Summary
The Middle East has demonstrated remarkable resilience in navigating a period of geopolitical uncertainty and regional disruption. As economies emerge from conflict-related challenges, governments, corporations, investors, and financial institutions are increasingly focused on rebuilding confidence, accelerating investment, strengthening supply chains, and positioning the region for long-term growth.
This exclusive S&P Global Market Intelligence event will explore how the region is recovering, where risks remain, and which sectors are poised to attract investment over the coming decade. Leveraging S&P Global's expertise, the event will provide a comprehensive outlook on the forces shaping the future of the Middle East economy.
Attendees will leave with actionable insights on regional growth prospects, evolving credit conditions, emerging investment opportunities, and the strategic decisions required to navigate an increasingly complex global environment. This is a highly attended event each year. Seating is available on a first-come basis, so register early!
Speakers
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Claire Lahoud
Head of Credit & Risk Solutions Sales – Middle East & Africa
Claire is a regional Director with 16+ years of global experience in international banking, broader financial services and technology markets. Proven record of accomplishment in building high impact sales, new business generation across Emerging Markets. Helped over 500 institutions in over 40 countries in Emerging Markets to achieve their goals.
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Tauqir Aslam
Senior Director, Risk Solutions EMEA
Tauqir is a director in the Risk Services team, based in London. He focuses on assisting credit-sensitive institutions (including banks, insurers, governments and funds), operating globally, in improving their internal rating systems for all low default asset classes, including corporates, financial institutions, specialized lending and public finance. He specializes in delivering regulatory, pricing and financial reporting (IFRS 9) solutions.
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Natznet Tesfay
Head of Insights & Analysis
Her areas of specialization include geopolitical risks and influence mapping affecting emerging market debt vulnerabilities, energy transition pathways and global supply chain re-alignment. Before leading the research group, Natznet led the Africa team for over a decade, developing the integrated analytic capabilities as well as regional risk indicator and horizon scanning infrastructure, drawing on a range of methodologies such as geospatial analysis and scenario modeling techniques
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Melissa Otto, CFA
Global Head of Visible Alpha Research
Melissa is the Global Head of Visible Alpha Research at S&P Global. She leads the team producing comprehensive analysis of US and international companies, sectors, and industries for public and private equity, IPOs and M&A.
Prior to joining Visible Alpha, she spent 20+ years as an equity analyst and portfolio manager, investing in global technology and consumer stocks and the Pan-Asia region. In addition to her equity investing career, Melissa worked with engineering teams at data providers and Microsoft Azure building cloud-based solutions to centralize and aggregate critical investment data for investors.
Melissa studied Japanese at Harvard University, received her MA in economics from Brandeis University and MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a CFA charterholder. She is certified in Azure Fundamentals and Agile Project Management and recently completed The Business of AI course at Columbia Business School. She is a frequent media commentator on equities in the US and abroad.
LinkedIn profile: http://linkedin.com/in/melissa-otto-cfa
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Gavan Nolan
Executive Director, Business Development and Research, Fixed Income Pricing
Gavan Nolan, a specialist in credit markets, is an Executive Director responsible for business development and co-heads research for Fixed Income Pricing at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
A published author, Gavan has written about the credit markets from the accounting scandals of the last decade through the financial and European sovereign debt crises. He is a well-known commentator on the credit default swaps (CDS) markets, including credit fundamentals and CDS mechanics, in particular ISDA definitions, credit events and auctions. He has been a frequent contributor to both print and broadcast media, and quoted in Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, Reuters, Dow Jones, Global Capital, CNBC and BBC's R4 Today programs. Gavan played a key role in developing the Markit CDS pricing product, the leading service in the CDS market. Prior to joining Markit in 2003, now S&P Global, he worked at J.P. Morgan and TD Securities in a variety of fixed-income roles.
Gavan holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Queen Mary College, University of London, UK
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Andrey Eliseev
Senior Credit Product Specialist
Backed by his long-time experience in risk advisory Andrey supports clients across developing markets to take benefits from credit risk solutions of S&P Global Market Intelligence and improve business-, regulatory- and risk-related processes. Andrey is certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM).
S&P Global Market Intelligence
Jamil Naayem
Associate Director, Global Insight
Jamil Naayem is a senior principal economist in the Middle East & Northern Africa economic forecasting team at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Jamil has expertise in various Middle Eastern economies, and primarily covers Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Iran. He is an experienced forecaster and is also responsible for the economic and sovereign risk analysis of those countries. Jamil regularly briefs clients on Middle Eastern economies and actively contributes to strategic reports on various topics of interest.
Prior to that, he was head of the markets research unit at Bank Audi sal, a Lebanon-based regional bank operating in various countries of the MENA region, Turkey, and Western Europe. During his 17-year tenure at the bank, he covered various countries of presence, with extensive economic and sectoral analysis provided to management and clients. Jamil was also pivotal in developing fixed income research at the bank, covering MENA debt markets with a particular focus on the GCC region. In addition, he regularly contributed to strategic reports to the bank's management analyzing economic and banking operating conditions across countries of presence.
Jamil is a Lebanese national. He earned master's degrees in finance from ESCP Business School (Paris) and Ecole Superieure des Affaires (ESA, Beirut) (2008-09), and a master's degree in economics (specializing in economic policy) from USJ in Lebanon (2003). Throughout his career, he obtained various management certificates from reputable regional and international training institutions, anchored around change management, people management, managerial leadership, advanced negotiation skills, and conflict management and resolution, in addition to various securities and financial regulations certificates. Jamil is fluent in English, French, and Arabic.
Venue
Waldorf Astoria, DIFC, Dubai