Every situation is different; AES is built to help you navigate complexity and to bring you a feeling of clarity, confidence, and control.
The only certified investment fiduciary and comprehensive employee benefits consultancy in the AMEA, trusted by international professionals, families and corporate employers for over 20 years.
Ed and Kate were in their late sixties and well into retirement. After decades of disciplined work across multiple jurisdictions, they had built roughly $8 million in investable assets and a reliable income that comfortably funded the life they wanted. With the children grown and based across two countries, they downsized from the family home to a smaller apartment closer to Ed's golf club. The move was emotional as well as practical. It also released a further $1.4 million in capital.
What wasn't working
The downsize raised a question they hadn't expected. What was the surplus actually for? Without a structured plan for using it, Ed and Kate were on track to leave behind far more than they would ever need. The cross-border family setup compounded the issue, with assets and beneficiaries spread across jurisdictions that treated estates very differently.
What AES did
Their financial life manager started with life, not money. What did this next chapter need to look like? What did they want their wealth to support, in their own lifetime and for their family? Only then came the modelling. Using prudent, stress-tested assumptions, AES calculated their Number, the capital required to sustain their lifestyle for life, allowing for inflation, uncertainty and future care. The Number came in at $3.2 million. The result confirmed Ed and Kate would never run out. In fact, their wealth was projected to keep growing. With that established, AES introduced clear financial guardrails and rebuilt the cross-border estate plan so they could spend, give and plan with confidence.
What changed
Ed and Kate spend more freely, give earlier and more intentionally, and have reduced cross-border tax exposure for the next generation by an estimated $900,000. They've booked a first-class round-the-world cruise. They don't just know their Number. They understand what it's for.
Neil was 48, a UAE-based business owner working hard to provide for his family and fund private education for his two daughters at boarding school in the UK. He had a clear plan. Pay off the mortgage. Avoid pensions. Accumulate roughly $1.2 million through the business between 48 and 55. Then step away while there was still time to enjoy it. He didn't think he needed advice. A colleague suggested he sanity-check the numbers anyway.
What wasn't working
The spreadsheet looked fine on the surface. Underneath, the assumptions were optimistic and the timeline was carrying weight it couldn't bear. Neil's father had worked relentlessly until 65 and died shortly afterwards. Neil was determined not to repeat that story. But the plan he'd built to avoid it was projected to run out of money by age 67. As an internationally mobile family, the costs ahead were higher and less predictable than the spreadsheet showed: UK school fees running at $80,000 a year per child, two likely university journeys, the question of where the family would eventually settle, and a retirement structured across jurisdictions that didn't speak to each other.
What AES did
The first conversation didn't open with spreadsheets. It opened with the life Neil and Sue had built and the life they wanted next. Why 55 mattered. What the years ahead needed to fund. Using AES's Life Strategy framework and prudent assumptions, the financial life manager modelled what that actually cost, then calculated their real Number. The Number was $3.8 million, not $1.2 million. It was a bigger number than Neil had assumed. It was also achievable. AES restructured their finances, made better use of Neil's human capital, built an offshore strategy designed for an internationally mobile life, and challenged some entrenched money beliefs along the way.
What changed
Neil works with clarity, not fear. He knows why he's working, what he's working towards, and when he can stop. They don't just know their Number. They trust it.
Matthew was 53, managing partner at a global law firm with a Gulf base and a global remit. Sara had built a parallel career and a settled home. Together they had paid off the mortgages, accumulated around $6 million in assets across several jurisdictions, and built what most people would describe as a fortress balance sheet. By every conventional measure, they were already secure.
What wasn't working
Success had stopped feeling like success. Constant travel, jet lag and time away from family had worn Matthew down. Somewhere over the Atlantic, on another overnight flight to New York, a question surfaced. How much longer does this need to continue? They didn't know whether they had already arrived or whether they were still years away. The cross-border structures, accounts and pension entitlements made the picture harder to read, not easier. Without clarity, they kept pushing.
What AES did
An introduction from a friend brought them to AES. The first conversation started with life, not numbers. What did the next chapter need to feel like? Not more travel. Not more accumulation. For Matthew, meaningful work on his own terms, time to study, freedom to choose. For Sara, space, nature, goats on the land, and one day grandchildren close by. Only once that picture was clear did the analysis follow. Their financial life manager reviewed the assets, structures and entitlements across every jurisdiction the family had touched, then calculated their Number with appropriate margins for uncertainty. The conclusion: with a planned eventual return to the UK and a downsize alongside it, they were already there.
