Arif Naqvi, 51, is Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Abraaj Capital. The Abraaj Capital group is a leading private equity manager investing in the rapidly growing economies of the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Asia. Since inception in 2002, the Abraaj Capital group has raised US$ 7 billion and distributed around US$ 3 billion to investors. The group has been associated with some of the region’s most notable transactions and has won numerous awards including ‘Middle East Private Equity Firm of the Year’ from London-based Private Equity International (PEI) six years in a row since 2005.
Mr. Naqvi is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, where he was the Emirates Chapter Chairman from 2002 to 2003. He is a member of numerous think-tanks and policy groups such as the WEF Arab Business Council and serves on a number of boards such as the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, IMD Foundation Board, Endeavor Global and the Advisory Board of the Columbia University Middle East Research Center. Mr. Naqvi is the Chair of the Middle East Center’s Advisory Board at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the Chairman of the British Asian Trust Advisory Committee – Pakistan. In 2008, Mr. Naqvi founded the AMAN Foundation and is currently the Chairman of its Board of Trustees.
Mr. Naqvi is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and previously worked with Arthur Andersen & Co., American Express Bank, Saudi Arabia’s Olayan Group and the Cupola Group, which he founded in 1994. Mr. Naqvi is married with two children.
Mustafa Abdel-Wadood is a member of the Board of Directors and Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of Abraaj Capital. In his capacity as CEO of Abraaj Capital Ltd., he oversees the company’s investment activities. Mr. Abdel-Wadood has 20 years of experience in the field of investment management, corporate finance and business development throughout the Middle East region and beyond. Prior to Abraaj Capital, Mr. Abdel-Wadood was at the regional investment bank EFG-Hermes with his last position there as CEO in the United Arab Emirates, overseeing the bank’s expansion in the lower Gulf.
Mr. Abdel-Wadood was also Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sigma Capital, managing the company’s investment banking and corporate finance activities. Prior to that, Mr. Abdel-Wadood spent eight years at Egypt’s Orascom Group where he was last Director of Development and Investments, and a Board Member of Orascom Telecom. At Orascom he was responsible for corporate investments and acquisitions. Mr. Abdel-Wadood has served on the boards of several publicly listed and private companies. In 2002, the World Economic Forum selected him as one of the 100 ‘Global Leaders for Tomorrow’ and ‘Young Global Leader in 2007’. He is Co-Founder and member of the Dubai-based ‘Young Arab Leaders’ and a member of the ‘Young Presidents’ Organization’.
Mr. Abdel-Wadood is married with two children, and holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from the American University in Cairo and an MBA from Georgetown University.
Waqar Siddique is Senior Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Abraaj Capital. In this role, Mr. Siddique has overall responsibility for critical operational functions of the firm, including Finance, Risk, Compliance, Governance and Funds Administration. Mr. Siddique serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Abraaj Capital Holdings Limited and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.
In the course of his career, Mr. Siddique has specialized in strategic business development, operations and risk management within leading private sector firms in the Middle East and South Asia. At Abraaj Capital, Mr. Siddique also heads a team of senior professionals focused on managing and creating value in Abraaj’s partner companies spread across 12 countries in the MENASA region. He represents Abraaj on the boards of several companies, including as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Jordan Aircraft Maintenance Limited (JorAMCo), Stanford Marine Group (SMG) and Byco Petroleum Pakistan Limited (BPPL).
In addition, Mr. Siddique serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, the oldest business school outside North America. He is also a member of IMD Executive Education Advisory Council. Mr. Siddique also serves as a trustee of the AMAN Foundation, a private, not-for-profit foundation, established by our Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer, Arif Naqvi.
Before joining Abraaj, Mr. Siddique was the Chief Executive Officer of the Cupola Group. In 1999, he was one of a team of senior directors who concluded a landmark private equity deal through Cupola’s acquisition of Inchcape Plc’s interests in the Middle East.
Prior to joining Cupola, Mr. Siddique held a senior executive position at Mawarid Holding Company, a leading business conglomerate based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Siddique spent a number of years with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Pakistan as a Senior Consultant. He started his career in 1982 after earning his MBA degree with a specialization in Finance.
Mr. Siddique is married with two children
He holds a BSc in Industrial Management and Business Administration from the American University in Cairo and an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management in the UK.
Prior to this role, Mr. Hamid was Senior Vice President Corporate Strategy and Development at PepsiCo, Inc., reporting to the CEO. He was on the Firm's Executive Management Committee and a member of the Board of Pepsi Americas (NYSE:PAS), one of their largest anchor bottlers. While at PepsiCo, he was also CFO of PepsiCo Americas Foods, a US$ 20 billion sector of the company. In these roles he was responsible for developing and implementing innovative corporate and business unit strategies, new ventures and alliances and for all M&A activities in conjunction with the divisions and sectors.
