Managing Director | GCC Group | UAE
Leon Smith is Managing Director of GCC Group, a multi-jurisdictional corporate services, legal structuring and capital markets firm with offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Kuwait.
He advises international businesses on market entry, regulatory licensing and cross-border compliance across the GCC, and leads a Category 5 regulated firm under the UAE Capital Market Authority. He previously founded DEX, an ADGM-regulated digital asset exchange, giving him first-hand experience of building and operating within emerging regulatory frameworks.
Leon also serves as Director of Strategy to a private office in Abu Dhabi. Earlier in his career he spent seven years in international construction and mega-events, from Beijing 2008 through Expo 2020 Dubai.
He holds an LLM from the University of Edinburgh, an MAS from EPFL Lausanne, and is a Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (ACIArb).
