Behind every successful business in Dubai stands a layer of legal and financial infrastructure that most entrepreneurs only think about when something goes wrong. A generation of Russian-speaking lawyers, accountants, and business consultants has built practices in the UAE specifically to serve the growing community of founders and executives who need guidance that combines knowledge of local law with an understanding of the culture and business practices they come from. Elvira Sharshenalieva identified a gap in the market for legal services that could genuinely bridge between the Russian-speaking business community and the UAE’s legal system — not just translation, but interpretation of how laws are applied, how disputes are resolved, and how to structure businesses to avoid the conflicts that arise with particular frequency in 50-50 partnerships, an arrangement that creates ideal conditions for deadlocks when disagreements arise.
Aleksey Kuratchenko and Roman Chertkov together created a firm that combines legal and business consulting, understanding that the questions founders bring are rarely purely legal — they are about how to grow, how to protect what has been built, and how to navigate a regulatory environment that changes more rapidly than most. Yana Kunaeva built her practice in the compliance and corporate governance space, recognising that as Dubai’s ambitions to become a global financial centre deepen, the demand for rigorous governance advice would only increase. What every practitioner in this space has discovered is the same thing: doing business in the Emirates requires a careful approach and consideration of all possible costs, and the entrepreneurs who thrive are those who invest in good advice before they need it, rather than after.