Lecturers Bio
Fazl Syed
Fazl Syed is an Ivy League educated international corporate and finance lawyer and Islamic finance specialist with cutting-edge training and varied multi-jurisdictional experience of over two decades working on conventional and Islamic business and financial transactions in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America involving diverse practice areas such as corporate finance, structured finance, project development and finance, leasing and asset based finance, private equity, investment funds, corporate advisory, real estate and several areas of banking and finance.
Fazl studied at Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School in New York in the mid-nineties specializing in advanced corporate finance and international banking, with a dissertation on Islamic Banking & Finance. Prior to his admission as a New York Attorney-at-Law and as English Solicitor, Fazl practiced as an Advocate at the national level in the Supreme Court of India. Fazl has worked with major international law firms representing multinational corporations, Wall Street banks and other business and financial institutions in sophisticated medium to very high value cross-border transactions around the world.
Fazl regularly chairs Islamic finance conferences and lectures globally on Islamic finance matters. Fazl sits on several industry bodies including the UK Treasury Technical Working Group on Islamic Finance, the UK Islamic Finance Secretariat, the Commonwealth Business Council Working Group on Islamic Finance and is involved with the Islamic finance and infrastructure working groups aimed at promoting utilization of Islamic financial tools for promoting enterprise and infrastructure development in the old ‘Silk Road’ economies. His other past and present associations include The Association of the Bar of The City of New York (CorporateLaw Committee), The Law Society of England & Wales, the Supreme Court of India Bar Association and the American Bar Association (International Business Law Committee and the Committee on Developments in Business Financings).
For over a decade Fazl has run a global consultancy based in London offering services to businesses and financial institutions besides acting as a global consultant to law firms and Islamic finance advisors and providing outside general counsel services to businesses in both conventional and Islamic space advising on matters relating to overall strategy and structuring of corporate and financial transactions, including Shari’a compliant transactions involving leasing (ijara) and asset based finance, commercial and residential real estate finance, structured finance including securitizations (sukuk), trade finance, project development, project finance, private equity, investment funds, mutual insurance (takaful), general commercial loan facilities and development of new and improved Shari’a-compliant financial products utilising diverse Shari’a precepts and principles. As part of his global consultancy Fazl has also acted as the Head of Legal for the Bank of London and The Middle East,the largest independent FSA-authorized Islamic bank in Europe.
Fazl also provides strategic input and ideas to help promote adoption of Islamic financial principles for the development of operational mechanisms and products for resource mobilization and access to liquidity within the wider Islamic financial markets with a view to overall development in a sustainable manner – an interest dating back to mid-nineties when he presented papers on Sustainable Development and Human Trusteeship of Earth’s Resources at an international conference.
Anouar Adham, CFA
Anouar Adham, Head of Asset Management at QIB (UK) has extensive experience with international banks in Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East. His experience includes direct investment, asset management and advisory for HNWI and institutional clients. He was formerly with Qatar Islamic Bank, in Doha, where he was a senior banker and was involved in real estate projects, industrial development and corporate advisory. He holds a CFA and is currently finalising an Executive MBA from Imperial College.
Dr. Adeel Malik
Adeel Malik is the Islamic Centre Lecturer in Development Economics at theUniversity ofOxford, a fellow of St. Peter’s College, and a Globe Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. He completed his doctorate in economics fromOxfordUniversity as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. His previous research affiliations include: Department of Economics,OxfordUniversity (2004-05);MertonCollege (Lecturer in Economics, 2002-03 and 2005-06); Center for International Development,HarvardUniversity (Visiting Research Fellow, 2001), and Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre,Islamabad (Senior Policy Analyst, 1997-1999).
At Oxford University he teaches various option courses on the political economy of institutions and development. He also teaches international trade and finance to Oxford University’s Foreign Service Programme and statistical methods to PPE and EM undergraduates
Samer Hijazi
Samer is a Director in KPMG’s Financial Services Audit practice. He studied economics at the LSE and is a Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), Associate Member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (AMCT) and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (MSI), He is also a Certified Islamic Professional Accountant (CIPA) from AAOIFI and holds the Diploma in Islamic Banking and Insurance (IIBI).
Samer joined KPMG in the UK’s London office in 2000 coming from another Big 4 firm in Abu Dhabi, where his clients included the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank & Funds, a sovereign wealth fund and the Arab Monetary Fund. Samer is currently Director on the Standard Chartered audit team responsible for the audit of the Wholesale Bank and Islamic finance. He has also worked with all 6 Islamic retail and investment banking and insurance entities in the UK where he has provided accounting and advisory services for the past seven years. Samer has provided accounting, training and quality assurance advice on Islamic financial products and operations to several leading conventional global financial institutions with Islamic windows in London. Samer is on a panel advising the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment Institute in the UK on their global qualification in Islamic finance. He recently completed a six month secondment to UK Trade & Investment in the British Government where he led on the delivery of their Islamic finance strategy for the UK.
Samer is a member of UK Islamic Financial Services (UKIFS) where he is the Chairman of the Accountants sub-group for Islamic financial services related matters.
Nash Jaffer BSc FCA CTA
Nash specialises in structuring real estate transactions and funds having previously worked at Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers where he accumulated considerable experience structuring transactions including:
- Closing real estate funds – structuring the fund, implementing strategies to minimise tax leakage.
- Tax planning – helping Sovereign Wealth Funds, major corporates, private individuals and funds review their real estate holding structures and introduce efficiencies to reduce tax leakage on an on-going basis.
- Transaction advisory – structuring real estate acquisitions to minimise tax leakage on purchase, through the holding period and exit in addition to due diligence advice.
As an expert in this area and Islamic Finance, Nash has presented on the taxation of UK funds at a European Real Estate Fund Structuring conference in Luxembourg and recently chaired the Fleming Gulf World Islamic Finance Conference in London and spoken at the Global Islamic Finance Forum in Kuala Lumpur. He has written the tax section of the “Accounting and Taxation Implications of Islamic Finance Products” in the book “Islamic Finance: Law and Practice” published by Oxford University Press. Nash is a member of the HM Treasury/HM Revenue & Customs Islamic Finance Tax Technical Committee and also the Stamp Taxes Practitioners Group administered by the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Passionate about promoting the dialogue between entrepreneurs and central government, Nash contributes to a cross-parliamentary working group and also serves as the Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain and Honorary Treasurer of the Conservative Party Muslim Forum.
Dr. Gaffar Khalid
Dr Khalid is the director of the Islamic Finance Center at the University of East London. He has an extensive experience in the area of Islamic Banking and Finance, as well as Islamic Microfinance. Prior to lecturing at RDBS, Dr. Khalid was the Senior Advisor of Islamic Microfinance at the World Bank’s funded project in Sudan SMDF (Sudan Microfinance Development Facility). Before joining the World Bank he served as an Islamic Microfinance adviser to his Excellency the Governor of Central Bank of Sudan. Dr Khalid also worked as an assistant Professor of Finance at the Abu Dhabi University UAE.
Dr. Khalid received his PhD from School of Economics, Finance and Business at Durham University UK in 2007 and appointed since then as an honorary visiting research fellow in Islamic Finance at SGIA, Durham University.
He also holds a BSc. and a MSc. Degrees, both, in Banking Studies. In addition he holds LL.B and a postgraduate diploma in sharia law.
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