What changed
Matthew stepped back from the demands of the role. Sara regained partnership in time as well as in life. The question stopped being whether they could afford to change. It became why they wouldn't. Their financial life manager still receives an annual supply of goat's cheese, which seems a fair return on clarity.
James and May had spent over thirty years building their business across the Gulf and beyond. They sold it at 60 for approximately $12 million, with their adult children financially independent and based in three different countries. The proceeds were substantial. The question was how to invest them. James's instinct from a career in business was clear. To accumulate, you have to speculate. Risk had served him well for decades.
What wasn't working
Two traditional advisers had run James and May through a familiar process. Risk-tolerance questionnaire. "Above-average" profile assigned. Portfolios heavily weighted to equities. Both recommendations looked almost identical. Neither paid attention to where the family was actually resident, where the children would inherit, or how the structures would sit across jurisdictions over the next thirty years. Both treated risk as a personality trait rather than a question of what the portfolio actually needed to do.
What AES did
A friend suggested they speak to an AES financial life manager before committing. The first meeting didn't focus on markets. It focused on James and May. What had thirty years of risk meant, and what did they have left to prove? What did the next chapter need to fund: the active years, the slower years, later life, inflation, care, gifts to children across borders. Then the numbers. Using prudent assumptions and cash-flow modelling, AES found that James and May's capital only needed to grow at around 0.5% above inflation to fund the life they wanted, for life. Their number was $7 million. They had $12 million. Taking significant investment risk wasn't just unnecessary. It was potentially damaging. The portfolio was rebuilt around resilience, efficiency, and structures that worked across the jurisdictions the family actually lived in.
What changed
When markets later turned, James and May avoided losses estimated at $1.8 million that they would almost certainly have absorbed under the earlier recommendations. They continue to meet with their financial life manager regularly to review the plan and, more often than not, to explore how much more they can afford to spend. The lingering question is why the traditional advisers didn't do this in the first place.
David and Elaine were retired and living overseas after a career that had taken them across several countries. They held a collection of around $4.5 million in savings accounts, direct investments and pensions accumulated over decades, most of it still anchored to the country they had left. Most positions had been bought after reading financial media or following recommendations from well-known investment houses. They had been disciplined accumulators. Income from the portfolio supplemented their pensions and funded their lifestyle abroad.
What wasn't working
Their lifestyle rose and fell with interest rates and markets. When rates went up they spent more. When rates went down they spent less. Currency moves between the portfolio's home jurisdiction and their cost of living added another layer they couldn't control. They had bought confidently but never knew when to sell. The portfolio had grown into something they didn't fully understand. When markets fell, the anxiety became hard to manage. Their children had started saying, quite clearly, that they wished Mum and Dad would spend it.
What AES did
A friend introduced them to AES. The first meeting didn't focus on markets or products. It focused on how David and Elaine actually wanted to live. What did they enjoy? What would they spend on, if they let themselves? Once that picture was clear, AES reviewed the existing investments, income sources, and the cross-border tax position, then calculated their Number with appropriate margins for uncertainty. The Number was $2.6 million. They could intentionally use capital during their lifetime, with clear financial guardrails, and still leave their home and personal possessions to their children. The portfolio was simplified, repositioned for their actual jurisdiction, and the complexity and charges came down by around $40,000 a year. Lifestyle, spending and investments were brought into one connected strategy.
What changed
David and Elaine got their life back. More meals out. More holidays. More generosity. More time with their grandchildren. Ten years on, they continue to meet with their financial life manager to review the plan, adjusting it as life evolves rather than reacting to markets as they move.
Graham and Pauline were in their late fifties and ran a successful international business from a UAE base, with customers across Europe and the Gulf. The business was demanding. Sixty to seventy-hour weeks. Sunday mornings catching up on paperwork. Few holidays. No real hobbies. Years of work had taken a visible toll. Underneath it all, Graham had a long-held ambition. He wanted to learn to fly, before it got too late.
What wasn't working
Twelve months earlier, an offer of $2 million had been made for the business. Their professional adviser had recommended they reject it, on the basis that $5 million might be achievable in another five to ten years. So they kept working. The advice had been about maximising the sale price. It hadn't been about the cost of those years, the energy spent earning them, or what Graham and Pauline actually needed to fund the life they wanted next.
