Could you provide a brief journey of how you arrived where you are today?
Being a University of Chicago-educated financier, I have always believed in the value of free and fair markets. After spending the early part of my career in the investment banking industry, it was increasingly apparent that free and fair markets were more of an anomaly than a reality. When I founded Nur Advisors, I wanted to continue to focus on enhancing the value that private sector investments bring to emerging markets while helping investors navigate the socio-political nexus that distorts free market performance.
What does your role involve?
As Principal of Nur Advisors, I am responsible for directing the overall strategy of our firm and ensuring that relationships with our key clients continue to remain productive and prosperous. This involves spending a great deal of time with our clients, studying and understanding the challenges they face and then working with them to develop more robust emerging market investment strategies.
What is your greatest achievement to date?
Our greatest achievement is the establishment of our project office for our Nur Sabah CSR initiative in Pakistan. As a company and as individuals, we believe it is essential to invest and give back to the communities where we work and where our clients invest. Through Nur Sabah, we hope that our development of venture-philanthropy driven Shariah compliant microfinance products not only provides much needed capital towards microenterprise but also provides a necessary impetus to the global development of Islamic microfinance and other Shariah compliant poverty alleviation and economic development financial products.
Which of your products/services deliver the best results?
Project and investment returns today are increasingly determined not solely by the financials of the investment but also by the validity of the projected financial performance within a complex geo-economic matrix. Our services that have catered to helping clients develop more effective strategies around the geo-economic risks affecting their emerging market exposure have been very successful.
What are the strengths of your business?
I am sure you will not be surprised to hear me say that one of the key strengths, if not the key strength, of our business is our people. Without dedicated and intelligent people, long-term success can never be achieved. A close corollary to this is our focus on understanding. As a company, we invest both significant resources and time in ensuring we understand our clients and their needs inside and out. We then leverage this fundamental understanding of our clients’ needs with our local knowledge and strategic expertise towards supporting our clients, as they need us too.
What are the factors contributing to the success of your company?
I recall once reading that success is partly hard work and partly understanding of how to take advantage of one’s luck. The proliferation of local forces affecting investment performance in emerging markets has grown remarkably over the last few years. This reality has made our services ever more important to emerging market investors today. When coupled with our dedication to building strategies around our clients’ needs and their exposure, we have been able to build a very strong and successful institution.
What are the obstacles faced in running your business today?
The single greatest obstacle we face in running our business today is the very limited pool of human capital available. Despite the youth bulge in the MENA region and increasing numbers of university-educated youth in the Western world, young people today are going into the work force ill-equipped to meet the rigors of professional life. With respect to Nur Advisors more specifically, the escalation of the financial crisis in the US has certainly placed some short-term pressures on our business, and the continuing deterioration of law, order and the broader political climate in many emerging markets certainly raises some challenges in doing business today.
Where do you see the Islamic finance industry in, say, the next five years?
I believe that one of the few positive externalities of the US financial crisis is the realization among Western investors that Islamic finance is, perhaps, a more sound financial system. The very issues that underpinned the current global economic malaise, including exotic credit derivatives and excessive speculation, are haram according to Shariah. The financial community is coming to realize this fact, which I believe will help in the global development of the Islamic finance industry. In the next five years, in my estimation, the Islamic finance industry will continue to flourish, winning an ever more significant market share in important non-Muslim economies.
Name one thing you would like to see change in the world of Islamic finance?
Within the world of Islamic finance, the one thing that I would like to see change is greater engagement by the Islamic finance community with the political community. The key challenge we face as an industry is the need for qualified Islamic bankers, practitioners and scholars for both today and tomorrow. Without positive and productive engagement and partnerships between the Islamic finance industry and the public sector, an effective strategy to meet the long-term human capital needs of the industry may very well fail. Additionally, given the renewed discussion of financial regulation driven by the current economic malaise, it is essential to have a more open and productive discussion between financiers and the public sector.