SPEAKERS

Mr. Abdulrahman bin Mansour, is the Chief Executive officer (Acting) of Small and Medium Enterprises Bank (SAME Bank), also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Financing Guarantee Program “Kafalah”, Member of the Board of Directors of Saudi Venture Capital Company SVC, Member of the Executive Committee Supervising the National Initiative “Nusaned-SABIC”.

Abdulrahman has extensive experience in the local market within sectors of investment, financing, and financial management during a career spanning more than 21 years.

An expert in developing financial strategies, investment, and project finance, he has worked for many leading institutional investors, led local and international financing operations for major projects and in close association with various board members and subcommittees in respect of investments, funding, internal audit, compliance, governance and finance where he is Certified Management Accountant (CMA).

During his time at the Public Investment Fund (PIF), he managed finance and investments as CFO Acting for Qiddiya, he also held roles as CFO and CCSO at the Saudi Arabian Industrial Investment Company (Dussur). As an expert in his field, he successfully led financial operations across international joint ventures within the American Alcoa & Ma’aden, and Saudi Aramco Marine Offshore Projects.

Abdulrahman Holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Manchester (UK) and Executive Finance Education form both INSEAD (France) and London Business School (UK).

Barry Kamar draws on his background as a federal prosecutor and investment banker to represent global companies in government investigations and complex commercial litigation. He focuses his practice on representing companies, boards and individuals on a wide range of criminal, regulatory and civil matters, including matters involving the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other domestic and international regulatory agencies, as well as on civil matters involving high stakes business disputes.

A skilled trial lawyer, Barry is often called upon for his courtroom advocacy and business-minded approach. He served for over a decade at DOJ and the SEC where he held various senior positions including Chief of the Public Protection Unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey and Senior Counsel at the SEC’s New York office. In these roles, Barry oversaw significant public investigations and prosecutions involving financial fraud and federal securities law violations, spending much of his time conducting jury trials in federal court.

Prior to his government service, Barry was a litigator at Paul Weiss in New York, where he successfully defended financial services, pharmaceutical and media clients in multi-million dollar securities, antitrust and FCPA matters, as well as in commercial disputes involving cutting-edge legal issues.

Barry also is a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley & Co. and former economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he advised energy, construction and technology clients on a variety of strategic corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, corporate financing and transfer pricing.

A native Arabic speaker, Barry lived for more than 17 years in the Middle East, including Cairo, Egypt, Muscat, Oman and Abu Dhabi, UAE. Barry also lived for several years in Mexico City, Mexico, and is proficient in Spanish.

Mr.Bhadresh Pathak is the Chief Executive of L&T-Sufin, a B2B E-Commerce Market Place Platform for Industrial and Construction goods promoted by Indian Engineering Conglomerate Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T).

Mr.Pathak has joined L&T in 2020 and set up the L&T-Sufin Platform from scratch as one of the modern technology led businesses of L&T. The Platform has over 50 Product Categories with over 500 thousand SKUs of industrial products and deals with about 50,000 business entities that are predominantly MSMEs (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises)

Mr.Pathak has been a career Banker for about 27 years. Before joining L&T, he has performed various roles like Business Head, Credit Head and Product Head with India’s leading Banks namely Axis Bank, Yes Bank and IDBI Bank. His primary exposure is into MSME Business, Supply Chain Finance and Credit Risk domains

Mr.Pathak has an outstanding record of establishing some of the most profitable lending businesses for the organizations that he worked for. He is a qualified Electrical Engineer, MBA (Management Graduate) and a Law Graduate from India.

Charith Mendis leads worldwide banking industry efforts for Amazon Web Services (AWS). In this role, he works with leading banking and lending organizations globally to transform their existing businesses and bring innovative solutions to the market by leveraging cloud and AI/ML capabilities. Charith has 20 years of experience developing solutions for financial services organizations across Asia, EMEA, and North America. Prior to AWS, Charith worked at Accenture, Deloitte, and KPMG, and delivering multiple digital transformation programs across the front, middle, and back offices globally. Charith and his team regularly publish thought leadership that is aimed at helping the industry transform, such as (Banking on the Cloud, and AI/ML in Banking).

