The Crown Prince joins an exclusive club alongside Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson…

If anyone in the UAE can claim to be a genuine ‘influencer’ then HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, is that guy.

He single handedly has the power to influence the hearts and minds of the country’s residents far more than any other Johnny-come-lately with a poorly-place hashtag and an Instagram account’s worth of bought followers.

Today, the Crown Prince was officially recognised as such by LinkedIn, the world’s largest social network for professionals, who announced that he would be joining a very exclusive club of other high profile influential people from around the world.

Sheikh Hamdan will now digitally rub shoulders with the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, David Cameron, Indian Prime Minister Modi and Arianna Huffington, in an invite-only programme that is made up of around 500 of the world’s foremost thinkers, leaders and innovators.

It’s not immediately clear what sweet social media benefits achieving influencer status on LinkedIn will net the Crown Prince, but we imagine that it’ll go a long way in helping him spread the positive message of how the UAE has emerged as a force for shaping the future of the world, which he wrote about in his latest post to the site.

It certainly beats reading thinly-veiled product placements for Flat Tummy Tea and #OOTD humblebrags that other so-called ‘influencers’ are prone to.

– For more about Dubai straight to your newsfeed, follow us on Facebook.