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Mohamed Salama
Managing Director, Head of Coverage – Middle East & Pakistan
Mohamed Salama serves as the Head of Client Coverage, Corporate and Investment Banking (“CIB”) for the Middle East and Pakistan (“MEP”), at Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”). The CIB franchise spreads across 8 presence countries, with the largest middle-eastern economies, as well as other regional non-presence markets: encompassing corporates, financial institutions as well as public sector and sovereign entities.
In his current role, Salama is also an executive member of the Regional and United Arab Emirates’ Management Committee, the Financial Crime Risk Committee, the Credit and Operational Credit Risk Committee, and the Asset-Liability Committee.
Salama has extensive knowledge in the financial sector, with over 25 years of banking experience with leading international banks; covering central governments, sovereign wealth funds, financial sponsors, banks, multilateral financial institutions, non-banking financial institutions, as well as large cap public, private and multinational companies, across various industries. During his financial career, Salama spearheaded the successful closure of hundreds of billions of debt capital raising, syndicated loans, leveraged buyouts, project and export finance, financial and M&A advisory, equity & equity-linked capital issuances, strategic equity finance transactions, in addition to financial risk management solutions. He also managed multi-billion dollars of debt restructurings, as well as actively managed the turnaround of financially distressed firms.
Salama joined Standard Chartered late 2016, as the Head of Global Banking, U.A.E., and early 2020, post effectively leading the turnaround of the UAE franchise, he was assigned the current expanded responsibility for the CIB Client Coverage in the region, to bring it up as one of the top contributors to the Standard Chartered global franchise, in terms of book size, top line revenues and operating profits; concurrent with a successful launch of the business in Saudi and Egypt.
Before that, he was performing similar responsibilities with HSBC Bank Middle East, last as the Deputy Head of Global Banking in U.A.E., and Head of Dubai and Northern Emirates, where he was appointed Managing Director in 2013, underscoring his achievements throughout and post the global financial crisis.
He started his professional career with HSBC Bank Egypt in 1997, joining the Executive Training Program, and subsequently progressing through various positions within the Corporate Banking division. He then joined Barclays Bank Egypt in 2004 to head the largest corporate banking division at the time. In 2007, he moved to the United Arab Emirates, to work for HSBC Bank Middle East, under the Global Banking and Markets business, and finally joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2016.
Salama earned his bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Commerce, Cairo University, and holds his Master of Business Administration from Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University.