What AES did
A different conversation started with what Graham and Pauline actually wanted from the next chapter. Time. Health. Hobbies. Flying lessons and possibly a light aircraft. Their financial life manager then reviewed the assets accumulated across pensions and other investments, which had quietly performed well precisely because they hadn't been constantly interfered with. Using prudent, stress-tested assumptions, AES calculated their Number. Graham and Pauline needed $550,000 to retire immediately. $750,000 if flying lessons and the aircraft were included. They had already turned down nearly three times what they actually needed.
What changed
With clarity on the figures, Graham and Pauline reopened discussions and ultimately sold the business for $1.8 million. Graham learned to fly. Pauline reclaimed time and balance. They look and feel ten years younger. AES didn't help them retire early. It helped them stop retiring their lives before they needed to.
Sebastian and Anna had been internationally mobile for over twenty years. A senior corporate career across the Gulf and Asia had built meaningful wealth in a patchwork of structures. A UK pension from earlier in their careers. A UAE end-of-service entitlement. An offshore investment portfolio built up over the expat years. A UK property let to tenants. A UAE property they actually lived in. With their younger child finishing school, a return to the UK was finally on the calendar.
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What wasn't working
The move looked simple from the outside. Settle the kids, sell up, retire in a few years. Underneath, the structures hadn't kept pace with the family's life. The offshore investments would be taxed very differently the day Sebastian and Anna became UK tax resident. The UK pension hadn't been topped up in years. The end-of-service benefit needed to be drawn before residency changed to avoid an unnecessary tax hit. Their accountant could file returns. Their bank could move money. Nobody had mapped the sequence.
What AES did
An introduction from another international family brought them to AES. The first conversation focused on the life they wanted on the other side of the move. Where to live. How to fund the children's onward education. When to draw down the various pots. Only then came the structural work. Their financial life manager mapped every asset, structure and entitlement across both jurisdictions, identified the decisions that had to happen in a specific order, and coordinated with their UK accountant and UAE tax adviser to sequence the moves. The pension was reviewed. The offshore portfolio was repositioned for UK tax efficiency before residency changed. The end-of-service benefit was drawn at the right point. The UAE property was sold at the right point. The UK property was prepared for return.
What changed
The return happened cleanly. No surprise tax exposure. The sequencing alone is estimated to have saved Sebastian and Anna around $400,000 in tax across both jurisdictions that would have been triggered if the moves had happened in the wrong order. No assets stranded in the wrong wrapper. Sebastian and Anna arrived in the UK with a plan that worked across both jurisdictions, not despite them. Their financial life manager continues to coordinate the moving pieces as the next chapter takes shape.
Daniel and Priya had built significant wealth from a business sale and ongoing investment income, with a young trust in place for the next generation. Internationally mobile, currently UAE-based, with adult children in two other countries. Over the years they had accumulated a small council of advisers. A private banker in Switzerland handling investments. A London tax adviser handling personal returns. A separate UK adviser handling pensions. A UAE accountant for the residual business interests. A trustee in Jersey for the family trust.
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What wasn't working
Each adviser was capable. Each was doing their job within their lane. None had the full picture. Decisions in one corner of the structure regularly created complications in another. The investment portfolio overlapped, unhelpfully, with a separate equity pot held inside the trust. The Jersey trustee kept asking questions the London tax adviser had to answer. The pension was drifting because no one was looking at it in the context of the family's overall retirement income. Daniel and Priya weren't badly advised. They were unadvised, in any connected sense.
What AES did
The first conversation didn't propose replacing anyone. The existing advisers had institutional knowledge and trusted relationships that mattered. The question was whether anyone was running the whole. AES took on the coordinating role. Their financial life manager mapped the full structure, named the decisions that crossed adviser boundaries, and ran joint sessions where the right specialists were in the room together. The portfolio overlap was resolved. The pension was brought into the retirement-income plan. The trust strategy was aligned with the family's lifetime wishes, not just their estate. Each existing adviser kept their role. AES sat above all of them as the connected view the family didn't previously have.
