Events

Harith is based in Dubai and has been with the bank since August 2010, and before that he worked for 5 years with SAMBA Financial Group in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Harith joined the bank initially as part of the SCB CAPITAL Saudi Arabia office, but shortly after moved to Dubai to be part of the MENA Trading team. Harith manages risk on behalf of the bank in the MENAP rates & FX space catering to sales and interbank clients, in addition to prompting the bank and its capabilities externally in collaboration with sales and predominately focusing on the Saudi business. Harith holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM). Harith Speaks Arabic and English fluently.

Rana Beydoun is the Head of Financial Institutions at the Commercial Bank of Dubai, managing both Banks and Non-Bank Financial Institutions. Prior to that, she lead a similar position at BLOM Bank where she was responsible for relationships and business development activities with banks/ financial institutions globally. Her career spans 20 years in banking. She has been engaged with BAFT during the past 8 years, and currently is the co-chair of the BAFT MENA Council.

Chavan Bhogaita currently works as Managing Director & Head of Market Insights and Strategy at First Abu Dhabi Bank. Earlier, he worked with the Alternative Investments and Fixed Income teams within the bank’s Global Markets Division. He joined NBAD in 2009, specialising in GCC credit markets (bonds and sukuk) across all sectors. He has over 25 years of professional experience in banking and finance, of which 20 years have been in credit research and analysis. His previous roles include Head of Middle East Credit Research at HSBC (Dubai), Head of Credit Research at Commerzbank (London), and senior credit analyst at Bear Stearns (London), and 6 years prior to his time in financial markets were spent in the areas of corporate recovery & insolvency, audit, and corporate finance in the UK.

Natasha Condon is the Global Head of Core Trade within Wholesale Payments at JPMorgan Chase. She has 15+ years of experience across trade finance and working capital solutions for both corporate and financial institutions. She has extensive experience with providing strategic working capital advisory, risk mitigation, sales growth, and digital efficiencies for the top multinationals in the world. Natasha comes to the firm from Citi, where she was the Global Trade Sales Head. While there, she led five regional teams around the world and provided personal leadership on large strategic deals.

Fatma Nilgün Emrem has a career history across multi disciplines and sectors from Banking, Textiles and Construction, which provided a natural appreciation of different sectors and organizational structures and managing skills to transfer to the consulting field. Her experience in markets extend from Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, United Kingdom, Baltic Region, Angola and Ethiopia. In 2010, established, Tamimi Consulting with Tarik Tamimi to extend her knowledge and experience to those investors looking for opportunities in the GCC region. Since its inception, Tamimi Consulting has successfully incorporated more than 600 companies in UAE and continue to be the leading company among Turkish Investors especially. Tamimi Consulting has been awarded 6 years in a row by DMCC Authority as the Top Performing Consulting Company in the UAE and awarded as the best International Service Provider in 2020. She is a committee member of Africa- Middle East-Gulf Committee in the World, Turkish Business Councils (DTIK) under Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) of Turkey.

Khatija Haque joined Emirates NBD in 2011 as one of the founding members of the research team, helping to build the bank’s macroeconomic coverage on the GCC and wider MENA region over the last decade. She was appointed chief economist and head of research in 2020. Khatija has more than 20 years’ experience as an emerging markets economist spanning three continents. Before moving to Dubai in 2008, Khatija was a vice president at Deutsche Bank covering several countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She is a frequent guest on local radio and television and is often quoted in both local and international press.

