If you’re a portfolio manager thinking of leaving London for Dubai, Francesca Petrucci can assist you. Petrucci is in Dubai. She is married to a portfolio manager. And until November 2025 she was working for Deutsche Bank in London, where she spent the previous 12.5 years building a career in hedge fund rates sales.
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Working as a real estate agent isn’t quite the same as working in hedge fund sales and Petrucci says she is still settling in to her new career. “What I miss most is saying that I work in hedge fund sales,” she admits.
The trouble with working in hedge fund sales, though, is the hours. Petrucci, who has two young children, says she spent half her Deutsche Bank salary on a nanny when she was working in London. If you want to thrive in sales, she says you ideally need to go out with clients at least twice a week, preferably after work. This means leaving the house at 6.45am and returning after 10pm. “All my colleagues would be doing this, but once I had kids I wanted to see them,” she says.
By comparison, as a real estate agent in Dubai, Petrucci pays lower childcare costs and has more control over her time. She says childcare in Dubai is a quarter of the price of childcare in London and she now manages her own schedule. There are viewings in the morning, before the London market opens, and contract signings in the afternoons.
It’s not the same as hedge fund sales, but Petrucci is still selling to hedge fund managers. She says portfolio managers are returning to the Middle East after the panic in March and that the “fear has passed and everything is normal.”
Much of Petrucci’s work comes via word of mouth. If you too want to move to Dubai, she can help house you. Alternatively, if you’re a female rates salesperson in London looking for an exit, she can show you the way.
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