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Management

CEO-RAKBANK-Raheel-AhmedChief Executive Officer
Raheel Ahmed was appointed as RAKBANK’s CEO in January, 2022 to develop and execute the Bank’s strategy for the next phase of its growth and increase profitability while achieving Excellence in customer engagement by leveraging data and technology. 

Raheel is a seasoned banker and transformational leader with over 30 years of banking experience across Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Europe. He thrives on developing transformational strategies with a focus on building a high performance and customer-centric culture. 

Raheel joined RAKBANK from Barclays UK where he was member of the Executive Committee and the Chief Product & Analytics Officer, responsible for the strategy and commercial performance of the personal banking products. During his time at Barclays, Raheel spearheaded the Digital & Analytics transformation to create personalized and frictionless products and services for over 20M customers. He built and led on strategic partnerships with Big Tech and Fin Tech firms, and contributed significantly to the automation and digitalization of Barclays UK. Raheel was also the Executive Sponsor of Diversity & Inclusion at Barclays UK, a topic that he is very passionate about. Prior to Barclays, Raheel held Senior Executive positions at Standard Chartered and Citigroup. 

Chief Credit Officer
Mahadevan Radhakanthan joined RAKBANK in July 2013. He was appointed Chief Credit Officer of RAKBANK in January 2017 and manages credit risk relating to all segments including Personal Banking, Wholesale Banking, Banks/FIs/Treasury and Business Banking. With more than 26 years of work experience in Corporate and Commercial Banking across India, Japan and the Middle East, Mahadevan formerly served as Head of SME Credit at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and at Emirates NBD. He also held several posts with ICICI Bank and State Bank of India. Mahadevan holds a Master’s degree in Risk Management from Stern School of Business at New York University, Master’s degree in Financial Analysis from ICFAI University in India and Professional Risk Manager (PRM) certification from PRMIA, USA.

Group Chief Compliance Officer
Venkat Raghavan is the Chief Compliance Officer at RAKBANK. In his current role, he oversees and manages compliance issues within the Bank, ensuring that RAKBANK is complying with regulatory requirements and that the organization and its employees are complying with internal policies and procedures. He has over 24 years of experience in Compliance, Risk and Audit function. Venkat joined as a Director of the Compliance division at the Bank back in March of 2015. Previously, he was Head of Group Compliance at First Gulf Bank in Abu Dhabi with experience of compliance at capital markets, retail, wholesale and commercial banking. Venkat is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.


 

Group Chief Risk Officer
Farhan has three decades of expertise, professional insights and comprehensive knowledge of the financial services industry .Prior to joining RAKBANK, Farhan worked as the Chief Risk Officer with the Gulf Bank of Kuwait, where he built and scaled the business, transformed the Risk Management function into a best-in-class operation, as well as established and developed robust relationships with the regulators. He has also worked at Citigroup and Deutsche Bank in various management positions across diverse geographies including Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Pakistan.

Group Chief Internal Auditor
Nicola Thompson leads the Group Internal Audit for RAKBANK and its subsidiaries. Directly reporting to the Board Audit Committee, Nicola’s main goals are to strengthen the effectiveness of the Internal Audit function in the assessment of the Bank’s risk management and internal control framework. With around 20 years of experience in Internal Audit and Business Advisory, Nicola has in depth knowledge of complex governance, risk, compliance and internal audit practices in both local and highly regulated markets. Prior to joining RAKBANK, Nicola held senior leadership positions where she handled business development, transformation and strategic internal audit and risk advisory across the Middle East, Europe, and USA.


 

Group General Counsel
Ghalia is a dual qualified lawyer in both England and Jordan and has over 20 years of experience in the banking and financial sector. She joined RAKBANK from Noor Bank, where she worked as Senior Vice President – Legal Department for ten years. Previously, Ghalia held several positions in law firms such as Linklaters in Dubai and Berwin Leighton Paisner in London. In addition, Ghalia received a number of academic awards including Excellence Awards from HRH Hayfa Al Faisal in Saudi Arabia and the late King Hussein Al-Hashim of Jordan and was named one of the top 300 most influential women in Islamic business and finance at the 2nd WOMANi 2019 Awards by Cambridge IFA. Ghalia holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh.

 

Group Chief Customer Officer
Dongjun (DJ) Choi joined RAKBANK in March of 2022 as Chief Customer Officer and is leading the Customer & Strategic Analytics function, which includes Group Strategy, Brand & Marketing, Center of Excellence (CoE) for Advanced Analytics, and Service Excellence (including customer complaints) Units. 

DJ has a diverse portfolio of experiences across financial services, digital transformation, advanced analytics, marketing, and strategy. In his 25+ years of international experience, DJ has managed teams in Asia-Pacific, Greater China, UK, Middle East and Africa, and the US. 

He joins us from AXA Asia where he was the Chief Strategy and Customer Officer and was instrumental in driving strategy, industry-first products portfolio, and digital & data transformation. In his previous roles, DJ has held executive positions of MD Strategic Analytics CoE at Barclays UK, Chief Marketing Officer for International Markets at Cigna Corporation, and senior executive positions at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Managing Director, Personal Banking
Shehzad joined RAKBANK in April 2022 as the Managing Director of Personal Banking. Prior to that, he was working with Mastercard where he headed Consumer & Digital Products, Processing and Sustainability for Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is an experienced Consumer Banking leader with extensive experience in leading businesses and diverse teams across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe with Standard Chartered Bank , Citibank & ANZ. He has carried out various leadership roles in Global, Regional, and Country Head capacity with a strong demonstrated track record.