Faisal Hussain is responsible for the Correspondent Banking business for Standard Chartered for the Africa & Middle East region based in Dubai. Faisal heads a regional team covering over 25 countries. Faisal is a member of the MENA BAFT Council and has been closely involved in rolling out Standard Chartered’s Correspondent Banking Academy initiative in the region aimed at “de-risking through education”. Faisal has been involved in several thought leadership and product innovation initiatives with the objective of enhancing business collaboration for Standard Chartered with the region’s financial institutions. Faisal joined Standard Chartered in 2007 from Citibank. Faisal holds an MBA degree and is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Motasim Iqbal is the Managing Director & Head of Transaction Banking, UAE for Standard Chartered Bank since January 2017. In this role he is responsible for the Bank’s Cash Management, Trade Finance and Securities Services Business for the UAE. Before taking on his current role Motasim was the Regional Head for Transaction Banking in MENA and prior to that during 2012-15 he was the Head of Transaction Banking for the Bank in Singapore. During his stint in Singapore he worked very closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on positioning Singapore as a premier Renminbi clearing centre outside China.v Motasim joined the Wholesale Banking business at Standard Chartered in October 1997 and was appointed the Head of Transaction Banking for Pakistan in 2003. In 2006, he moved to Dubai to head the Financial Institutions segment within Transaction Banking across MENA & Pakistan. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Motasim began his career as an Assistant Manager in the Treasury Division of Shell Pakistan Limited.

Ehsan Khoman joined MUFG in 2016 and is the Head of Emerging Markets Research (EMEA), based in DIFC Branch – Dubai, UAE. Ehsan manages and handles MUFG’s emerging markets and commodity outlooks, producing regular research and strategic publications. Ehsan is known for applying global perspectives to provide easy-to-grasp, research-backed investment outlooks to institutional, corporate and retail clients, policymakers as well as across the bank. He also regularly delivers the bank’s emerging markets and commodity views to external audiences through a multitude of media platforms. Ehsan has over fifteen years’ experience in the banking industry and his last position prior to joining MUFG was with Qatar National Bank (QNB) in a similar capacity within the Research and Strategy fields. Prior to this, Ehsan worked in London for Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking (SGCIB) within the Research and Strategy Division.

David Leslie is the General Manager of the Global Trade and Receivables Finance business at Saudi British Bank (SABB), KSA’s largest Trade bank. The Trade and Receivables finance area is that which provides financing and risk mitigation solutions to meet clients' international and domestic trade requirements including Factoring. Prior to joining SABB, David has worked for 16 years around the wider HSBC Group in roles connected to International Trade in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Originally from Canada, David holds MBAs from INSEAD and Tsinghua Universities.

Jossan Maalouf serves as Regional Managing Director, Head of Middle East and Africa (MEA) region at Fiserv. In this role, Jossan drives the strategy, planning and execution of Fiserv MEA business, where the company serves clients across 15 countries throughout the region. Fiserv is the world’s leading entity in Financial Technology with 46,000 employees globally and $16.23 billion of revenues in 2021. We serve thousands of banks, financial Institutions and millions of merchants worldwide with our next-generation commerce-enabling solutions. Jossan joined Fiserv in March 2020 from JPMorgan, where he was based in Beirut for 7 years and served as General Manager for the Levant region and Head of Treasury Services/Transactional Banking for Levant, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Again with JPMorgan, Jossan was previously based in Bahrain for 4 years, where he was Head of Global Trade for the Levant region, Bahrain and Algeria.

N L N Swaroop is Director of Sustainable Trade Finance and Alternate Distribution at HSBC. Swaroop has over 16 years of rich experience across banking and insurance in varied roles ranging from risk underwriting, trade financing, business development, general management and coverage banking in across India and the UK. Swaroop is an active industry voice at ICC, BAFT and ITFA in developing trade as an investible asset class by attracting greater institutional capital and embedding ESG in trade finance.

Francois Oberholzer is a seasoned airline finance professional and Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years of aviation experience. He started his airline career with a low-cost airline in South Africa, Sun Air, which later merged with South African Airways. Prior to joining Etihad Airways in 2006 as Vice President Financial Planning and Analysis, he was Chief Financial Officer of South African Express Airways as well as a non-executive member on a number of their subsidiary companies’ boards of directors. Francois has worked at various international airlines, focusing on financing structures and Risk Management. Francois served as a member of the supervisory board of Air Serbia where he chaired the Audit Committee. He studied accounting sciences at the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa before qualifying in 1996 as a South African chartered accounted and completed his articles at Coopers & Lybrand / PwC.

