George Hojeige
Chief Executive Officer, Virtuzone
As the UAE sharpens its global position as a launchpad for entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators, Virtuzone finds itself right at the centre of this momentum. In this conversation with George Hojeige, CEO of Virtuzone, we explore what’s next for the UAE’s entrepreneurial landscape—how the company is adapting to shifting global interests, leveraging synergies with APAC powerhouse Ascentium, and using technology to redefine business setup and expansion.
From scaling UAE-grown businesses across borders to helping companies stay ahead of evolving tax regulations, Virtuzone continues to push the envelope with innovation, agility, and a firm belief that their success is directly tied to the success of their clients.
George shares insights into their evolving tech stack, strategic vision, and predictions on what the next decade holds for the region’s free zones, digitalisation efforts, and high-growth sectors like AI, green tech, and logistics.
1. What excites you most about the next chapter for the UAE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and how is Virtuzone positioning itself to lead that future?
We are seeing global business leaders, decision makers and industry players take greater interest in the UAE, as they look for lucrative and stable alternative markets to invest in.
We expect this trend to lead more international businesses, particularly family offices and well-known conglomerates, to build a footprint in the country and the larger Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.
As such, we intend to leverage the reputation, trust and network we’ve built over the years to continue leading at the forefront of the UAE’s business sector.
As part of our relentless pursuit of excellence and customer satisfaction, we will continue to innovate and enhance our business solutions, ensuring our clients benefit from precise and tailored services that bring them real, tangible results.
Why implement such a client-centric growth strategy? Because our success lies in the success of our clients. As we continue to support and advocate for entrepreneurs, we also continually strengthen our leadership and foothold in the UAE’s business landscape.
In addition, we aim to continually observe the regional and global markets closely, a strategy that has allowed us to remain agile and easily pivot over the years, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, the explosion of AI technology and the introduction of corporate tax in the UAE.
2. With Virtuzone now part of Ascentium, what synergies are you prioritising to leverage both companies’ strengths in the APAC and UAE markets?
Our unified vision at Virtuzone and Ascentium is to bridge the markets between the Middle East/GCC and Asia-Pacific regions. To facilitate this, we have devised a cohesive and collaborative strategy that includes exchanging corporate solutions and in-house expertise.
For one, through Ascentium’s extensive portfolio of global business services, we now offer international payroll and HR solutions to UAE-based businesses looking to expand globally, complementing end-to-end corporate services that our clients can now access worldwide.
In exchange, we provide Ascentium clients with access to a seamless and proven solution for harnessing business and investment opportunities in the UAE through our tried-and-tested company formation and corporate structuring services.
3. What does “scaling across borders” mean practically for UAE-based entrepreneurs, and how does Virtuzone make this seamless?
At Virtuzone, we’ve always believed that setting up a business is just the start of the journey, which is why we’ve created a unique ecosystem for our clients where they can grow holistically through our complete spectrum of corporate services.
With Ascentium’s support, we’re able to augment this ecosystem further, allowing us to create limitless growth opportunities for our clients, with a focus on overseas expansion.
By leveraging Ascentium’s global footprint and expertise, we facilitate multi-jurisdictional growth of UAE-based businesses while streamlining processes, ensuring international regulatory compliance, reducing business risk, and enabling frictionless market entry.
Our focal objective is to further broaden our client-centric ecosystem and adapt it globally so that our clients can seamlessly pivot their local operations worldwide.
4. How do you see the future of Free Zones evolving in the next 5–10 years, especially with the push for economic diversification and digitalisation?
Based on recent market trends and regulatory changes, we anticipate free zones in the UAE to become more competitive locally and internationally, particularly as they expand the business activities they support and give free zone-incorporated entities more operational freedom.
For instance, free zones in Dubai are now allowed to operate in the mainland provided they secure the required permits. Such a precedent can be the catalyst for the UAE to establish a unified mainland and free zone jurisdiction in the future, a single federal jurisdiction that will further simplify and enhance business setup in the country.
Furthermore, as the UAE pushes forward with economic diversification and digital transformation, we expect free zones to function as vital engines of innovation and growth, driving the development and adoption of innovative industries, such as Web3, AI, advanced manufacturing and green tech.
5. How do you prioritise innovation in an industry where regulation and compliance often dominate?
Innovation is an integral part of our corporate vision and strategy, so we have built an in-house team of experts who are dedicated to exploring and adopting the latest technologies in digital transformation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and process automation.
Led by our company’s very own Head of Technology, the team aims to apply next-generation technologies to our business processes to continually enhance customer experience, boost operational efficiencies, reduce human error, and make our expert services more seamlessly accessible locally and globally.
6. What technological innovations are you introducing to streamline the corporate services offerings across Virtuzone’s portfolio?
As mentioned earlier, we intensified our focus on integrating AI technology and digitalising our systems to streamline processes, improve speed and accuracy, and enhance the overall client journey.
Over the past year, we automated our accounts receivables system to optimise our financial workflow—a solution that we’re also offering our clients to help them upgrade their cash flow management systems and scale without spending more on resources.
We have also launched AI-assisted chat support to ensure instantaneous customer assistance and integrated tools like Calendly to make our team’s expertise more accessible to clients around the globe.
These innovations have enabled us to create a tech-enabled ecosystem that simplifies doing business and empowers both our people and our clients on a daily basis—and this is just the beginning of a long list of AI and tech integrations we have in the pipeline.
7. What are the most common pitfalls SMEs face in managing VAT and corporate tax compliance, and how does Taxready effectively bridge these gaps?
One of the biggest challenges we see is the lack of information, or misinformation in some cases. Even though corporate tax was introduced in 2023, many business owners still think it does not apply to them and, therefore, do not take any steps to comply. In fact, we have seen many businesses miss critical deadlines for compliance, incur significant fines and face interrupted operations.
This is also one of the reasons we established our own dedicated tax and accounting firm: Taxready.ae. Our tax specialists at Taxready.ae focus on educating clients about their tax obligations, simplifying corporate tax compliance, and minimizing risks for incurring fines. As a result, our clients are able to safeguard their businesses and avoid costly fines.
8. Which sectors do you believe will drive the next wave of growth in the UAE, and what makes them attractive to business owners and investors?
The UAE’s push for economic diversification has set the stage for long-term and sustainable growth across multiple sectors, particularly in real estate, fintech, edtech, retail and trade, e-commerce, tourism and logistics.
These are evident in notable large-scale developments in the country, including the USD 11 billion, 1,200-kilometre-long Etihad Rail project and the recently announced Disney theme park in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE’s forward-looking legislation, ambitious drive for economic development, and strategic financing in key sectors all work together to create high-impact investment opportunities and a prime business landscape that continuously reinforces the nation’s position as a future-focused trade and economic hub.