What changed
Decisions now get made once, against the whole picture, instead of three times in three different rooms. Costs came down by around $90,000 a year where overlap had been compounding across the existing adviser fees. The family meet annually with AES and the wider adviser team together. The wealth still has the same advisers behind it. It now has a connected strategy on top.
A UAE-headquartered engineering and construction firm with around 350 employees. Half white-collar, half site-based engineers. Multi-nationality workforce, families included. Group medical insurance had been placed through the same broker for six years and renewed each year with the same insurer. The annual premium had grown to roughly $2.1 million. The CFO had been running the renewal conversation personally for three years. The board's brief was straightforward: keep the increase below 10%, don't reduce cover.
What wasn't working
Renewals had compounded by 22%, 18% and 27% across three consecutive years. The broker's answer each time was "that's the market." When the CFO asked for claims data, the answers came back vague. By the start of year four, benefits were running at 14% of total HR spend, and another 25% increase was on the table. The board had started asking why benefits costs were growing faster than payroll.
What AES did
AES was brought in six months before renewal. The first move was a full claims audit. In the first review meeting, the CFO realised the renewal team had been negotiating against the gross claims figure for three years, while the insurer was quoting on the net figure after rebates. The negotiating position had been the wrong number the whole time. Three deeper patterns then emerged. Seventy percent of claims came from twelve percent of employees, a cohort whose repeated outpatient claims pointed to chronic conditions left untreated. Maternity utilisation was running 40% above plan. The primary network didn't match where employees actually lived, so most were defaulting to higher-cost out-of-network providers. The plan was rebuilt across all three, with a proactive prevention layer for the high-utilisation cohort: health risk assessments and one-to-one follow-ups to catch chronic conditions earlier. The plan was then remarketed to three international insurers. The incumbent matched the best terms.
What changed
At the next renewal, premium was held flat year on year. By the following one, it came down 6% against the prior year, with cover unchanged. Total cumulative savings over the two years came in at around $340,000, with cover unchanged. The claims loss ratio fell from 91% to 74%. The high-utilisation cohort dropped from 12% of employees to 7%. The CFO no longer presents the renewal alone. AES reports to the board quarterly on benefits cost, claims trends and prevention activity, alongside the existing HR and payroll metrics. "We were arguing for $9000 off a number that was already $9000 wrong," the CFO said.
A UAE-based law firm with around 110 employees. Partner-led, professional services workforce, mostly international hires on multi-year contracts. The firm had grown from 40 to 110 employees in three years through partner moves and lateral hires. Benefits were managed by the office manager, who had inherited the broker relationship from the previous office manager. Group medical insurance was in place, but nobody could articulate what the strategy was. The cover existed. The renewals happened. That was it.
What wasn't working
The managing partner had started getting questions from senior hires he couldn't answer. Why is my dependant cover lower than at my last firm? What happens if my wife needs maternity care? Why is there a deductible on mental health support but not physical? Then a senior hire pulled out of a final offer because the package didn't match what a rival firm had put on the table. The managing partner asked his office manager to explain the firm's benefits strategy. The reply: "I'm not sure we have one." That was the trigger.
What AES did
AES Health spent six weeks with the firm before recommending anything: an audit of the current plan benchmarked against comparable firms in DIFC, an employee survey of what people actually valued and used, and a claims utilisation review that showed mental health support barely touched despite high reported stress. From that, AES built the firm's first proper employee healthcare strategy across Protect, Prevent and Prosper. Protect: medical plan redesigned with the senior-hire tier in mind, deductibles removed from mental health, and a clearer route for international claims when staff travelled for work. Prevent: quarterly health screening days, year-round mental health one-to-ones rather than enrolment-only access, and manager training on recognising burnout, designed for legal services teams. Prosper: employee financial well-being sessions on deferred income, equity decisions and retirement, coordinated with AES Financial Life Management for the senior partner cohort. The whole strategy went into a single document the managing partner now uses in lateral hire conversations.
What changed
Over the following eighteen months, the firm closed every lateral hire it made an offer to. The managing partner attributes a meaningful part of that to the benefits conversation becoming a strength rather than a weakness. The retention impact alone is estimated at around $1.2 million in saved replacement and recruitment costs across the period. Mental health utilisation rose from 4% of staff to 31%. Sickness absence fell 18%. The eNPS for benefits climbed from 14 to 58. The office manager no longer runs benefits. AES is the embedded benefits function. The managing partner now opens the lateral hire conversation with: "We don't have a policy. We have a strategy. Let me walk you through it."