Eren Omacan is a senior FIG coverage banker of 20 years experience with multiple financial institutions. Eren worked at Yapi Kredi, Turkey as regional head of MENA & Eastern Europe. From 2011 till 2014 he headed Yapi Kredi’s correspondent banking unit where he has oversight of the bank’s relationships with global financial institutions on trade, cash, borrowings and syndications. He joined Wells Fargo Bank NA as a senior coverage banker working both in the bank’s Turkey and Dubai offices covering financial institutions in Turkey and Qatar. Currently Eren is with Habib Bank AG Zurich as SVP & Regional Cluster Head of South Asia, Africa and Turkey working on the banks international strategy and helping on expansion plan.

Semih Ozkan is the head of structured & trade finance sales at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. In his role, he is responsible for marketing structured export finance and structured commodity finance solutions as well as trade & supply chain finance to corporate, public sector and financial institutions in the Middle East. Semih has more than 17 years of experience in treasury and trade solutions for corporate, public sector and financial institutions in the Europe, Middle East and Africa. Most recently Semih was corporate trade finance sales director at Deutsche Bank in the Middle East & Africa. At the same time, Semih also worked as a short-term consultant at the IFC Mongolia Mission to support developing supply chain finance practices in the market. Prior to that, Semih was at Standard Chartered Bank for FI trade finance and cash management sales.

Anirudha Panse (Ani) is the MD & Head of GTB Trade Finance Product Innovation (TPI) at First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). The TPI team is responsible for launching innovative, and digitized Trade products and solutions globally for FAB across the traditional trade products and open account solutions. Ani’s maintains oversight on the team responsible for structuring and commercializing the complex trade solutions in the trade and commodity finance domain. Risk Management forms a critical part of Ani’s domain wherein the Trade Risk Distribution as well as the Trade Business Risk functions form part of Ani’s responsibilities. During this career, Ani has successfully launched several innovating and complex solutions in the Supply Chain Finance (SCF) / Receivables Finance / Inventory Financing space and commercialized them into multi-million $ businesses. Ani was part of the founding team that launched industry wide initiatives like UAE Trade Connect, a blockchain based AI/ML driven solution for reducing frauds in Trade, and in the past has represented his bank in national FATF assessments with Central Banks and also through Steering Groups related to SCF with No 10 Downing Street, and the NHS.

Azam has extensive cross-industry experience of more than two decades as head and senior advisor on supply-chain management having worked with world-renowned agricultural giants like Olam. He has delivered and advised several trade supply-chain infrastructure development projects with government agencies and free-zone & port development authorities like JAFZ which is part of DP World. He has advised and worked in supply-chain financing with multilateral and commercial banks which include Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, and Credit Europe Bank. His work in technology and strategic consulting has included mentoring small businesses with Stanford University's Stanford Institute of Innovation in Developing Economies and as an expert advisor to top-tier consulting firms. He has a doctorate from the prestigious SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy), and is now involved in expanding his fintech, with ESG deeply embedded in its business model, to help small businesses access finance for their cross-border trade in food and agriculture products.

Laura Vecvagare is Head of Portfolio at IFC overseeing investments in financial institutions in Africa. She has 20 years’ investment experience across broad spectrum of industries, including banking, insurance, power, transport, manufacturing and agribusiness. Mrs. Vecvagare has worked on investments in Europe, Africa and during the last six years the Middle East being based in Dubai, UAE. Mrs. Vecvagare started her carrier in consulting and audit business in Latvia, after which she joined World Bank and worked on housing finance reforms across a number of countries in Europe, Middle East and South Asia. She joined IFC in 2006. Mrs. Vecvagare holds Master’s of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University (USA) and a Bachelor of International Economics from the University of Latvia.

James has been at NatWest for seven years, having originally joined as Global Head of Subsidiary Banking. James previously spent 18 years at J.P. Morgan, initially through the Global Management Training Programme in New York, followed by two years in Paris covering French Corporate clients. He then returned to London and assumed a variety of sales leadership roles including running UK Corporate, US and Asia Multinational Coverage teams. James's last role at J.P. Morgan was as Corporate Sales Executive, Northern Europe. James has a B.A. Hons degree in French from University College, London and Montpellier University.