SME Success Series Presented by
Business Networking Evening <<<
Beach and business The SME Success Series Business Networking Evening, presented by ADCB, was a huge success. Conversations, contacts and consultations were the order of the day. We bring you highlights. After a long day at work, the last thing we wanted was to cram everyone into a room and bore them to death. So we decided to break away from the boardroom and plan a networking evening that would be both enjoyable and useful for everyone present. The aim was to walk away with a stack of cards and some great business leads. We thought it would be great if about 70 people turned up. Imagine our delight when we welcomed around 150 people from the vibrant UAE business community. People drove down from other emirates to attend and the feedback we got all evening, and even later, was that it was well worth it. Besides the opportunity to network, we also offered one-onone consultations with various subject matter experts all evening. Many of our readers had asked for the opportunity to discuss their concerns with experts, but not in a
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public forum. Attendees queued up to get specialised legal and financial advice which was customised and confidential. We passed the microphone around, so attendees could introduce themselves and maximise their chances of meeting potential business leads. Despite some initial shyness, it was great to see many of them open up and talk about themselves and their business. It was also amazing to meet so many of our readers and hear their stories in a less formal setting. We had the most heart-warming conversation with Farook A., who attended our previous event, quit his job, and then registered his own business. He said, “Even though you may not realise it, what you do makes a difference to people’s lives.” That was the best thing we’ve heard in a while. It’s not always easy to cover everything we’d like to; we do what we can and such feedback makes it worth it. There are many more events
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(L to R) Ketaki Banga, Senior Editor, SME Advisor Middle East; Mike Byrne, Sub Editor, SME Advisor ME; Richard Judd, Commercial Director CPI Business and IT
Nilanjan Ray, Sr. Vice President Head, SME Banking, ADCB, welcomes the audience
planned in the SME Success Series this year, along with our annual summit and awards in November. Do visit www.smeadvisor.com/events for regular updates.
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Date: 23 February Time: 6 pm onwards Venue: The Sandbar, The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina For more event photos, visit www.smeadvisor.com/events and www.facebook.com/SMEAdvisor.
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SME Success Series
Working capital and trade related solutions
Presented by
One-on-one consultants Treasury, derivatives and commodities
Ehtesham Riaz, Team Leader, Medium Segment, Dubai Business Banking Group, SME, ADCB
Ehtesham manages a team that provides custom made working capital and trade related solutions to cater to the business requirements of Medium Segment companies in any industry operating in the emirate of Dubai. His expertise includes over draft facilities, short or medium and long term loans, invoice discounting, post dated cheque discounting, LC, finance against trust receipt, letter of guarantees and more. Rajesh S. Jangla, Head, Treasury Sales Dubai, NE & Oman, Treasury & Investments Group, ADCB
A treasury, derivatives and commodities specialist, Rajesh has over 17 years of treasury and financial markets expertise with various FIs in the Middle East. He has been with ADCB’s Treasury and Investments Group for over five years providing vanilla and exotic risk management solutions in foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity derivative to ADCB’s clients. He has extensive expertise in providing foreign exchange electronic solutions to business houses in the region.
SME/corporate lending and liability management Dhiraj Kunwar, Regional Manager, Business Banking Group, SME, ADCB
Dhiraj has over 12 years of banking experience in the field of SME/ corporate lending, liability management and product development and capital markets. He has worked with various top banks across India and UAE.
Banking and finance law including loans, corporate lending, trade finance and derivatives, and more Fayez Khouri, Senior Associate, Al Tamimi and Company
Fayez is a senior associate in the firm’s Banking & Finance department. He has also acquired extensive experience in property law while at the firm and in general commercial law while working in private practice in London and in-house in Dubai. Prior to joining Al Tamimi, Fayez spent two years at Sama Dubai, two years at Lovells in London and four years at Howard Kennedy in London. During this time, he dealt with the legal aspects of real estate development and leasing, private finance initiatives (PFIs) and general property finance transactions. Mamoon Khan, Associate, Al Tamimi and Company
Mamoon is an associate in the Banking & Finance practice at Al Tamimi & Company having specialised in banking, corporate lending and project finance transactions. Before joining Al Tamimi, Mamoon worked for Orr, Dignam & Co (a law firm in Pakistan) following his call to the Bar in 2001 and was primarily involved in banking and corporate finance work including mergers, acquisitions and privatisations as well as advising on project finance, derivatives and capital markets transactions.
Technology for business Bilal Hamoui, KAB Manager UAE, Lenovo United Arab Emirates
Bilal deals extensively with LE and LCA market segment for the UAE and focuses on positioning the corporate product portfolio in these verticals.
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