The war is over and depending upon who you speak to, Dubai is back to being a thing. This week, it has emerged that two Goldman Sachs managing directors (MDs) are moving there.
💥Follow us on WhatsApp for news alerts.💥
The first of the two is Daniel Dangoor, a Goldman macro trading MD whom as we reported is going to ExodusPoint in Dubai. Dangoor is thought to have joined this week. The second is Alessio Xien Zhou, who has joined LMR Partners’ Dubai office.
Zhou was previously a Goldman Sachs MD and head of CEEMEA equity cash and derivatives trading for the firm. He spent 10 years at Goldman after joining as an analyst and was promoted to MD in only November 2025.
Zhou will be a portfolio manager at LMR. The FCA Register shows him leaving Deutsche at the end of December 2025, one month after he was promoted to MD. Zhou has presumably, therefore, spent the past six months on gardening leave watching the war erupt and has now arrived in Dubai fortuitously after it ended.
LMR made another hire in Dubai, too. Paris Nikolau from Verition in London, joined as a long/short equity analyst in April.
Goldman Sachs’ London emerging markets equities team has a history of leaving for hedge funds. We reported last year that there had been at least seven exits. Most notably, Ediz Karahasanoglu, Goldman’s former head of EMEA equities trading, left for LMR in April 2025. Karahasanoglu is based in London, but it seems likely that he might have encouraged the arrival of Zhou in the UAE.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Follow me on X. Follow me on LinkedIn.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.