Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
After completing my degree at Leeds University, I started my career in capital markets with Merrill Lynch. I then moved to Fimat, where I headed sales and trading in London and eventually ended up in Paris as global head of research and development. I then joined NCB in Jeddah, as a proprietary trader and went on to develop the bank’s structured products group, which was the first time that I gained proper insight and exposure into Islamic banking.
Upon returning to London, I joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), as a portfolio manager. I then went on to head the integrated credit and market portfolio management group for the EBRD, after which I joined Mizuho where I was a director in the bank’s proprietary trading group. I have been with Eiger Trading Advisors since the company first started.
What does your role involve?
While I manage the overall company, my primary role is in ensuring that we achieve our full potential through maximizing our capabilities and resources and delivering to our clients the very best products and services. The company now has five strategic business units — fund advisory and managed accounts; Islamic products; environmental; social and governance products and services; consultancy and investment advisory services and commodities trading. My role is to help drive these forward.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
My greatest achievement to date has been in putting together a really fantastic group of very talented people here at Eiger. The dedication, professionalism, enthusiasm and teamwork that I witness everyday is amazing and very humbling.
Which of your products/services deliver the best results?
We always seek to provide our clients with the best. However, with our electronic trading platform, we have managed to provide our clients with a new and innovative web based solution for transacting commodity Murabahah. We believe this technology allows for further expansion and development into other areas.
What are the strengths of your business?
Competitive advantages are by their very nature frequently short lived, so the desire and drive to improve, innovate and serve our clients best is one of our major strengths. We have this strength because Eiger is built on the extensive experience of its senior partners and is majority-owned by its employees. This means that there is a constancy of purpose and a true alignment of our interests with our clients. We move very fast from initial concept, through product development and on to delivery. At all times our values of integrity and transparency are completely consistent with the principles and spirit enshrined in Shariah law.
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
We have excellent people, a clear strategy and a flexible, innovative, problem solving approach. Our commitment is to constantly improve the delivery of our products and services through use of the latest technologies along with the highest ethical standards.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today?
I could talk of the innate conservatism of Islamic banking, but this conservatism is based on excellent principles, so to talk of it as being an obstacle is completely invalid. Things take a bit longer, but that is no bad thing in the current environment. The only real obstacle we have is in our resources, which being small we have to manage prudently.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years or so?
I think most estimates we have seen clearly forecast the continued growth of Islamic finance and these forecasts are based on a number of well understood determining factors. Demographic and regional economic growth rates alone would suggest that we should expect to see a continued rise in the industry both in absolute and relative terms.
Additionally both the perceived and real failures of many aspects of conventional banking over the last few years have also provided a very powerful impetus to growth in Islamic finance. That said, I would add a word of caution in that I am not quite as bullish as some commentators with regard to untrammeled growth. I see a clear move towards alternative liquidity management tools and products in the future.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance?
One thing that I would like to see is the industry’s formal definition of Shariah compliant risk management. In the conventional world we have seen that a Sharpe ratio does not nearly sufficiently define risk and reward. I am sure that the future of Islamic risk management lies in quantifying this paradigm so that Islamic finance structures or products are not benchmarked to conventional equivalents.