Karim Awad

Karim Awad is Group Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Executive Committee and a member of the board of EFG Hermes Holding. Since assuming leadership of the firm in 2013, Mr. Awad has led EFG Hermes’ return to profitability by cutting unwarranted expenses, selling non-core assets and distributing excess cash to shareholders. Starting 2014, Mr. Awad worked with top tier professionals across the Company’s different divisions in building a comprehensive regional advisory pipeline; extending its leadership as the Arab World’s largest securities brokerage; continuing to lead its peers in like-for-like rankings as an asset manager; successfully refocusing private equity business; and continuing to provide the region’s highest-quality research offering.

By the beginning of 2016, Mr. Awad also drove the company into a new strategic shift based on an extended geographic presence that aims at transforming EFG Hermes from a MENA house into a finance house that has reach across frontier markets. He also initiated an increased emphasis on product diversification in the Company’s traditional business lines as well as through the creation of a parallel non-bank finance platform, EFG Hermes Finance— a platform that was formed in 2015 and currently encompasses a leasing, microfinance, consumer finance and factoring businesses.

Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Awad was Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Banking platform with an overall responsibility for managing the firm’s Investment Banking, Securities Brokerage, Research, Asset Management, and Private Equity divisions. Earlier, he was head of Investment Banking, having joined the division in 1998.

Mr. Awad has a long track record advising major corporations on equity offerings and M&A transactions and was instrumental in the development of EFG Hermes’s debt advisory practice. During his tenure in the Investment Banking division, he led and closed transactions with an aggregate value of more than USD 40 billion.