Testimonials

Anthony Jarrin

President & CEO at The Cannaregio Group (US)

My name is Tony Jarrin, and I am the head of the Canaregio Group (US). We are a Real Estate holding in the hotel and hospitality sector, we’ve been diversifying in the last few years, specifically the couple of years before the pandemic, to telecom, financial services and other industries. Of course, we are still battling through the challenges that came to all of us in one way or another through the pandemic. I’m very honored to be a part of this group, and I appreciate the invitation that was made a little over a year ago. Actually, the first invitation was 2 years ago, but because of personal reasons I was only able to join a little over a year ago, and it’s been an amazing Club to be a part of. I met many new friends and great professionals. Everyone is a leader in their industry, a decision maker, has access to great networks, is really able to share connections and ideas and learn from everyone in different industries. I learnt about some sectors that I hadn’t even considered in the past, which is one of the benefits of these weekly Club meetings that we get to have and engage with. I am also able to understand what is going in other parts of the world that we’re involved in. I think it’s a tremendous concept and I can tell all people who are new to this Club: “You’re going to love to be a part of this group and meet new people and engage in different opportunities together!"

Jon Bennion-Pedley

CEO at Investment Owl (Uganda)

I’ve met lots and lots of very interesting people through the Global Investment Leaders Club.

I often say that I hate networking with a passion, nevertheless, I am very happy I joined this Club nearly 2 years ago! What it’s really helped me to do is to meet the kind of people I would not have met internationally, and to grow an international network. I’ve met some really fascinating people who are at the top of their game. It was very kindly said that all the members were leaders in their industries. I have really enjoyed being part of GILC and it’s been really valuable for me in terms of broadening my horizons globally. So yeah, I’m a fan of the Club!

Craig Astill

Managing Director & CEO at Caason Group (Australia)

I’m Craig Astill, I’m the CEO of Caason Group, an Australia based single family office in Melbourne. Our interests are primarily in the agro and agrotech space, as well as mining and mining tech. As a family office we are pretty diversified where we are investing into, that also takes us out to environmental technologies, FinTech and also into IT. We primarily directly invest into companies which we hope will bring benefit to us. We’ve got several prominent examples of that and in some cases we think that we have already backed one or two companies that might potentially be unicorns. So, certainly this forum has been terrific to network with a number of interesting people that has helped us commercialize some of the technologies that we have invested into. That’s where I’ve seen the opportunity with the Club to genuinely present terrific networking opportunities on a global scale.

Barry Palte

Chairman at EQ Capital Partners (Australia)

I am a head of a family office as well as a technology investor with a focus on social impact. Food, agro-tech and water is one of the key areas of my investment interests, the second key is health-tech and the third key is circular economy. Although we are based in Australia our office is very international.

Also, I’m a Chairman of an Africa-focused investment platform, and a Founding Partner and Co-Managing Partner of a healthcare fund, which is based out of Israel, which is quite recently linking into the GCC countries. I have quite a diverse portfolio, and I’ve been a member now for a number of years, and made some fantastic connections through the Club. It started with making friends and transitioned to actually connecting on personal levels with many other members. I’ve been very pleased to be a member.

Amer Fasihi

Co-founder at Kraydel (UK)

“You need to put yourself out there and talk to investors. My meetings [with investors] were very well managed. It was a very informal setting, and they were able to ask questions. I was given 5 minutes to present my company, and then very structured questions from investors were facilitated. I’ve got 15-20 people very focused on one thing [my project]. They were able to get my answer to them, it built a really complete picture in a very short period of time. And then I could specifically ask them for a suggestion on how I can be a success! That's very important, because investors started thinking how can they help me, what can they do? Getting the investment is brilliant, but actually investors can make business happen not just through allocating capital, but also by enabling connections and advice. People invest in people, people don’t invest in slide decks!”

Tonino Belmonte

Partner at Carthona Capital (AU)

Richard Hawken

The Car Fund (GB)

Danish Chotani

CEO at Burj Financial (AE)

Angelia Le

Chairwoman at FG Holding Group (SG)

Eric Suschetet

CEO at Oakwood Global Advisors (CH)

Jean Francois Desjacques

CEO at East in West FO (CH)

Ahmed Refaie

CEO at Global Partners Investments (GB)

Osman Hashmi

Founder at One Constitution Partners (PK)

Merzi Sodawaterwala

Chairman at WSBF (EA)

Hernani Ferreira

CEO at HEPC Capital (US)

Stephen Atkinson

CEO at AREIT Investment Holding (AE)

Peter Schulz

CEO at Dresdner Real Estate Holding (DE)

Elaine Chow

Managing Director at Trinity Capital (US)

Juan Carlos Lara

CEO at point5 Family Office (US)

Paul Ayyash

GM at Petra Group (AU)

Istvan Alpek

Partner at Primus Capital (HU)

