Our Team

Ibrahim Hemeida

Chief Executive Officer

Ibrahim is a successful banker and investment professional with over 26 years of experience in the MENA region. In 2010, he joined the start-up team of a leading UAE based regional bank and quickly became a significant contributor to its success. He later played a key leadership role with the team that turned around the private banking business of another established UAE based bank. Over the last 16 years, Ibrahim originated, advised and managed more than AED 30 billion in private and institutional client assets and consulted on family governance, corporate and family offices architecture. Ibrahim worked with international and regional banks such as UBS AG, Emirates NBD, and Mashreq Bank in the UAE in addition to Prime Investments, Arab African International Bank, and Concord International Investments in Egypt, where he built strong relationships with institutions and High Net-worth Individuals from different sectors and geographies, and investment professionals covering all asset classes. Ibrahim is fluent in French, English, Arabic with basic knowledge of the Russian language.

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Amr Fergany

Head of Wealth Management

Amr Fergany is a seasoned banking and investment professional with over 23 years of experience in the MENA region. Before launching FCIM in April 2023, Amr held senior wealth management roles at leading financial institutions including Union National Bank, Mashreq, Societe Generale, Emirates NBD, and HSBC Egypt. He also served as Vice President of Private Banking at Credit Suisse AG, focusing on the UAE market and advising clients on their portfolio restructuring. Throughout his career, Amr has originated, advised, and managed more than AED 5 billion in private and institutional client assets across different jurisdictions including UAE, Switzerland, Singapore and the UK. He also worked on several projects to enhance the private banking offering within local banks including setting up the external asset managers desk at Emirates NBD. He has also managed complex lending and repo transactions for family offices and institutional clients.

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Steven Downey

Head of Investment Management

Steven Downey is the Head of Investment Management at Fundament Capital, where he has overseen the firm’s investment team since 2023. With over a decade of experience across wealth and institutional management, Steven leads the development of multi-asset portfolios, short-term trade ideas, and tailored investment strategies for high-net-worth individuals and family offices. Steven began his career as a securities broker at Charles Schwab, where he advised clients through complex market conditions and developed a deep understanding of investor behavior and economic cycles. At Holborn Assets, he refined his portfolio construction approach and earned a reputation for maintaining client trust during volatile periods, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Known for his steady leadership, client-first mindset, and ability to navigate uncertainty, Steven brings a disciplined, strategic approach to portfolio management. At Fundament, he continues to drive performance through thoughtful investment processes, deep research, and collaborative execution.

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Tim Almashat

Managing Director & Head of Investment Banking

Almashat brings over 26 years of experience in international and regional real estate, private equity, and public equities markets, with a deep expertise in quantitative and qualitative analysis, corporate strategy, and transaction execution. He started his career in New York City at Thomson Financial in the capital markets space advising over 50 mutual fund managers on fund strategies, entry and exit points and performance attribution analysis based on fundamental quantitative and qualitative analytics. He then joined the private equity space with ING Clarion Partners and AIG Global Real Estate (two of the largest real estate players in the US). Almashat moved to the Middle East in 2006 with EFG-Hermes, UAE, where he held roles in Research and Asset Management. This was followed by Director level positions at NAEEM Holding, Dubai, in Corporate Strategic Planning and Real Estate Investment Banking, where he worked on attaining the firm’s UAE Central Bank license. Almashat joined the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), the largest and oldest government bank in Egypt, initially with AlAhly Capital Holding (the National Bank of Egypt’s investment advisor and private equity arm), while his most recent role was as CEO of AlAhly Financial Ltd., a Category 3C DFSA regulated investment bank the DIFC Dubai, UAE. He successfully set and implemented a Direct Investments Advisory strategy for the firm in accordance with the DFSA guidelines and framework. He was key in structuring and executing sizeable cross-country transactions in the Building Materials, Real Estate, Transportation and Banking sectors. Furthermore, while executing cross-border transactions, he actively managed interactions with foreign Financial Regulatory Authorities, ensuring all deals complied with relevant international rules and regulations, which was critical to their success.

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Gary Dugan

Consultant Chief Investment Officer

Gary Dugan has been a high-profile investment professional in Europe, Middle East and Asia for the past 38 years. In the past two decades, he has held Chief Investment Officer roles with major institutions in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His initial training was in leading asset management companies in London before he moved in 1993 to JPMorgan Securities to become their European equity market strategist. He gained a reputation for his leading research on corporate restructuring and was an advisor to the OECD, the European Parliament and leading sovereign wealth funds. In 1999 he switched back to asset management and became the head of multi-asset portfolios Europe Middle East and Asia for JPMorgan Asset Management. In that role, he was the lead investor for mandates with the GIC, Brunei government, Hong Kong Jockey Club and insurance companies in Europe and Japan. Throughout his time a JPMorgan he was also a principal advisor to the firms Private Banking business. In 2004 he joined Barclays as their CIO before moving to Merrill Lynch in 2007 again as a CIO. Between 2009 and the present day he has spent eight years in the UAE as CIO at two of the largest banks and worked at Coutts in Singapore. Gary was voted Private Banker of the year 2015 (MENA) from Wealth Briefing. Gary has a reputation for making bold calls on the markets. He made major bear calls on equity markets in 1987, at the top of the tech boom and the financial crisis in August 2007, and a bull call on equity markets on March 17th, 2009. In November 2018 he was appointed the CEO of Purple Asset Management and subsequently founded and launched an outsourced CIO services business on the Purple platform called The Global CIO Office. He thus realized his dream of creating an investment business that is driven by investment professionals with the sole focus of producing the best independent financial advice for clients.

