Libya and Tunisia

Adel, Law LLB 1978

Adel is an investment banker currently based between Tunisia, Libya and the UK and is the founder of several Maghreb based financial and legal services companies, including Maghreb Venture Partners, a regional advisory and private equity platform, North Africa Advocates, a Libyan law firm and the first licensed investment bank in the Maghreb established in 1995. A firm believer in closer economic and political integration of the Maghreb within an African context, Adel believes the richness of the expertise available at SOAS should be dynamically harnessed to assist the socio-economic  development of the Maghreb within the African continent focusing on renewable energy initiatives and other pan African sustainable development goals.

After graduating from SOAS in 1978, Adel initially became a member of the UK Bar Association, before joining HSBC in London as an International Officer and thereafter the Corporate Finance department of the HSBC investment bank in Hong Kong.

He subsequently established a London based regulated investment banking boutique focusing on mid sized corporate finance transactions in South East Asia and the Maghreb, Adel believes that his time at SOAS helped him to pursue his career, as it, “alighted my interest in the emergent and frontier markets”. However, he did not envisage doing this whilst at SOAS, “Fortunate and rare are those who know where life will take them when still at university!”

Adel  is  a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the co-author of the Islamic Frontiers of China, Peoples of the Silk Road based on his journey in China with How Man Wong an acknowledged expert on Chinese minorities and President of the China Exploration Society and of a forthcoming memoir about the history of his family ‘From Jerusalem to a Kingdom by the Sea ‘ to be published in London in the autumn of 2020.

Adel found his time at SOAS to be inspiring and a ‘’window on the world” and his most memorable moments as a student included a trip to Sri Lanka with interfaith debates amongst  fellow SOAS students in the courtyard of a mosque in Colombo and lively demonstrations against apartheid at SOAS. Describing SOAS as “Cosmopolitan, eclectic , exotic and stimulating” Adel still believes in the same principles as he did as a student, and has a lasting impression of SOAS as, “(the) Microcosm of the world in the heart of London”.

Adel is an Alumni Contact for the Maghreb region and is establishing a North Africa chapter of SOAS alumni based in Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.