When Rich Isn’t Wealthy: Lessons From a Dubai Expat

When Amit Mitbawkar arrived in Dubai from India in 1997, he wanted what most people moving abroad want: a better life, more money, and a clear sign that he had succeeded. He took a basic job, mainly to pay for an MBA in finance at the University of Wollongong Dubai. Then he did what many expats did — he moved from job to job, each one paying more than the last.

By his own account, it worked. Over about twenty years, his income grew ten times over. Based on salary alone, he had done what he set out to do.

But he says one paperback made him question whether salary was the right way to measure success at all.

A Book and an Uncomfortable Calculation

Mitbawkar says he read Robert Kiyosaki's well-known finance book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and then did something simple: he checked how long his savings would last if his salary suddenly stopped. He says the answer was short enough to worry him.

The problem, he says, wasn't that he hadn't earned enough. It was that his spending had grown alongside his income — a bigger salary paying for a bigger flat, a better car, and better schools, while his actual financial position stayed about the same. He describes this as being "rich" in terms of cash coming in each month, but not truly "wealthy," since his whole lifestyle depended on that next paycheck arriving on time.

This kind of story — realising that a good salary isn't the same as financial security — is common in personal-finance writing, and Mitbawkar's version follows a similar pattern. What sets his story apart is what he says he did next.

From Client to Adviser

In 2011, instead of just finding a better financial adviser, Mitbawkar says he joined the firm that was already managing his own money, so he could learn the business from the inside. He completed the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment's qualifications up to Level 3, along with a Chartered Insurance Institute qualification in the UK. In 2012, he wrote his own book, Creating, Preserving, Distributing Wealth, which he says was as much about organising his own learning as it was a book for others.

He also says he began investing his own money to test what he was learning, and that this included some losses. It's worth noting that admitting to losses is somewhat unusual — most professional stories tend to focus on success rather than setbacks — though whether this reflects genuine openness or is simply meant to make him seem more relatable is hard to say from the outside.

He later became a member of the Million Dollar Round Table, an industry group whose membership is based on how much an adviser sells, not on an independent check of client results — a useful distinction to keep in mind when this membership is mentioned as a credential. His comments have since appeared in regional news outlets including Gulf News, Khaleej Times, The National and Zawya.

The Current Business

Mitbawkar runs his practice from an office at Meydan Grandstand in Nad Al Sheba, and says it mainly serves directors, general managers, chief executives and senior professionals across Dubai — people he describes as "too busy earning to manage what they earn."

More recently, he has moved into business financing through a company called WealthBullet International. It's a licensed financing consultancy that says it connects UAE businesses with the right lenders — covering term loans, invoice discounting, revenue-based finance, and Sharia-compliant options — instead of business owners sending the same application to many banks at once, which can hurt their credit record. The firm says it gives an answer within 48 hours, even if that answer is no, and presents this as faster than the usual, often slower bank process.

These are the firm's own claims about how it works and how fast it responds. This article has not independently checked them against outside data or client feedback.

A Comparison That Isn't His

The original material behind this profile also compares Mitbawkar's 48-hour promise to "Dubai-it," a phrase linked to Dubai's ruling family and government efforts around speed and delivery, including an award launched in June 2026 by Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. It's important to be clear here: this comparison is not something Mitbawkar has said about himself. In fact, the original material says plainly that he "claims no part" of the government programme. Linking his business to "Dubai-it" appears to be a choice made by the original writer — connecting a private company's customer service policy to a government campaign to make it sound more significant than it was on its own. Readers should treat this as the writer's own framing, not as proof of any real link between Mitbawkar's firm and the initiative.

The Sales Pitch That Isn't One

Mitbawkar's own website opens by giving potential clients three reasons they might not want to work with him: he can't make anyone rich quickly, he has little interest in clients who won't save money, and he won't help people looking for shortcuts. This is a common approach in the financial-advice industry — presenting caution and pickiness as proof of trustworthiness.