Tarek El Diwany

Tarek is the senior director at Kreatoc Zest Ltd. He has a background in derivatives markets and project finance, and has worked as a product developer, consultant and researcher for institutional and private clients in the Middle East, Europe and South-east Asia. Tarek has assisted in the design of several private investment funds and was an expert adviser on the long-running AHAB vs. SICL banking and finance litigation. He is the author of The Problem With Interest and numerous essays on the topic of money and banking.

Badrul Hasan

Badr al-Hasan is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and was called to the English bar in 2001. He was formerly an Associate in the award winning banking and finance team at the international law firm Simmons & Simmons based in Dubai. He is a Certified Shariah Advisor and Auditor with the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) in Bahrain. Badr has some 20 years of experience in English law and Islamic finance and specialises in structuring and drafting financial products in both English and Arabic. He is also a professional Arabic/English technical translator for financial sector applications.

Shaharuddin Zainuddin

Shaharuddin has over 20 years of international experience covering markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa working in investment banking, Islamic finance and private equity. Between 2005 and 2012, he was Regional Head of Compliance for Middle East and Africa for Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank. Between 2001 and 2004, he worked for the global Islamic banking and finance standards setting body AAOIFI as Director of Operations. Shahar is the author of AAOIFI’s Financial Accounting Standards on Segment Reporting (FAS 22) and Deferred Payment Sale (FAS 20). He led AAOIFI’s CIPA qualification programme and taught the post-graduate module in Islamic banking at the Royal University for Women in Bahrain. Shahar is a graduate in Accounting from the University of East Anglia in the UK and a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the UK.

Associates

Our associates have worked with us in multiple client assignments over more than two decades. Together, they provide us with in-depth experience of academic, regulatory, commercial and legal issues in the world of finance and investment. Based in the UK, the USA, GCC and south-east Asia, all are professionally qualified in their fields and have a thorough grasp of local business culture.