Kris Fade

Kris Fade, whose real name is Kristan Fahd, is Lebanese-Australian and lived in Sydney until he moved to Dubai. He has said that at 25 he had worked in Sydney radio for three years at a good but not the biggest station, and felt his career had hit a brick wall.⁠[1][1][1][1]

Through an introduction from his boss, Ian Grace, chief executive of Virgin Radio International, offered him a choice between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. In 2008 he moved to Dubai to help set up the first Virgin Radio brand in the Middle East; he has said one reason for choosing Dubai was that it is only three to four hours’ flight from Lebanon.⁠[1][1][1][1]

He has recalled that when he arrived he had only about Dh4,000 to Dh5,000 in his bank account and a starting salary of Dh13,900 a month, that his first 14 to 15 months were very hard, at times leaving him unable to pay his utility bill, and that he had originally intended to stay only two years.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

The Kris Fade Show, the breakfast programme named after him, began in 2009 and airs live on Virgin Radio 104.4 FM in Dubai on weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., co-hosted with Priti Malik and Big Rossi, with a delayed broadcast on the KIIS Network in Australia. As of December 2025 the show had more than one million daily listeners.⁠[2][3][2]

Fade has said that for about a decade he has woken at 4:20 every morning; he considers consistency essential to success, noting that many people and businesses do something well only for a short time before losing focus.⁠[2][2]

In 2018 Fade had the idea for a health brand after changing his own diet and finding no snacks on the shelves that were healthy and affordable enough for his children. Fade Fit began with a free health seminar featuring nutritionists, trainers and motivational speakers; its first product was a children’s snack, Fade Fit Kids “Choco Loco,” designed with his daughters in mind. The brand officially launched in the UAE in 2019.⁠[2][2][4][4][2]

He has said he wanted to build something his children could take over if they chose, and that Fade Fit is entirely owned by his family.⁠[2][2]

In 2021 Fade Fit launched gluten-free smoothies and yoghurt tubes in partnership with the dairy company Balade Farms, and planned an organic milk range under the Oganix brand. Fade said sales grew 14% in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic; at the time its products were made in the UAE by the contract manufacturer Notions Group and sold through supermarkets such as Carrefour, Spinneys and LuLu and in StarbucksStarbucksStarbucks is a publicly traded coffee company headquartered in Seattle, founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. Howard Schultz subsequently developed its coffeehouse model and international expansion. It operates company-owned and licensed coffeehouses and sells packaged coffee through partners. Its shares trade on Nasdaq under SBUX.Open the full entry stores in the UAE, and the company had signed a deal to stock Starbucks and other outlets in Saudi Arabia.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][5][5]

Fade appeared in two seasons of the Netflix reality series Dubai Bling. On July 31, 2024, he won Reality Personality of the Year at the National Reality TV Awards in London. He has said he initially turned the show down because he did not know what it involved and worried about the impact on his family, agreeing only after discussing it with them.⁠[2][1][1][1][1]

His advice is not to say no too quickly: take time to think it over, and occasionally say yes to see where it leads.⁠[1]

As of December 2025 Fade Fit’s products included protein bars, protein balls, protein puffs, energy snacks, nuts, children’s snacks and vitamins, totalling about 20 stock-keeping units, sold through retailers such as Carrefour, Spinneys and Waitrose, outlets such as Subway, Starbucks and Costa Coffee, and platforms such as Amazon and Talabat; through the Alshaya Group, which operates Starbucks in the region, the products were in every Starbucks store in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

Fade says he prizes speed and execution, communicates with his team mainly over WhatsApp rather than email, and does not watch his competitors, focusing only on what he needs to do.⁠[2][2][2]

On April 21, 2026, The Venture Room released an episode of street interviews filmed in Marylebone, London, in which Fade was one of the interviewees. He said he hosts one of the largest radio shows in the Middle East on Virgin Radio and owns the snack company Fade Fit; he argued that the word “entrepreneur” is used far too easily, and said in the episode that he had already turned down a $50 million buyout.⁠[6][6][6][6]

In June 2026 there was speculation that he might return to Australia to replace Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O at Australian Radio Network (ARN). On June 22 Fade announced that although he had been offered his “dream job” in Sydney a month earlier, he had decided to decline it and stay in Dubai. He wrote that his family, friends, businesses and team were all there, and that “sometimes life isn’t about chasing the dream you had in your twenties. Sometimes it’s about recognizing the life you’ve built in your forties.”⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

“Be consistent, be persistent, and be realistic as well.” Asked for the most important lesson in building his business, Fade said many ideas will never go anywhere, and you have to know when to say “it’s not the moment to do this” (at 01:42 in the video).⁠[6][6][6]

“However much money you think it will take to start this business, it takes a lot longer, and a lot more money.” He urged founders to prepare for more time and capital than they expect (at 01:54 in the video).⁠[6][6]

“Social media brings so much hate to the world where we don’t need it, so just love a lot more; it becomes a lot easier.” These were his closing words to viewers (at 02:04 in the video).⁠[6]

The Kris Fade Show: Official website: https://www.virginradiodubai.com/onair/krisfadeshow/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

Fade Fit: Official website: https://fadefit.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]