Mumbai to the Gulf: How Kafeel Ahmed built an Arabian perfumery brand

(Oct 20, 2026)  From leaving engineering studies in Mumbai to founding Ahmed Al Maghribi Perfumes in the UAE in 2000, Kafeel Ahmed has grown the business from a single retail outlet to more than 180 stores across the GCC, shaped by cross-cultural experiences and a deep understanding of how fragrance connects with identity, heritage and memory.

His journey began in Mumbai, a city that taught him early about ambition, resilience and the value of hard work. Growing up there exposed him to people from diverse backgrounds, helping him learn to adapt, observe and read people and situations quickly.

“But honestly, Mumbai didn’t show me the perfume business; it showed me dreams that felt far out of reach at the time. I was always the creative one, intrigued by innovation, always asking how things were made and why people chose what they chose. I started out studying engineering, but life had other plans. I left my education to support my family. Looking back, that wasn’t a setback; it was a turning point,” he recalls in a chat with The Global Indian.

That decision eventually took him to Dubai, where he began working in a perfume retail store. What initially seemed like a job became the starting point of his entrepreneurial journey. Being close to the product, observing how customers responded to different scents and understanding what inspired their trust in a brand helped him recognise an opportunity in the fragrance business.

“Mumbai gave me the values and the hunger, but it was Dubai and that perfume store that gave me the direction,” he adds.

 

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From a perfume store to a fragrance house

Over time, Ahmed realised that he wanted to build something of his own. He spent months understanding the market and its cultural nuances, working to curate a fragrance offering that he believed had genuine value.

In December 2000, that ambition took shape with the founding of Ahmed Al Maghribi Perfumes.

“In the early days, I was an all-rounder involved in every single aspect of the business, because there simply wasn’t a team yet to hand things off to. I built that team piece by piece, and I’ve had the privilege of watching AMGP grow right alongside me, year after year,” he says.

As the business evolved, so did his understanding of leadership. His experiences across Mumbai, Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the UAE, including his earlier supervisory years in Saudi Arabia, shaped his approach to building and managing the company.

“Today, as Chairman and Founder, I look back and realise that every one of those experiences – the odd jobs in Mumbai, the supervisory years in Saudi Arabia, and the first perfume store in the UAE – shaped who I am and how I lead this business now,” he says.

Learning to do business across cultures

Working across countries and cultures has been one of the most significant forms of education in Ahmed’s life. India taught him resilience, adaptability, relationship-building and how to operate in a diverse, competitive environment.

The UAE introduced me to a more international way of doing business. Here, on any given day, you can interact with customers, colleagues, suppliers, and business partners representing ten or twenty different nationalities. That teaches you an important lesson: there is no single way to communicate, lead, negotiate, sell, or build relationships. You must understand people.

Kafeel Ahmed

The Middle East also deepened his appreciation of hospitality, relationships, heritage and trust, values that are particularly significant in the fragrance industry.

In the region, perfume is more than a beauty product. It is closely connected to identity, hospitality, personal expression, family traditions and memories. Understanding these associations has helped Ahmed appreciate the cultural significance of fragrance and the role it plays in people’s lives.

The lessons behind the setbacks

Like most entrepreneurial journeys, Ahmed’s has involved its share of challenges. One of the earliest was leaving a familiar environment to establish himself in another country.

When you move internationally, your previous comfort zone disappears. You must understand a new business culture, build relationships from the beginning, prove yourself again, and adapt quickly.

Kafeel Ahmed

Building a business also brought the challenges of competition, economic changes, shifting customer behaviour, operational pressures, recruitment and maintaining quality while expanding. There were difficult decisions to make, often without complete information.

Ahmed believes such periods can reveal weaknesses that success might otherwise conceal.

“I learned that challenges should not always be viewed negatively. Sometimes they reveal weaknesses that success can hide. Difficult periods force you to improve systems, become more disciplined, communicate better, and make decisions more carefully.”

Patience has been another important lesson. The visible success of a business often conceals years of work, experimentation and uncertainty. For Ahmed, sustainable growth requires discipline and a willingness to keep adapting. “I have also learned never to become too comfortable with success. Customer preferences change. Technology changes. Competition changes. Markets change,” he adds.

Redefining success through leadership

Ahmed’s international exposure has also changed how he defines success. Rather than measuring it only through commercial growth, he sees it in the organisation a business becomes and the opportunities it creates for others.

“Leadership is about creating opportunities for other people, developing teams, building systems, maintaining values, and leaving an organisation stronger than you found it,” he says.

He believes effective leadership requires more than authority. It calls for clarity, trust, respect and purpose, alongside the ability to make decisions and listen to others.

His ambitions today extend beyond growing the business commercially. He wants to build a fragrance house with genuine international recognition, representing the sophistication, creativity, hospitality and perfumery heritage of the Middle East to consumers around the world.

Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

For young people considering entrepreneurship, Ahmed advises looking beyond the appeal of starting a business and understanding the discipline required to sustain one.

“Entrepreneurship looks exciting from outside, but behind every successful business are years of discipline, difficult decisions, rejection, financial pressure, uncertainty, and constant learning.”

He stresses that a promising idea must meet a genuine customer need or desire. Entrepreneurs must also understand the fundamentals of running a business, including margins, expenses, cash flow, inventory and profitability.

Equally important, he believes, is the ability to communicate value and build lasting relationships. “Business is ultimately conducted between people. Your reputation and credibility will create opportunities that money cannot always buy. Customers will often tell you where your business needs to go before any consultant or report does.”

His advice is to be patient with progress, avoid comparing an early-stage business with a more established one, and protect the trust that customers and partners place in the enterprise.

Businesses can recover from many mistakes, but trust is much harder to rebuild once it is lost.

Kafeel Ahmed

 

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Faith, family and giving back

Away from business, Ahmed values time with his family and maintaining relationships with people who have been part of his journey. His faith also plays a central role in how he approaches work and life.

“I believe the core purpose of persons being is submission to Allah, and that’s what I practise in work and outside work. Taking my time to connect to the creator. It has always paved the way for me when I thought it would be the end,” he says.

He also believes that giving back should become an increasingly important priority for individuals and organisations as they grow.

Taking Arabian perfumery to the world

Looking ahead, Ahmed sees opportunities to introduce Middle Eastern perfumery to a wider international audience. He points to growing interest in distinctive fragrance profiles and ingredients such as oud, amber, musk and bakhoor as an opportunity for the category to reach more consumers.

“We see significant opportunities for Middle Eastern perfumery globally. Customers around the world are becoming increasingly interested in oud, amber, musk, bakhoor, high-concentration fragrances and more distinctive perfume profiles. Our ambition is to participate meaningfully in that movement,” he says.

For Ahmed, the next phase is about building on what the company has achieved while strengthening its international relevance.

“Ultimately, my ambition is to help build a fragrance company that is not simply successful in the Middle East but recognised internationally as an important representative of modern Arabian perfumery. For me, that would make the journey from Mumbai to the UAE and from the UAE to the world, especially, meaningful,” he concludes.

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