Dean Z. Pamphilis, the managing partner of Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP’s Houston office, focuses on complex commercial and civil litigation, including defamation litigation, real estate litigation, insurance recovery, antitrust litigation, trademark litigation, anti-cybersquatting, securities litigation, premises and product liability, trade secret, covenant not to compete and appeals. Dean has represented corporations and individuals in the financial services, oil and gas, chemical, consumer product, construction, commercial real estate, securities, e-business, insurance, magazine and pharmaceutical industries. Dean has tried cases involving construction disputes, insurance recovery, trade secrets, securities, broker-dealer firms, and breach of contract in federal court, state court and before the American Arbitration Association, National Association of Securities Dealers and New York Stock Exchange. He has also successfully obtained numerous injunctions in the securities and oil and gas industry.

Francesco leads the Financial Services Middle East Consulting practice, where he helps clients navigate complex challenges and opportunities in the region – mostly on strategy, digital banking and AI. He has more than 20 years of management and entrepreneurship experience across 15 countries, across Italy, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle East.

Nabil A. Issa is a partner in the Corporate, Finance and Investments Group of King & Spalding, working from Riyadh and the UAE offices. Mr. Issa's experience includes work in the areas of funds, joint ventures, foreign investment, private equity, Shari’ah-compliant structuring, regulatory, technology, venture capital, restructurings and real estate industry transactions. He is particularly known for his development of innovative funds and investment structures for real estate and private equity investments in Saudi Arabia.

Nabil is regularly cited by independent legal directories and client-based surveys. Chambers Global 2023 highly ranks Nabil for his corporate and investment funds work (Band 1) in the Middle East and recognizes him as an expert in Saudi corporate (Band 1) and capital market matters. Chambers Global, identifies Nabil as a “renowned M&A and investment funds practitioner who splits his time between Dubai and the firm's associated office in Riyadh”. Clients describe him as an "excellent business lawyer" and commend him for "his knowledge and understanding of the business environment in Dubai and Saudi", mentioning that this "makes him one of the most valuable mentors for business managers in the region".

Moreover, Nabil is listed as a “Leading Individual” for his corporate work in Saudi Arabia by Legal500 EMEA 2023. He was again recognized in 2023 by Asian Legal Business in its MENA Super 50 list for outstanding client service.

Nabil received his B.A. from UC San Diego and both his J.D. and a graduate certification in Middle East and Islamic Law from the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation, Nabil was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to UAE University. Nabil is proficient in Arabic as well as being fluent in English.

Nandan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Group, working closely with the Chairman and Board members to set strategic expansion goals for the organisation and lead the Executive Management Team in the accomplishment of these objectives.

He also serves as Chairman/Director of Network International subsidiary companies for the Middle East and Africa.

Nandan holds a strong background in payments, consumer finance and corporate banking with a deep understanding of the Middle East and Africa as well as experience in India, Czech Republic, Israel, Russia and UK markets.

His more than 30-year track record of successfully building and growing businesses to profitable scale and dominant market share spans several markets globally, at leading financial institutions including American Express, Citigroup, United Bank for Africa (UBA) and most recently at Mastercard. During his 11-year career at Mastercard, Nandan was Strategy Head for International Markets, President for the Japanese business and Head of Global Consumer Credit and Loyalty Solutions. Prior to that, Nandan was Head of UBA - International Corporate and Investment Banking. Before UBA, Nandan built and led consumer banking businesses for two decades with Citigroup in India, Czech Republic, Israel, Russia and the UK. Nandan began his career at American Express Cards.

Saravanan Nattanmai is the Partner for Financial Services and Fintech Sector at Premji Invest. PI is an investment office sponsored by Mr. Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited.

