Xantory is a Dubai-headquartered industrial group building and operating assets at the intersection of food security, advanced infrastructure, and technology. The group develops, finances, constructs, and operates facilities in the United Arab Emirates through a portfolio of specialised operating companies — spanning design-and-build engineering, vertical indoor farming and food processing, AI datacenter infrastructure, aviation, and management consulting.
Our model is asset-heavy and vertically integrated: we design the facility, build it, operate it, and take the produce or capacity to market. Every facility we commit to is a long-dated capital decision. As the group scales across multiple operating companies, asset classes, and capital structures, we are appointing a Chief Investment Officer to own investment strategy, deal origination and execution, and the returns delivered by the group's asset portfolio.
The Chief Investment Officer is the senior investment executive of the group and a member of the executive leadership team. You will own the group's investment thesis and its capital deployment pipeline — which assets we build, buy, or partner into, on what terms, at what return, and with whose capital — and you will remain accountable for those assets through construction, ramp-up, and steady-state operation. The mandate is deliberately distinct from that of the Group CFO. The CFO owns consolidation, treasury, tax, controls, and the group's own balance sheet. The Chief Investment Officer owns the asset side: origination, underwriting, structuring, investment committee governance, third-party and co-investment capital, and portfolio performance against underwritten returns. The two roles work in close partnership, share a single financial model discipline, and are jointly answerable for the group's capital efficiency. This is a build-and-lead mandate. You will install the group's investment framework from a low base: underwriting standards, an investment committee and approval architecture, a documented return hurdle and risk-adjustment methodology, and an asset management reporting cycle. You will represent the group to investors, joint venture partners, developers, landowners, and government-linked counterparties
Key Responsibilities
Investment Strategy & Capital Deployment Define the group's investment strategy across its asset classes — vertical farming and food processing, datacenter and energy infrastructure, aviation, and adjacent real assets — and translate it into a prioritised, board-approved deployment pipeline. Own capital allocation discipline across the portfolio: set and defend return hurdles, risk premia, and holding-period assumptions, and rank competing CapEx demands on a consistent risk-adjusted basis. Build the investment case for new facilities, geographies, and market entries, including feasibility modelling, IRR, MOIC and payback analysis, downside and sensitivity testing, and exit or hold logic. Nexus 4 Elements | Chief Investment Officer Set the group's position on build versus buy versus partner for each opportunity, and on the appropriate ownership share and control rights in each vehicle. Maintain a forward view of deployable capital against committed and pipeline requirements, in coordination with the Group CFO.
Origination, Structuring & Transaction Execution Originate and develop investment opportunities — greenfield projects, acquisitions, joint ventures, offtake-backed developments, and infrastructure-as-a-service mandates — in the UAE, the wider GCC, and selected international markets.
Lead transactions end-to-end: indicative terms, exclusivity, due diligence across commercial, technical, legal and financial workstreams, investment committee approval, definitive documentation, and closing. Structure vehicles and capital stacks: equity and shareholder arrangements, project and asset-backed debt, development capital, sale-and-leaseback, and long-term service or offtake structures.
3.Negotiate directly with counterparties on valuation, commercial terms, governance and reserved matters, warranties, and risk allocation, working alongside legal counsel and the Group CFO. Manage external advisers — transaction, technical, tax, and legal — to scope, budget, and timetable. 3. Portfolio & Asset Management.
Hold each asset accountable to the returns it was underwritten against, from construction and commissioning through ramp-up to steady-state operation. Establish and run the portfolio reporting cycle: asset-level KPIs, actual versus underwritten performance, variance analysis, valuation updates, and escalation of underperformance to the board.Drive value creation within existing assets: utilisation and yield improvement, expansion phases, refinancing, repricing of offtake and service contracts, and disposal where capital is better deployed elsewhere. Represent the group on joint venture boards, project steering committees, and partner governance forums.
Own post-investment review and feed the findings back into underwriting standards and assumption libraries.
Establish underwriting and valuation standards and a common assumption framework, and maintain the investment model architecture in a single, auditable discipline with the Group CFO's financial model. Build and maintain relationships with strategic and financial investors, family offices, development finance institutions, sovereign and government-linked funds, and co-investment partners in the UAE and internationally.
5.Lead investor-facing materials and processes for asset-level and vehicle-level capital: investment memoranda, data rooms, diligence responses, and ongoing investor reporting. Own investment risk: concentration, counterparty, construction, technology, offtake, regulatory, and country risk, with documented mitigation and monitoring.Report investment performance, pipeline, and portfolio risk to the board and shareholders on a defined cycle.
Qualifications
Work Location: In person