A UAE-headquartered hospitality group running three properties, with around 600 employees. Operational workforce, multi-nationality, mostly accommodation-housed, shift patterns covering 24-hour operations. The HR director had been with the group for five years. Group medical insurance was in place across all three properties, placed by a regional broker. Well-being initiatives existed: an annual health day, yoga at one property, a wellness Slack channel. They had been added piecemeal over four years. Nobody was sure if any of them worked.
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What wasn't working
Annual absence was running at 9.8%, well above the hospitality benchmark. eNPS had dropped from 32 to 11 across two years. Exit interviews kept surfacing the same comment: "the work is fine, I just feel exhausted." The HR director knew the group was spending meaningful money on well-being. She didn't know what any of it was delivering, and couldn't answer the board's question of "is this working?" with anything concrete.
What AES did
The first move was diagnostic, not interventional. Three weeks of workforce data analysis: claims patterns by property, demographic breakdown of utilisation, exit interview themes, eNPS open-text analysis. Four patterns emerged, and each shaped a specific intervention. Musculoskeletal claims dominated, consistent with long shifts on hard floors. The response: onsite physiotherapy at all three properties, fortnightly, with posture and lifting training for housekeeping and F&B teams. Mental health utilisation was near zero despite stress signals across the survey data. The response: confidential one-to-ones in three languages, promoted through line managers rather than HR posters. The three properties had wildly different health profiles. The response: a property-specific programme for each site, not a single group calendar. Female employees aged 25 to 40 were underserved. The response: a women's health programme with quarterly screenings, fertility seminars and perimenopause support. Measurement was built in from day one. Monthly utilisation. Quarterly eNPS. Claims reviewed against the well-being calendar.
What changed
Eighteen months in, absence had dropped from 9.8% to 6.4%. For a workforce of 600, that translates to roughly $720,000 a year in recovered productivity. Musculoskeletal claims, previously the single largest category, dropped 34% in volume. Mental health support utilisation went from 2% of staff to 22%. The eNPS climbed from 11 to 41. The HR director now opens board meetings with the well-being dashboard, not the well-being budget. Six months into the new programme, a housekeeper told the physiotherapist: "I've worked here for nine years. This is the first time anyone has ever asked me if my back hurts."
A UAE-based technology company with around 80 employees. Mostly international hires on multi-year contracts, families on the plan. Group medical insurance placed through a broker three years earlier. The plan was reasonably well-designed, no obvious gaps. The HR lead handled benefits as part of a broader people role. Claims were rare, mostly routine outpatient.
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What wasn't working
This case wasn't about a strategic gap. It was about a single moment when the system was tested. A senior engineer's wife was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer mid-afternoon on a Wednesday in February. By that evening, treatment was being scheduled for the following Monday. The insurer's initial response, late on the Thursday, was that part of the recommended treatment fell outside the plan's coverage protocols and would not be approved. The engineer was about to start a private payment plan that would have cost the family around $76,000 (AED 280,000) out of pocket.
What AES did
The HR lead called AES on the Thursday evening. By Friday morning, AES had reviewed the plan documents in detail and identified the specific clauses the insurer was citing, then challenged the interpretation against the plan's actual wording. AES engaged the insurer's clinical team directly, with supporting documentation from the treating oncologist, to argue the medical necessity case. When the regional response wasn't moving fast enough, AES escalated to the insurer's UK head office. Throughout, the engineer's family had a single point of contact, so they weren't navigating between the hospital, the insurer and the HR team alone. By Monday morning, the treatment was approved in full. The family paid nothing out of pocket. The total intervention took eleven working hours across four days.
What changed
The engineer's wife is now in remission, eighteen months on. The engineer is still at the company. The HR lead has since said the moment fundamentally changed her view of what benefits means. "Before AES, I thought benefits was the policy document. Now I know benefits is what happens when you actually need them." The CEO referenced the case unprompted in two subsequent investor meetings, framing the company's people support as a competitive advantage in retaining technical talent. The first phone call the engineer had made when the insurer initially declined was to his line manager, expecting to be told "that's a private matter, sorry." What he got instead was the HR lead picking up on the Thursday evening, and a follow-up call from AES at 9am on the Friday. "That was the moment I knew I worked for a different kind of company," he said later.