A seasoned private equity professional with over 18 years of experience in private equity across sectors / stages and Corporate Strategy and Planning, Saravanan has held leadership positions and been on the boards of regulated companies with best-in-class corporate governance in India.

Currently, he leads investments in the financial services and fintech sector (traditional and new age) at PI across key areas of focus including insurance, lending, wealth management, payments, and banking infra. Previously, he worked with AION Capital (JV between Apollo Global Management and ICICI Bank) and Nereus Capital and had led investments in diverse sectors including financial services, consumer/retail, technology, and industrials. Saravanan began his career at GE in 2005. During his tenure at GE, he was credited for acting as catalyst for ideating and implementing innovative technologies with high degree of potential for disruption.

Saravanan has done his Masters in Technology from IIT Bombay and PGM from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He has several technology patents to his credit and is an avid follower of the theory of inventive problem solving and disruptive technology trends.

Sharif El-Badawi is the Chief Executive Officer of the newly established Dubai Future District Fund, an evergreen venture fund of funds and direct investment vehicle of the emirate of Dubai. The fund is anchored by Dubai Future Foundation and the Dubai International Financial Centre to invest in the Future of Finance and Future Economies with the aim of bolstering economic development in Dubai, the UAE and the broader region.

Previously, he co-founded and managed Plus Venture Capital (+VC), a leading seed stage investment firm in the Middle East and North Africa region, investing across sectors from seed to growth within the region and diaspora. Before that he was a founding managing partner of the first US-based venture capital firm with a dedicated fund for the MENA region and was the most active venture capital investor in MENA during its investment period from 2017-2020. In his role, he managed the 500 Startups MENA fund, 500 Falcons, which invested in over 180 startups across 15 countries.

In addition, Sharif serves on the board of San Francisco Bay Area based non-profit TechWadi where he was the chairman of the board from 2015-2019 helping build meaningful bridges between MENA startups and Silicon Valley. He also serves on several advisory boards for startups, organizations and governments in the MENA region and Silicon Valley.

Prior to his career in investing, Sharif was the Partner Lead to VCs and Startups at Google where he worked with top tier VCs and their most promising startups on strategies that bring all of Google to their businesses. Before joining the Global Partnerships team, he spent 5 years leading performance advertising strategy and solutions for Google's largest customers in North America covering Mobile, Search and Display ads.

He joined Google through the $750m acquisition of AdMob, the world’s leading mobile advertising network. Before AdMob, Sharif was a technologist and serial entrepreneur having founded or co-founded several companies in the Consumer Internet and B2B space over a twelve year period starting in 1998.

Sharif earned his Master of Business Administration from University of California, Irvine Merage School of Business and his Bachelor’s of Science in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2018, he relocated from his home state of California to Dubai with his wife and three children.

Sinan has 22 years of experience working in executive roles across various industries, focusing on several areas of banking, financial services & logistics i.e. trade & structured finance solutions, supply chain finance, new ventures and business development.

Sinan joined DP World in April 2021, set up DP World Trade Finance where he continues to serve as Senior Executive Officer and Board Director, and globally leads DP World’s Trade Finance arm.

In March 2017, he set up Maersk Trade Finance business in UAE, obtained regulatory license, rapidly grew business, and served as Senior Executive Officer, Board Director and Regional Trade Finance Head for Indian Subcontinent, Middle East & Africa region until 2021.

Previously, Sinan was Regional Director of UK Export Finance (a British Government Department and the official Export Credit Agency of the UK) for Europe, MENA and Central Asia region, established UKEF’s overseas presence and originated trade & project finance deals.

Prior to UKEF, he headed Trade Finance/Financial Services unit of CNH Industrial for Africa-Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.

Before CNH, Sinan held the position as Auditor at VakifBank and covered many areas of banking & financial services.

Sinan holds MBA degree from Philadelphia University and Master’s Degree in Banking & Entrepreneurship from the joint program of Venice & Udine Universities in Italy. Sinan speaks English, Italian, Turkish, French, and German and lived & worked in Turkey, USA, Italy, Singapore, Thailand and UAE.