Privacy Policy

A8 Innovation Consultancies Co. L.L.C is a limited liability company registered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates under commercial licence number 1442344, at P.O. Box 76548, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

We operate under the names Exit Builders and A8 Advisory. Wherever this policy says “we” or “us”, it means the company.

Contact for anything in this policy: privacy@a8advisory.com

This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we hold it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do about it.

It applies to:

• People who visit our websites or fill in a form
• People who enquire about our services
• Our clients, and the people who work at them
• Affiliate partners in our referral programme
• People whose details are given to us by someone else, which is explained in its own section below

We are governed by UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on Personal Data Protection. If you are located somewhere that gives you additional rights over your personal information, you may exercise those rights by contacting us.

If you contact us or fill in a form

If you become a client

If you are an affiliate partner

If you request Deal Pipeline access

How long. Where access is declined, or granted and never used, we delete the request after 24 months. Records of what was viewed are kept for 24 months after access ends.

Decisions about access are made by a member of our team, not automatically.

Cookies and similar technologies differ by site, and we tell you the truth about each:

exitbuilders.com uses analytics and advertising technologies to understand how visitors use the site and to measure our marketing. These currently include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Facebook and TikTok pixels. They set cookies and may share your interaction with those providers, who may use it in accordance with their own policies. You can decline these through the cookie choice shown on the site, and blocking them does not affect how the site works.

The A8 Advisory website and the Exit Builders partner portal use only what is needed to make them work: session and sign-in storage, and first-party performance measurement that tells us whether pages load properly. No advertising trackers, and nothing is shared with advertising platforms.

If any of this changes, this policy changes first.

This is the part most privacy notices leave out, and it may be the reason you are reading this.

We run a referral programme. Someone may have told us about you and your business because they thought our services might be useful to you. In that case we hold your name, your company, contact details, and a short note about why you were suggested to us.

What we do with it

• We may contact you once to introduce ourselves. We will tell you who suggested we speak to you, if you ask.
• We do not sell it, and we do not pass it to anyone else.
• If you do not want to hear from us, tell us and we will stop.

What the person who referred you had to confirm

Anyone who gives us someone else's details must confirm they have a proper reason to share them and that you have not asked them not to. That is a term of our partner agreement, not a courtesy, and we record what they relied on and when.

How long we keep it

If you do not become a client, we delete your contact details within 12 months. We keep only a minimal record of who referred whom, for up to 24 months, so that we can resolve any later question about that referral. That record does not include your contact details.

Ask us to delete it sooner and we will, unless we are required to keep something by law.

If you are a client of our sister practice, Exit Builders, and you have told us you are open to a transaction, we may publish an anonymized profile of your business so that approved advisory firms and acquirers can see it.

What we publish. Sector, region, revenue band, margin band, years in operation, findings from our preparation work, a readiness score, and any items still open. We do not publish your company name, your name, your address, your customers' names, or anything else that identifies you.

What we never do without asking you first. We do not introduce you to anyone and we do not tell anyone who you are, unless you give us written permission for that specific party. Someone registering interest does not create an introduction. If you say no, nothing happens and they are told nothing further.

Who can see it. Only advisory firms and acquirers we have approved individually, who have signed a non-disclosure agreement with us. There is no public access and no self-service registration.

They are also forbidden from working out who you are. Attempting to identify a listed business, or approaching one, breaches our terms of access and ends that access permanently. If it happens, we will tell you.

How long. Your listing stays up while you want it there. Tell us and we take it down, normally within two working days. We keep a record that a listing existed, and who was approved to see it, for 24 months afterwards, so any later question about who saw what can be answered.

You can change your mind at any time, about the listing, about a particular introduction, or about all of it.

If you become a client and were introduced by one of our affiliate partners, that partner can see your business name, the service you take, and the monthly fee, because their payment is calculated from it.

They cannot see anything about the work we do for you, your financial information, your documents, or anything you tell us. They are bound by confidentiality obligations to us that cover your identity indefinitely.

If this concerns you, tell us and we will discuss it with you.

We publish the names, roles, and professional backgrounds of our team, advisory board, and consulting network.

We do this with your agreement, and we hold a record of it. If you have not given it, tell us and we will take your entry down.

What we publish is your name, your role with us, and a short professional background you have confirmed is accurate. Nothing else. We do not publish personal contact details.

You can ask us at any time to correct your entry, change it, or remove it. Removal is normally done within two working days.

We share personal information only where we need to, and only with:

• Our banks and payment providers, to make and receive payments
• Our accountants and auditors, for our own accounting and compliance
• Our software providers, who host our systems and process data on our instructions
• Our professional advisers, where we need advice
• Authorities and regulators, where the law requires it

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for anyone else's marketing.

Our systems are hosted with the following providers, who process personal data on our instructions and only for the purposes we set:

Where a provider processes data outside the United Arab Emirates, we transfer it only in accordance with the UAE Personal Data Protection Law and the safeguards it requires, and we keep a record of the basis for each transfer.

This table is updated when a provider changes.

You can ask us to:

• Tell you what we hold about you
• Correct anything that is wrong
• Delete what we hold, where we are not required to keep it
• Stop using it for a particular purpose
• Give you a copy in a portable form

Email the contact address at the top of this policy. We will respond within 30 days. If a request is complex we will tell you inside that period and explain how long we need.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the UAE Data Office.

We protect personal information with access controls, encryption in transit, and restricted permissions so that people only see what they need to.

Bank details receive additional protection. Any change is confirmed by phone on a number we already hold, the previous contact is notified, and new details are held for three working days before any payment.

If personal information is lost or accessed without authorisation, we will act promptly and tell those affected, and any authority we are required to tell, without undue delay. Where a breach is likely to harm you, we will tell you and the UAE Data Office without undue delay, and in any event within the period the law requires.

If our business, or part of it, is sold or transferred, personal information may transfer with it. The buyer will be bound to use it as this policy describes, and we will tell you if it happens.

We will update this policy when what we do changes. The version number and date at the top tell you which version you are reading, and we keep previous versions available on request.

A8 Innovation Consultancies Co. L.L.C

Commercial licence 1442344, P.O. Box 76548, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Privacy queries: privacy@a8advisory.com

Postal address: P.O. Box 76548, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Version 1.3. This policy covers exitbuilders.com, a8advisory.com, the Exit Builders partner portal, and our services generally.