Mr. Hamid holds dual undergraduate degrees from the California Institute of Technology (with honors) and Occidental College (cum laude) and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Husseini most recently served at Deutsche Bank AG as Managing Director and Chief Country Officer for the UAE and Qatar and Senior Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank AG (DIFC) and General Manager of Deutsche Bank, Qatar Branch. In this role, Mr. Husseini led the development and execution of Deutsche Bank’s Sovereign Wealth Funds strategy, resulting in significant debt capital market transactions and landmark equity acquisitions by Government controlled entities.
Prior to joining Deutsche Bank AG, Mr. Husseini held leadership positions at Daimler AG, the latest of which was as Managing Director of Daimler AG’s Structured Finance arm in Berlin, and served on its Executive Committee. During an eleven year tenure with Daimler AG, Mr. Husseini established Regional Centers for the Structured Finance division and enabled the firm’s market entry into Russia and the CIS, introducing Islamic structures backed by UAE-based banks in that region for the first time.
Mr. Husseini holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Fairfield University in Connecticut, USA and completed his executive education at IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Mr. Lodhi also played a lead role in the development and launch of new funds including the Infrastructure and Growth Capital Fund, and Abraaj Buyout Fund IV and between 2009-2010 had responsibility for Abraaj’s Investor Coverage and placement business. In January 2011, Mr. Lodhi assumed his current role as CEO of Abraaj Capital Asia (Pte) Ltd., where being Singapore based, he is responsible for the firm’s investment activities across South East Asia and India as well as Abraaj’s investor coverage activities across Asia-Pacific. Mr. Lodhi is a member of Abraaj’s Executive Management and Investment Committees.
Before joining Abraaj, Mr. Lodhi was Head of Islamic Finance for Citigroup in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on primary capital-market fund raising, and the structuring and distribution of alternative investments. Prior to that he spent several years with UBS in London and Hong Kong, focusing on advisory and principal opportunities in various infrastructure sectors in Europe and Asia, including telecoms, power, and downstream oil and gas.
Mr. Radwan most recently served as CEO of EFG-Hermes in Saudi Arabia and as a member of the Executive Committee of EFG-Hermes Holdings, the largest investment bank in the Middle East.
Tom Speechley is a Senior Partner of Abraaj Capital and the Chief Executive Officer of Riyada Enterprise Development (RED), Abraaj’s small and medium enterprise (SME) investment platform. He joined Abraaj Capital in 2006 and is a member of the Abraaj Holdings Board of Directors, as well as the group’s Executive and Investment Committees.
Mr. Speechley is responsible for the firm’s SME investment program including the RED and Kantara Funds totaling some US$ 650 million of capital through which he has overseen several investments in various sectors and countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Mr. Speechley has more than 15 years experience in the private equity industry in Europe, the US and the MENA region. He was responsible for creating and launching 'wamda.com', Abraaj Capital’s on-line portal dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs across the MENA region and speaks and writes frequently on the topic of entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining Abraaj, Mr. Rajagopalan spent over 15 years with multinational and regional operating groups such as Unilever, Inchcape, Cupola and Dubai Holding in various roles responsible for financial management, taxation, project finance, governance and corporate planning.
Mr. Rajagopalan is a graduate of Calcutta University with an Honors degree in Commerce and is an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Before Abraaj, Mr. Ramchandani was an Investment Banking Associate at Lehman Brothers in New York where he focused on M&A, and financing transactions in the communications and media sector. He was also actively involved in the training and recruitment programmes for analysts and associates.
Mr. Ramchandani holds a Bachelors of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin in the US. He has received the Harold Kubly Award for outstanding academic breadth and achievement, the Erwin Gaumnitz scholarship for academic excellence, and the University Bookstore Grant for the best undergraduate research paper from the School of Business and the School of Economics. Mr. Ramchandani is married with two children.
Prior to joining Abraaj Capital in 2006, Mr. Semary spent five years at EFG-Hermes where his most recent position was as Head of Corporate Business Development. In this role, Mr. Semary was responsible for regional corporate development and corporate finance coverage across the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr. Semary is fluent in French and Arabic
Mr. Shahin currently serves on the Board of Directors of a number of portfolio companies of Abraaj including Joramco, Art Marine, and MSF. Prior to joining Abraaj in 2002, Mr. Shahin worked at Communications Development Corporation (CDC), the Middle Eastern Affiliation of CEA (a US based investment bank), where his main duties included performing due diligence and financial analysis on investment opportunities and deals in the region for CDC and its major clients, which included the largest technology fund in the MENA region. Between 1998 and 2000, he worked at Atlas Investment Group, currently the investment banking arm of the Arab Bank, where he was involved in a number of regional private placements and M&A transactions.
Mr. Shahin holds a Bachelors of Commerce from Concordia University, Canada.
