Advisory Council Member

Amira is CEO of BulkWhiz, the first bulk grocery e-commerce platform in the Middle East, powered by home grown artificial intelligence. She has extensive strategy, operations and marketing experience across the technology, media, consumer products and services sectors.

She was most recently the regional Head of Brand for Facebook Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan, working closely with leading global and regional companies as well as the startup and VC ecosystem. She has advised Fortune 500 companies as a senior consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, and led teams at PepsiCo, Yahoo, Dun & Bradstreet, and Leo Burnett Advertising, while working in the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Board Member

Andrew serves as the Senior Independent Director of Awad Capital Ltd. In this capacity, he works very closely with management on strategy and selected transactions, and provides corporate governance oversight to the functioning of the Board. Andrew has over twenty five years of experience as an investment banker, with broad geographic experience both in emerging and developed markets. 

Andrew's investment banking career commenced with Merrill Lynch in New York in 1989 as a member of the FIG M&A team working on FIG transactions in the US, Latin America and Europe. 

Relocating full time to Europe in 1992, he became responsible for marketing and executing FIG advisory mandates in Europe as well as equity and advisory mandates in emerging markets. 

Andrew spent time with Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ)/ Credit Suisse and Putnam Lovell before re-joining Merrill Lynch where he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Global Origination, a wide-ranging role at the side of Mr. Andrea Orcel

Following the integration with Bank of America he led the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) corporate and investment banking division.

Andrew also currently holds a number of senior board and advisory positions with European financial institutions:

• Member of the Supervisory Board of Credit Bank of Moscow
• Member of the Board of Directors of Web Financial Group, S.A. 
• Advisor to Civitas Partners Limited.

Throughout his career, Andrew was involved in a large number of Financial Institutions Investment Banking transactions:

• Mergers and Acquisitions transactions for most banks in France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa
• A multitude of Debt and Equity Capital markets transactions for the same institutions
• Acting as a senior advisor to the leadership of a number of these organizations, particularly on internal organization and growth planning matters

Advisory Council Member

Mr. Marwan Abedin is CEO and Founder of Flatrace Investments, providing the strategic vision and leadership for the firm.

He served as Director of Debt Management at the Government of Dubai Department of Finance since 2008 and was responsible for the treasury and debt issues. Mr. Abedin played a key role in investor relations on behalf of Dubai after the Dubai World restructuring and overall development of GCC debt capital markets over the last few years.

Aside from sitting on many blue-chip and governmental boards, he held key roles such as the CEO of an Investment Fund of the Government of Dubai, the Executive Director of DHCA and a member of the board of Directors for Emaar Properties

Associate

Bassel is an associate at Awad Capital where he contributes to the team’s execution efforts. He has 3 years of experience in M&A in the US and the Middle East.

Bassel joined Awad Capital from Tobin & Company, a US-based investment banking boutique, where he was involved in several transactions in the US SME space. Before that he was part of the finance team at MassHousing in Boston

Bassel holds a BSc. in finance from Northeastern in the US.

Chief Executive Officer

Ziad founded Awad Advisory in March 2013, which then renamed as Awad Capital in February 2015. In response to client demand, the firm rapidly grew to offer a diversified range of financial services, operating from the DIFC with a category 4 DFSA licence. Ziad is personally involved in all client engagements with a particular emphasis on connecting the best investment opportunities with the most suitable sources of capital.

From 2007 to 2012, Ziad was a Managing Director with Merrill Lynch in Dubai, then Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he occupied a number of senior positions including Senior Executive Officer for the DIFC branch, Head of Capital markets and Financing and Head of Investment Banking for Industrials, Energy and Power. He executed numerous advisory assignments, including for TAQA, Lamprell, Dubai Holding, Qatari Diar, ACWA Power, Investment Corporation of Dubai; as a well as a number of financing deals.

From 1994 to 2007, Ziad was with Goldman Sachs in Paris (4 years), then London (9 years) then Dubai. He started his career as a Government bond trader then moved to the debt capital markets where he executed close to half a trillion dollar of bond deals including for the World bank, The Federal Republic of Germany, HBOS, The Republic of Italy, The Kingdom of Belgium, Exportfinans. He was also a board member and Executive Director of MTS Associated Markets, an Electronic Trading company.

Ziad holds a masters from ESSEC in France and is an avid sailor.

Advisory Council Member

A 35 year command-level combat veteran of the Canadian Army and former Director Future Security Analysis for the Government of Canada, Mr. Aubin is the CEO & Founder of Strategic Red Team Consulting.

A pioneer of utilizing military-style competitive intelligence, strategy, operational planning, war gaming and red teaming in the commercial world, Mr Aubin has been used extensively in executive leadership consultancy and strategic planning capacity building portfolios at Head of State, Ministerial, Ambassadorial, CEO and Senior Executive levels on five continents.

Fred holds a Masters in Military Technology from the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham, a Baccalaureate of Arts in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Ottawa, and is a graduate of the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College Kingston, the UK's Joint Command and Staff College and the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.