Ms Loulwa Bakr has been appointed as an independent board member of REYL Finance (MEA) Ltd., the REYL Group affiliate which was awarded earlier this fall a commercial license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority. As a fully regulated operator in Dubai, REYL Finance (MEA) Ltd. has all authority to carry out wealth management, asset management and corporate advisory services. Loulwa Bakr will join Dominique Paladini, Teofilo Masera, Dominique Lecoq and Pasha Bakhtiar on the current board. Given her background and experience, she is well positioned to help guide REYL Group’s expansion strategy in the region.

A Saudi Arabian national, Loulwa Bakr is considered one of few women in the region who have built a successful track record in the field of corporate finance and investment banking. Ms. Bakr started her career in 1997 with Samba Financial Group's Structured Finance where she developed Saudi Arabia's first commercial paper program for local corporations. She later joined the National Commercial Bank where she established and headed their Equity Advisory business. As part of her assignments, she initiated and managed important transactions including ground-breaking IPOs for some of the country’s leading corporations. She later joined the team that established The Capital Group, which was eventually sold to Morgan Stanley. Loulwa Bakr was finally recruited in 2007 by Credit Suisse where she became head of investment banking for Saudi Arabia, with a mandate covering institutional clients across the Kingdom.

“We are very excited to welcome Loulwa Bakr to Reyl Finance (MEA) Ltd”, says managing director Pasha Bakhtiar. “Her presence among us as one of the first women board members in the Dubai International Financial Centre perfectly outlines the positioning of REYL & Cie Ltd as an innovative bank continuously striving to serve a region in constant demand for innovation. What truly sets REYL apart is our ability to incorporate the entrepreneurial dimension of our clients in relation to the overall management of their assets and to structure financial solutions accordingly. Having developed a deep understanding in these matters with a valuable local insight, Ms Bakr will undoubtedly play an integral role in implementing our growth strategy”, he adds.

Ms. Bakr holds a BSc in Accounting, from the College of Administrative Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh (1997) and an MBA from Columbia University (2004). She was recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2011). She is currently managing partner of EDU21, a company that invests in value adding educational products and services in the region.