Forty-two years in the UAE. Three decades at the head of his own firm. A career spent quietly in the room where the deal is done — across property, shipping, trading, procurement, and the long introductions that turn one company into another's supplier.
- In the UAE since
- 1984
- Firm founded
- 1995
- Prior service
- United Nations
- Discipline
- Negotiation
In every transaction there is a price & a number. The work is everything in between.
A career taught by institutions, sharpened by deals.
Jacob arrived in the UAE in 1984 expecting to stay for a short time. He never left. The country that received him was a young federation finding its footing; the man who stayed is now part of the older guard that watched it become what it is, and helped, in modest ways, to build it.
He spent his first decade in the region working with the Ruler's Office and then with the United Nations, where he learned a particular kind of patience — the patience required to bring two parties to a number neither of them thought was possible. In 1992 he left the institution to start Centour Group of Companies, and now Jacob's Consultancy, his principal organization.
What the firm does is hard to put on a card. It brokers property and arranges shipping. It introduces suppliers to buyers. It procures difficult equipment on behalf of clients who do not have time to find it themselves. It advises families on succession, and individuals on insurance. The unifying thread is the man at the centre — and the network he has built across forty-two years of showing up, doing what he said, and remembering names.
Jacob Zachariah
Founder, Principal, Negotiator
A life in the region, briefly charted.
Arrival in the UAE
A short posting that becomes a life. The federation is thirteen years old; Dubai still has more sand than skyline.
Arrival in the UAE
A short posting that becomes a life. The federation is thirteen years old; Dubai still has more sand than skyline.
Centour Group of Companies
Builds an empire, works with the United Nations and the Ruler's Office. Thirty years running it, learning the patient grammar of multilateral work.
Centour Group of Companies
Builds an empire, works with the United Nations and the Ruler's Office. Thirty years running it, learning the patient grammar of multilateral work.
Jacob's Consultancy is founded
Steps out on his own. Initial focus: trade introductions between Indian manufacturers and Gulf importers. Adds property and shipping within the first three years.
Jacob's Consultancy is founded
Steps out on his own. Initial focus: trade introductions between Indian manufacturers and Gulf importers. Adds property and shipping within the first three years.
Procurement & supplier desk
Formalises the procurement practice. Begins handling industrial supply introductions for clients across the GCC and East Africa.
Procurement & supplier desk
Formalises the procurement practice. Begins handling industrial supply introductions for clients across the GCC and East Africa.
A first diagnosis
Cancer, treated and survived. The firm continues without missing a quarter. A small line item from a policy bought years earlier covers what salary alone could not have.
A first diagnosis
Cancer, treated and survived. The firm continues without missing a quarter. A small line item from a policy bought years earlier covers what salary alone could not have.
A second diagnosis
Cancer again, a different kind, again survived. The advocacy for life insurance, by now, is no longer professional opinion. It is testimony.
A second diagnosis
Cancer again, a different kind, again survived. The advocacy for life insurance, by now, is no longer professional opinion. It is testimony.
Same desk, same phone
Operating from Dubai with a small, trusted team — Thomas in Kerala, others across the region. By introduction and on referral.
Same desk, same phone
Operating from Dubai with a small, trusted team — Thomas in Kerala, others across the region. By introduction and on referral.
What the firm actually does.
Six practice areas under one name — bound less by sector than by the same set of hands. If a matter sits between two of them, it is still Jacob's. If it sits in none of them, ask anyway.
i.
Real Estate
Residential and commercial property across the UAE and India. Acquisitions, dispositions, NRI estate liaison through trusted ground partners (including Thomas Varghese, Kerala).
ii.
Shipping & Logistics
Freight arrangement, charter advisory, customs and clearance liaison between Jebel Ali, Mundra, Kochi, and the East African ports. Containers and bulk, occasional break-bulk.
iii.
Trading
Cross-border commodity and finished-goods trade, structured around long-standing buyer and supplier relationships. Patient deals, fair margins, paperwork done properly.
iv.
Procurement
Sourcing what clients cannot — or do not have time to — source themselves. Industrial equipment, specialist consumables, hard-to-find replacements. Single-piece to container loads.
v.
Supplier introductions
The quiet half of trade: putting the right buyer in front of the right factory, vouching for both, and stepping back. Forty years of names in one phone.
vi.
Life Insurance Advisory
A practice he speaks about personally — see the next section. Honest counsel on cover, levels, and providers, with no allegiance to any single insurer.
On the policy that did not look important — until it was the most important thing in the room.
From Jacob, in his own words
Twice in my life I have had cancer. Twice I have walked out of the treatment on the right side of the prognosis, for which I remain grateful in ways I will not pretend to fully express here.
What also walked out with me, both times, was a piece of paper I had signed many years before — when I was healthy, when the premium was a small line in a busy month's budget, and when I will admit I almost did not buy it. It paid the bills nobody ever tells you about until they arrive. Not the headline hospital bill. The quieter ones — the months of not working, the second opinions, the travel, the things at home that do not pause because you are unwell.
I am not a fund manager and I will not sell you a product I do not believe in. I am, however, the only person you will speak with who has read the fine print of these policies twice — once with my lawyer, and once at three in the morning, in a hospital room, when it mattered. I will sit with you for an hour and tell you, simply, what I think.
What you actually have
An honest read of your existing policy — if any — and what it will and will not do when called upon.What you are missing
Critical illness cover, income replacement, term versus whole-of-life. The bits that get sold to you, the bits that don't.Who to buy from
Honest counsel across the major regional providers. No exclusivity. The recommendation depends on your stage of life and structure of family, not on a commission.What it should cost
A range, not a number. So you know when you're being overcharged, and when a quote is fair.
Dubai · 2026
A career, briefly in figures.
45yrs
In the Middle East
35yrs
Running the firm
10yrs
With the Ruler's Office and United Nations
6
Practice areas, one phone
What clients say after.
Names abbreviated by request. Jacob's practice is built almost entirely on referral, and discretion is part of the service.
R. M.
Trading Group · Sharjah
Buyer / Importer
We have done business with Jacob for nineteen years. In that time we have never signed a contract that surprised us, and we have walked away from three deals because he told us to. All three would have been disasters. The man saved us more money by what he refused than by what he closed.”
Dr. P. Verghese
Kerala / Dubai
Family & insurance counsel
He spent two hours with my wife and I, asked us questions our own bank had never bothered to ask, and then told us we were over-insured on one policy and dangerously short on another. He charged us nothing for the conversation. Two years later, when we needed the claim, we knew exactly who to call first.”
A. Kareem
Procurement Head · Industrial Group
Supplier / procurement
I asked Jacob for a part that, frankly, I did not believe could be sourced in under three months. He had it on a ship within eleven days. He has never told me how. I have stopped asking.”
Have a matter? Call him.
Most introductions come through a mutual party. If you do not have one, that is fine too — tell him who you are, what the matter is, and what you would like to happen. He reads every email himself.