Social and Sustainable Sukuk

Geoffrey Ng, CFA, is a director at Fortress Capital Asset Management, a Pan-Asian investment management company. He has over two decades of investment management and leadership experience. Previously, Mr. Ng served as chief executive officer and executive director at Hong Leong Asset Management; senior vice president, global emerging markets, at Dubai Investment Group; and chief investment officer at Pacific Mutual Fund. Mr. Ng is the independent non-executive chairman of Kronologi Asia Berhad, where he previously served as an independent non-executive director and is a member of the Audit, Nomination, Remuneration, and Share Grant Plan Committees. He holds the Certified Financial Planner designation and earned the Fintech: Future Commerce certification from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a CFA Institute Investment Foundations Certificate. Geoffrey has served on the Education Advisory Committee (vice chair and chair of the Practice Analysis subcommittee) and Council of Examiners, as well as vice president and treasurer for CFA Society Malaysia. Mr. Ng earned a Bachelor of Commerce (high honors) with a double major in accounting and finance from the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. He is a CFA charterholder, holds a CFP certification, and has completed the MIT Fintech: Future Commerce program by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Margaret Franklin, CFA, leads CFA Institute and its more than 170,000 members worldwide in promoting the highest standards of education, ethics, and professional excellence in the investment profession. She assumed her role in September 2019 and has more than 25 years of investment and wealth management experience.

Before joining CFA Institute, Ms. Franklin led International Wealth Management for North America and was president of BNY Mellon Wealth Management, Advisory Services in Canada. She also served as a board member of BNY Mellon Trust Company (Cayman). Margaret joined BNY Mellon in 2016.

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Ms. Franklin held multiple senior management positions, including president of Marret Private Wealth and COO of Marret Asset Management, a credit and hedge fund asset manager in Toronto. During that six-year tenure, she had direct oversight of all aspects of the private wealth business. Prior to joining Marret, Margaret was a partner with KJ Harrison & Partners.

Ms. Franklin began her career in the institutional business and has worked with pension plans, endowments, foundations, and government agencies at State Street Global Advisors, Mercer, and Barclays Global Investors.

She previously served as chair of CFA Institute Board of Governors and is a former president of the CFA Society Toronto Board. Ms. Franklin is a founding member of the CFA Institute Women in Investment Initiative, a past recipient of the Alfred C. Morley Distinguished Service Award in 2014, and a member of its Future of Finance Content Council.

Ms. Franklin earned a Bachelor of Administration in Economics from McMaster University in Ontario. She is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society Toronto.

As VP Finance and CFO, he is responsible for IsDB’s multi-billion funding and investments programs. IsDB has successfully issued several AAA-rated Islamic benchmark bonds and is active is global financial markets. Prior to joining the Islamic Development Bank, he served as head of the World Bank Global Islamic Finance Development Center in Istanbul. He has more than 25 years of experience of capital markets, asset management, risk management, and financial sector at the World Bank Treasury in Washington, D.C. Islamic finance has been his research focus and he has co-authored several articles and books on Islamic finance. He earned his Ph. D. in international finance from the George Washington University (GWU) and served as Professional faculty at GWU and Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Mohammad Shoaib, CFA is the founding CEO of Al Meezan Investment Management Ltd., the first and the only full-fledged Shariah Compliant Asset Management Company in Pakistan. Al Meezan is also the largest asset management company in Pakistan managing about USD 950 million on behalf of clients. Shoaib has over 28 years of experience in managing investment portfolios. Shoaib holds an MBA degree from IBA besides being a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. Shoaib has been a speaker at various conferences on Islamic Asset Management in Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries. He has also been featured in CFA Magazine with reference to his contribution to Islamic asset management, corporate governance and volunteer leadership roles.

