MANAGER, ASIA REGION DIVISION, ICIEC
I rejoined ICIEC in October 2025 after a gap of 10 years, during which I worked for international banks, ECAs and investment promotion offices across the Middle East. I have brought over two decades of global experience in trade finance, structured trade, project finance, trade credit and political risk insurance, ECA-backed financing, and Takafulbased solutions.
Coming back to ICIEC after 10 years was a big personal and professional decision. Transitioning from an investment promotion agency, an ECA, and commercial banking to a multilateral environment like ICIEC has indeed allowed me to pivot from policymaking, profit-driven, transactional lending to high-impact developmental finance on a global scale. ICIEC, in particular, has an amazingly strong impact-driven, respectbased culture, which provides a collaborative environment where long-term strategic relationships are valued over high-pressure, short-term targets. By joining ICIEC, I am looking at leveraging and capitalising on my structured trade finance expertise to bridge global funding gaps and champion major regional infrastructure and green energy transitions. Ultimately, this move combines professional purpose with cultural alignment, allowing me to lead complex, cross-border risk management within an institution that prioritises mutual respect, ethical governance, and sustainable economic development.
In my current role, I am leading a team of highly professional individuals with a clear focus on Asia, originating business and supporting businesses in ICIEC member states to grow globally and penetrate new markets, particularly from the perspective of protecting exports, enabling strategic imports and facilitating trade finance and project finance. This exciting role also entails attracting foreign direct investment into ICIEC member states whilst mitigating political risk for international investors, coupled with structuring complex trade and project finance transaction flows in partnership with banks and financial institutions, followed by strong coordination and cooperation with government institutions in delivering cost-effective riskmitigating solutions contributing towards developmental impact.
Asia brings a multitude of opportunities across diverse and very exciting existing and newly emerging sectors and products. Our strategic roadmap includes building a portfolio consisting of a healthy mix of short-term trade credit along with a sizeable exposure to structured medium- and longterm (MLT) solutions to capture the region’s massive industrial growth. During the next couple of years, we will mobilise regional banks’ liquidity by deploying our bespoke solutions like DCIP, BMP and NHSO, which are essentially buyer-credit programmes. In addition, an important part of our strategy is penetrating these frontier markets, which are fairly volatile, through co-insurance syndications with multilaterals like the ADB, AIIB and other multilaterals. In the long term, our growth will be anchored in the region’s multi-decade green transition and structural infrastructure spend. Furthermore, we are looking at establishing reciprocal strategic alliances with leading regional export credit agencies (such as JBIC, NEXI, Malaysia EXIM, Indonesia EXIM, Sinosure and K-SURE) to secure multi-sourcing megaprojects, while utilising ICIEC’s credit enhancement solutions to wrap sub-investment-grade infrastructure opportunities into bankable assets. This dualphased approach effectively insulates our regional aspirations against macroeconomic volatility while positioning us as the premier or preferred risk-mitigating partner for Asia’s evolving trade corridors, particularly for ICIEC member states, thus contributing towards ICIEC’s overall objectives.
With my diversified global experience of over two decades in trade credit and political risk insurance, ECA-backed financing, supply chain finance, and structured trade and project finance, I am indeed looking forward to contributing towards the division’s success and the organisation’s objectives. With a career spanning leadership roles at institutions including Abu Dhabi Investment Office, Etihad Export Credit Insurance Company PJSC, The Saudi British Bank (SABB) and ICIEC – IsDBG, I have spearheaded strategic initiatives across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, including large-scale infrastructure and energy and renewable energy projects in Iraq, Angola, Uzbekistan, and Senegal. My expertise includes structuring complex trade finance solutions, launching Shariah-compliant products, articulating project finance instruments and building partnerships with global ECAs such as UKEF, Bpifrance, US EXIM and SACE. I was also elected Vice-Chair of the Berne Union MLT Committee during the annual meeting in Kigali in 2022.
I hold a Master’s degree in Commerce (M. Com. major in Finance) from Punjab University, Pakistan, followed by Cost and Management Accountancy (CMA) from the Institute of Cost and Management Accounts (ICMA) of Pakistan. I also hold an Advanced Certificate (full-year programme) in Trade Credit Insurance from Offenburg University, Germany, with distinction in Structured Trade, along with an advanced certificate from INSEAD on Leading Effective Sales Forces.