Anirudh Tripathy

CEO at KPM Asset (US)

Karl Safft

Founder at Safft Investment Partners (CH)

Edward Wilson

Founder & CEO at Aliatis Energy and Property Fund (CY)

Hasib Nawaz Shaikh

Vice President Aqua Properties (UAE)

“Thank you for having us here. It’s been a pleasure, the time that we investing here, that have been worth it, all the minutes. It’s been a lovely event, all the people here came with the positive mind set, they are decision makers, they actually are concern people we needed to connect with. And I think, it’s a wonderful job done. I would like to be a part of it every year…”

Tariq Abu Saleh

Founder and CEO European wealth group limited (UAE)

“Thank you very much! It is really amazing, I mean the country needs such an investment forum, so people can be introduce to each other, increase the portfolio of investment, rather in Dubai and overseas and so on. It is amazing, congratulation for you. It’s really interesting. It is very excellent, I mean, getting people, investors together in discussing a lot of potential opportunities. And the city and overseas as well, I believe, we need a lot of this kind of investment forums. So, you know, people get together and understand the investment strategy and the way how to be develop within the region and also overseas. It amazing, what you have been done. It’s really the good thing!”

James Koutoulas

CEO TYPHON CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (US)

"I think the format is wonderful. And it is such a great job you and your team organizing everything. I have met a lot of people here, that I think, I wouldn’t have met anywhere else. Business owners, others CEO’s, I mean, people really from diverse areas of life, who spend most of their time in West, in Europe, in America. It’s really wonderful to meet middle easterners, feel the warmth of the culture, it’s really great meeting people who really understand commodities, background here they seem to really care to understand what we do in energy, space, in metal, in crypto currency even… The face-to-face contact becomes even more important. Actually at the Forum here we’ve met two guys, who I’ve talked recently via phone, there actually was a lot of business sense for us working together, but we’ve never really been connected. At the Forum you meet each other, you break bread, you drink tea, and we like, we really should being working together. We are meeting formally on Thursday to discuss that, so thanks for being the catalyst there."

Adam Ladjadj

Private office of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Alnehayan (UAE)

“I think it’s fruitful, and I think that sometimes you might be sitting down with prospects that you haven’t thought about maybe going into, in terms of their sector or their niche. And it does give you some knowledge about sectors that you might think of going into in the future. The set up and the format when it comes to meetings it was done nicely. We have enough time to sit together comfortably in a good environment. It was the pleasure and we will be coming to all of your future events!”

Matjaz Zadravec

CEO, Royal Vision Group (UAE)

“It’s our great pleasure to be here. It’s a completely different experience. I believe, it’s business oriented environment . If you have a very limited time, but also you need to find yourself casual talking about yourself about the others, try to find the benefits. These kind of the meetings are also beneficial in the sense that, sometimes, when you meet the people, you don’t know what the interest might be there, but then you figure it out during the meeting. That’s the beauty of it, and, on the other side, there is just enough time to do the introduction, to recognize the potential, and then, of course, if energy is there and potential is recognized, you agree for the follow-up meetings and take it from there. I believe, it is a beautiful and beneficial combination! Congratulations on how you design everything, it is very unique and beneficial event. We are very proud to be part of this event!”

Ashraf Al Moustafa

President, Austin University (US)

“I’m very happy to be here today, and I am impressed with the quality of your programme. You guys organized a high-class quality event. I’m very impressed…

It is actually a working format. We had few meetings in the morning, I’ve already got few offers, and I’m meeting them after the event again. Thanks to you and your program…”

Mario Al Jebouri

BANQUE CANTONALE DE GENÈVE (Dubai) (Switzerland)

“It’s wonderful, it’s unique. What I have found, attending the forum here today and last time, that it’s very focused, very precise to the benefit of the attendees. And namely, in putting together investors with projects, looking and discussing very relevant topical issues, which affect
everyone business. Therefore, rather than sitting through numerous presentations on irrelevant topics, with your Forum, we have found, that it’s very tailored, very specific, very mindful of the fact that everyone’s very busy all the time. A really great enabler for people to come into face-to-face meetings, and face-to-face discussions with counterparts. It’s been a wonderful experience, one that has a really tangible effect on people attending. Great respect for all the work, and not only the work that you’ve put in, but also the strategy that you are following, the idea that you’re implementing – unique in itself…”

Houssam Nasrawin

Orous Capital (France)

“It’s not only a good idea, but your added value to this is the quality of the people. Because a lot of people do b2b meetings, I mean, it happens in a lot of conferences, but here you can bring lot of investors, private offices, family offices, family businesses, international groups, and it’s a unique opportunity to talk to those people, whom you normally don’t have access to… It is amazing, because we see the quality of the attending people, we want to meet them, we want to discuss synergies with them. So this is the main point of the b2b meetings at your Forum…”