Bilal Abou-Diab, co-founder and CEO at Vault Wealth: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the business community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of business questions for fun. Speaking to us this week is Bilal Abou-Diab (LinkedIn), co-founder and CEO at Vault Wealth. Edited excerpts from our conversation below.

I’m Bilal Abou-Diab, co-founder and CEO at Vault. I’ve been in the UAE since 2010, and I’ve built my entire career in financial services, mostly at HSBC where I managed a team and advised high-net-worth clients, and oversaw roughly half a bn USD in assets. I’m a CFA charterholder, and somewhere along the way, I became a husband, a father, and a man who’s very serious about his Google Calendar color codes.

We started Vault three years ago with my co-founder Sami Abdul-Hadi (LinkedIn). I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a startup founder. Honestly, entrepreneurship wasn’t on my radar. I spent over eight years in HSBC, and I thought I’d stay there. Both of us were working in wealth management, and over time we became deeply aware of a structural problem in the way financial advice was being delivered in the region. Vault was born to solve this problem: to help people allocate their savings in a way that actually aligns with their goals, not someone else’s sales quota.

We asked ourselves: If we could solve this problem from scratch, how would we do it? What started as a thought experiment snowballed into a business. We built a plan, got backing, got licensed, and slowly brought it to life. We built Vault to be the kind of company we wish had existed when we were clients ourselves.

Vault is a wealth platform that combines the best of human advisors with the best of digital experience. What makes us different is that our structure and incentives are actually aligned with the client. That’s what sets us apart. We aren’t pushing products. We’re offering plans.

There’s an important part of our mission: empathy. When you’ve worked hard to build wealth, managing it becomes more complicated, not less. We believe people with wealth deserve thoughtful, unbiased guidance — just like anyone else — and that belief drives everything we do.

Fintech is evolving quickly, and the thing I find most exciting is the rise of specialist platforms. In the past, you relied on one massive bank to do everything for you: savings, loans, trading, ins., investments. But now, tech has made it easier for people to pick best-in-class tools for each need. You’ll go to one platform for your mortgage, another for your card, another for your investments.

At Vault, I’m involved across almost every function. Advisory is core — I work closely with our client advisory team and meet directly with clients as well. I also collaborate with marketing, product, investor relations, compliance, and operations. Every month has its own focus, and I try to stay close to the things that matter most. But we have incredible people leading each area, so my job is often to connect the dots and remove roadblocks.

The hardest part of founder life is context-switching. One hour I’m deep in a strategy discussion, the next I’m reviewing legal documents, and then I’m suddenly fielding a call about a product glitch. It’s a mental workout. You need systems to stay focused.

My mornings start early, thanks to my two daughters. I usually spend some time with them, do the school drop-off, then head into the office. Once I’m at work, I focus on planning the day: Which tasks will add the most value? What meetings are essential? What can be moved? I live by my calendar. It’s not just for calls, I block out time for emails, projects, and even 15-minute admin tasks.

I color-code everything in Google Calendar, including a color for things I probably shouldn’t have spent time on (that’s yellow — I used to see a lot of yellow; now, thankfully, much less). It’s helped me cut down distractions and spend more time where it counts.

When it comes to catching up on the news, I’m a podcast person. I use commute time to stay current. My favorites — Odd Lots from Bloomberg, FT News Briefing, and Ones and Tooze by Adam Tooze are regulars. For written content, I use Superhuman, which filters all my news subscriptions into one folder so I can catch up without being buried in email clutter.

I also try to walk whenever I can. I use an Oura Ring to track activity, and one of my hacks is to turn one-on-one meetings with team members into walking meetings. It helps with health, focus, and energy, all at once.

There’s no such thing as a “typical” workday for me, but there is structure. I have regular cadences with each team — some weekly, some bi-weekly, some every two days. Then everything else goes on the calendar: tasks, deliverables, even family time. That balance matters.

When I do have downtime, you’ll probably find me at the beach. I love the sea — it’s one of the reasons I love the UAE so much. I might also spend time with my family.

As for books, I’ve been deep into history lately. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan is one I highly recommend — it’s sweeping and brilliant. Another one is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary. For finance, I mostly stick to newsletters and CFA Institute material these days.

One piece of advice I always go back to is something my father always says: “You have two ears and one mouth.” I try to live by that. Listening to partners, our community, our clients, really allows us to add much more value than speaking sometimes. The more you listen, the more you understand, and the better decisions you make.

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