When Mohammad Abdulla Al Gergawi looks out of his office window on the 44th floor of the Emirates Towers complex in the heart of Dubai, he sees the emirate's boom unfolding below.

More office and residential buildings are going up; more highways, educational campuses, hospitals, and hotels are being built; and more desert is being transformed into parks. So intense is the development that Dubai is said to have the world's highest concentration of construction cranes.

Over the weekend, Gergawi attended the opening of the Dubai Film Festival, along with his guests George Clooney, Sharon Stone, Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, and other international film stars and directors, including Mira Nair and Shabana Azmi. The festival's chief sponsor, the Dubai International Finance Center, is overseen by Gergawi.

This isn't the Dubai of his childhood, less than four decades ago, when Gergawi would walk two miles to school every day on dusty roads. Today, he's the chairman and chief executive of what is arguably  the world's biggest conglomerate, Dubai Holding. The group, owned almost wholly by Gergawi's boss and Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is the main engine of growth in Dubai, one of the seven states that constitute the United Arab Emirates.

Dubai Holding has a foothold in more than 20 industries, including technology, real estate, tourism, telecommunications, media, finance, health, education, biotechnology, and energy. The market value of its properties and investments is more than $2 trillion--and growing.

This year, Istithmar, an subsidiary of  Dubai World, a sister fund to Dubai Holding, bought Barneys New York for $942 million; Dubai World said it would invest $5 billion in the MGM Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas; Borse Dubai took a stake of nearly 20 percent in Nasdaq and also bought Nasdaq's 28 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange; and Dubai International Capital acquired a $1.26 billion stake in the hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group. Two weeks ago, Dubai International Capital bought a minority stake in Sony.

Gergawi was responsible for all those decisions.

And yet he is a man that few people get to know, let alone interview. That's not because Gergawi is necessarily secretive. Although he also holds the title of minister of state for cabinet affairs-which, in effect, makes him the U.A.E. equivalent of the White House chief of staff-the U.S.-educated Gergawi remains in the shadow of the charismatic Sheik Mohammed, whose office is next door. Indeed, a conversation with Gergawi can sometimes yield unexpected diversions, as when Sheik Mohammed strolls in and cracks a joke or two.

To put it another way, if the 58-year-old Sheik Mohammed is the C.E.O. of Dubai Inc., then the 40-year-old Gergawi is the chief operating officer, in charge of putting his boss's vision into practice. Gergawi also heads Sheik Mohammed's newly created $10 billion Maktoum Foundation, created to improve education and increase entrepreneurship, especially in developing countries.

In an exclusive interview with Portfolio.com, Gergawi spoke candidly not only about what it takes to sustain Dubai's economic growth, but also about some recent controversies such as the dismal working and living conditions for unskilled immigrant workers. Following are excerpts:

Pranay Gupte: How do you see your role in the rapid growth of Dubai?

Mohammad Abdulla Al Gergawi: Under the overall guidance of His Highness Sheik Mohammed, I see myself principally as an agent of change. At Dubai Holding, I oversee the implementation of our corporate strategy, paying particular attention to the development of our international business portfolio. I see myself as responsible for motivating a highly diverse, international team. I do my best to empower my team members with the resources they need to get their jobs done. That means making quick decisions to remove obstacles, and also reviewing and selecting multiple proposals on a broad range of opportunities that will further develop Dubai.

P.G.: With all these billions being spent by Dubai on overseas acquisitions, what's the next stage of development for the emirate domestically?

M.A.G.: We're making a huge investment in local physical infrastructure to support the growth, while we undertake strong regional and international expansion. There may be consolidation of some of the operating entities within some of the large Dubai holding companies. For example, Dubai World's Istithmar and Nakheel, both large real estate organizations, will be merging soon. Nakheel alone has more than $60 billion of construction projects in the works. We're also looking carefully at alignment of the overall investment strategy to take advantage of emerging long-term economic and social trends globally as well as in our region. And, of course, we're making massive investment in human capital and knowledge development for our own people. That means more colleges and specialized institutions of higher learning. I personally take a great deal of interest in our investment in people by being directly involved in identifying, training, and empowering good young managers with lots of potential.