Sarwat Ahson is executive director of CFA Society Pakistan. She has 20 years of experience in corporate banking, consulting, teaching, training, and project management. In her previous role, she helped establish the Centre for Excellence in Islamic Finance at IBA (Institute of Business Administration), funded by DIFD, UK administered through Pakistan’s central bank. Ms. Ahson has authored chapters in various books and writes for leading business newspapers and pages namely DAWN and Business Recorder. She earned a BBA (Hons.) and an MBA degree from IBA and is a Level III CFA Candidate.

As the MD of Client Coverage, Sarah is tasked to oversee key client relationships at Group Global Banking.

In her previous role as the Head of Strategy at Group Global Banking, she was the person responsible for delivering profit and revenue growth strategies for Maybank Group’s Global Banking business; driving expansion and transformation plans in key markets ie. Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Greater China.

She was also the Director of Human Capital for Group Global Banking where she was responsible for all aspects of Group Global Banking’s Human Capital management and strategies. Her experience in corporate strategy, finance & risk enabled her to effectively lead the human capital function and ensured that it created value for the business.

Sarah joined Maybank in 2011 to head the International Business Strategy division in Maybank Islamic. She then took on the role as Head, Strategy and Finance of Maybank Group Islamic Banking. In 2015, she was appointed as Maybank Islamic’s Chief Risk Officer overseeing the risk, strategy and finance functions for the Group’s Islamic banking business. Whilst at Maybank Islamic, Sarah was involved in the rapid expansion of the Islamic banking business in Malaysia and globally. In addition, she played a key role in the development of Maybank Islamic's Mudarabah Investment Account ("IA") products which saw the bank leading the industry with its largest market share position since its introduction in 2015.

Before joining Maybank, Sarah served at CIMB Islamic, KPMG Business Advisory & Ernst & Young.

Usman Zafar is a Board Member and Chair of Advocacy Committee at CFA Society Doha and is the Global Head of Liquidity Risk at Qatar National Bank. He has more than 17 years of experience with Top Tier Islamic and Conventional Financial Institutions in Middle East, Australia and Asia Pacific Regions. His key fields of specialization include Treasury and Capital Markets, Corporate Finance, Risk Management and Corporate Governance.
Usman is an active member of CFA Institute’s Islamic Finance Working Group and MENA Society Advocacy Committee and has made key contributions to several cross – regional research projects, consultations and roundtables.

Zeeba is a renowned Banking professional with demonstrated experience of more than 2 decades. Her track-record spans strategic asset management, private equity, corporate finance and sustainable development investments. During her career she has managed investments with ticket sizes of up to US$500 million with a sectoral emphasis on banking and real estate.
Zeeba has held board positions in many companies in the banking & real estate spectrum. Her expertise includes complex commercial negotiations, structuring commercial deals, fund raising for projects, capital (re)structuring & leading distressed asset turnaround strategies and executing exit strategies.
With a CPA from Delaware, USA, an Executive MBA from the University of Bahrain and being a CFA Charterholder, Zeeba has held senior level positions in the banking and real estate industry in her career. She has been a speaker / moderator on regional fora on finance, VAT and Sustainable Development Investments topics. Zeeba has been a Board member of the CFA Society Bahrain for the past few years. She is active in community related initiatives including providing pro-bono advisory services to SME entrepreneurs, mentoring young graduates entering the finance profession and offers executive career advisory coaching.

Alexander Perjéssy is Vice President – Senior Analyst at the Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group.

Based in Dubai, he has lead analyst responsibilities for a number of sovereigns in the Middle East, including most of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states and several regional multilateral institutions.
Prior to joining Moody’s in November 2017, Alex worked for two years as senior economist at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Before relocating to the Middle East, Alex spent more than 12 years covering macroeconomic developments and sovereign risk assessment in the emerging markets of the EMEA region for AllianceBernstein and The Rohatyn Group, both US-based asset management firms in New York, as well as for Goldman Sachs in London.

Alex holds an MA in Economics from the University of Maryland and a BA in Economics from Middlebury College.