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Mohamed Othman

Chief Operating Officer

Mohamed has over 15 years of experience in the operations across MENA region and the international markets. Mohamed started his career with CIB-Egypt in the custody department where he was responsible for the Bank proprietary book and the client investments. After that he moved to Barclays-Egypt as Treasurer Assistant where I had the responsibility to build the primary dealer office desk. In 2006, Mohamed moved to Dubai where he joined a start-up brokerage company Al Futtaim-HC, then he moved to SICO-UAE as an Operations Manager where he helped the company to acquire its brokerage license and build up the company operations cycle. Later, he moved to Mubasher where he was part of the team responsible for increasing the markets covered by the company, after his great success he was lured by the brokerage arm of Emirates Islamic Bank as Head of the Operations where he helped them to build their sukuk desk and adding the base for the business for the institutional clients’ desk.

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Waleed Gheith

Chief Financial Officer

A seasoned finance professional with over 15 years of experience in leading investment banks across Cairo, Dubai, Hamburg, and London. His expertise spans asset management, multi-asset trading, corporate finance, fund accounting and strategic financial planning. Throughout his career, he has been instrumental in launching over 16 mutual funds, hedge funds, and UCITS, as well as establishing the first DFSA-approved start-up CAT3A firm. Launched innovative investment products, including Islamic REITs and ETFs. Led market system developments and futures trading initiatives while also facilitating significant debt financing transactions across multiple regions, including Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. Headed trading desks for equities, fixed income, and derivatives within prime brokerage, overseeing execution, risk management, and operational efficiencies. With over a decade of experience in fund accounting, he has managed complex investment structures, overseeing financial reporting, and cash management for multi-asset portfolios. Waleed holds a bachelor's degree in finance management. Over the course of his career, he has held key roles in Linear Investment, Daman Investment, SHUAA Capital, Beltone Financial, and EFG Hermes, where he has contributed to business growth, financial structuring, and investment innovation.

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Saran Sankar

Investment Associate

Saran Sankar is a committed investment professional having more than 8 years of experience covering equities across multiple geographies and sectors. He has deep experience in investment analysis and equity research. Saran started his career with Verity (UBS Investment Bank) as an Associate in the Investment Banking domain, where he spent more than 3 years focusing on the US Transportation sector. He worked on multiple Financial due-diligence projects within the US transportation sector. In 2019, Saran joined HSBC as a sell-side equity research analyst wherein he covered the European Travel and Leisure sector. He built out his sector expertise in online gaming, covering some of the leading European stocks and developing exclusive research materials on the gaming landscape. Saran also significantly contributed to equity research coverage in Hotels and Travel Retail sectors at HSBC. He has provided investment views to numerous prominent global institutional investors in investments in the leisure industry. In 2023, he joined a leading family fund in Doha, helping them in building out equity portfolio. This role involved leading oversight of equity investments across multiple sectors and geographies, with focus on emerging themes.

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Dmitri Ganjour

Investment Associate

Dmitri Ganjour is a highly analytical professional with a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from ETH Zürich and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from EPFL. His expertise spans probability theory, stochastic calculus, financial mathematics, and computational methods for finance. His master’s thesis focused on machine learning methods for derivatives pricing and hedging, with an emphasis on model calibration and stochastic model approximation. Using Python, PyTorch, SciPy, and Sklearn, he developed numerical implementations for derivative pricing and risk management. He also authored research on adaptive robust control and mean-variance portfolio optimization. At the University of Amsterdam, he contributed to neural network research, studying the convergence of deep learning models. Dmitri transitioned into finance as a derivatives trader, specializing in freight, grain, and fertilizer markets. He has experience trading freight derivatives (FFA, fuel oil, and gasoil swaps), managing hedging and speculative positions, and conducting market analysis across commodities. At Fertistream Freight DMCC and Arion Commodities in Dubai, he developed systematic trading strategies, leveraging quantitative modeling and risk management expertise.. Passionate about data analysis, algorithmic development, and financial modeling, Dmitri continuously refines his approach to market prediction and portfolio optimization. Fluent in Russian, French, and English, and proficient in Python, C++, R, and MATLAB, he combines technical excellence with practical financial acumen in the evolving landscape of quantitative finance and trading.

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