving the adoption of new tools and platforms across an organisat
• ion — is highly valued.Exceptional structured problem-solving —