Shehzad has also worked as the Head of Consumer Banking for Standard Chartered Bank in the UAE, where through his in-depth understanding of the Consumer Banking Business, Payments and Digital, he was instrumental in driving strategic initiatives to reshape the Consumer Banking Business and thereby delivered a significant digital-led revolution.

Managing Director, Business Banking
Dhiraj Kunwar joined RAKBANK in March 2016 and was appointed as Managing Director of Business Banking in January 2017. Dhiraj leads the Business Banking division’s commercial strategy, business development and tactical planning. Prior to joining the Bank, Dhiraj spent 5 years at ADCB where he was responsible for sales and coverage of SME business as senior vice president. Dhiraj has over 19 years of banking experience in a wide range of roles across India and the UAE with organizations like Mashreq, HSBC and ICICI Bank. Dhiraj has completed the EPGM from MIT Sloan School of management Boston USA. He is a certified associate from the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance and also holds a Master’s degree in Business from The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. Dhiraj currently chairs the UAE Banks federation’s SME Committee, which advises government entities and the Central Bank of the UAE on matters related to Banking.

Managing Director, Treasury
Vikas Suri was appointed as RAKBANK’s Managing Director, Treasury in February 2016. Before joining RAKBANK, Vikas was a career banker with Standard Chartered, having worked with them for almost 25 years across a variety of roles in markets across South and South East Asia. After having built and run large Treasury and Financial Markets businesses in India, Indonesia, Singapore and South East Asia, he was most recently the Managing Director and Regional Business Chief Operating Officer for the bank for the ASEAN region. In this role, Vikas was responsible for the strategy and its delivery across all the business units of the bank in the region, including implementation of large change programs. Vikas holds a Masters in Business Administration from Delhi University in India.

 

Managing Director, Financial Institutions Group and International 
Jean Pierre Le Roux was appointed in May 2018 as Managing Director in charge of the Financial Institutions Group and International at RAKBANK. Additionally, Le Roux is leading the efforts to build RAKBANK’s international business in new geographies, in line with the organization’s strategy of diversification and expansion. Having previously worked in senior management roles at Citi, Barclays and HSBC, Le Roux brings 22 years of global market knowledge having spent a large part of his career in Asia Pacific with Barclays and HSBC, and in Africa and GCC. In his last role he was country CEO, UAE at Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, a position he held for three years. Le Roux studied finance and holds a Capital Markets Qualification from the Securities Institute of London and is a full member of the South African Institute of Financial Markets.

Group Chief HR Officer
Ahmed Yousef, in his role as the Chief Human Resource Officer, is responsible for envisioning the roadmap for HR, driving strategy, and implementing operational priorities aligned with the overall organizational mandate. Ahmed holds Master's & Engineering degrees and has over 22 years of experience in leading several HR functions in large organizations such as Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) and Etisalat. Prior to joining RAKBANK, Ahmed was the Vice President of HR for du and the General Manager for its efficiency enhancing subsidiary. In his wide ranging experience in these organizations, he has led the transformation of HR into a strategic partner, facilitated transformation and capability development, and was a key contributor in building a strong talent pool through a series of leadership development initiatives.

Director, Islamic Banking
Abdul Karim Juma has more than 20 years of experience in banking and held various strategic and senior positions through which he has directly contributed to the Personal Banking development, distribution channels and enhancement of the customer interaction platforms, managed sales and set targets, and supported the development of SME products. Abdul Karim then moved on to the Islamic Banking Division of the Bank in 2013 as a Senior Manager of Assets and Liabilities before being appointed as the Director of the Islamic Division in 2015. In addition to his strategic role of developing the Islamic Business and managing its portfolio, he is also responsible for launching a wide range of Sharia Complaints products and services that further enhanced RAKislamic’s market share within the Islamic Banking industry. He played an instrumental role in diversifying Islamic product propositions across all business segments of the Bank, and has increased the contribution from Islamic Banking to the overall growth of the portfolio at RAKBANK. Besides managing the Bank’s Islamic banking window, Abdul Karim has also been a Board member of the RAKIslamic Finance Company (a subsidiary of RAKBANK) for the past 4 years. Before joining RAKBANK, Abdul Karim spent few years in  managing corporate communications’ offices. Abdul Karim is Holding MBA from Anglia Ruskin University – Cambridge  – London / UK, He is also a certified Islamic Finance executive from London. To further strengthen his leadership expertise and  talent, Abdul Karim graduated from 2 distinctive leadership programs from top-ranked business schools in the world that are Darden business school, University of Virginia-USA and Saide Business School, Oxford-England.

Director, RAK Business
Saleh Ali Saleh joined RAKBANK in 1988 and has held various positions throughout his 27 years with the Bank including Senior Manager of Distribution and National Administrative Manager. Before being appointed as the Director of RAK Business in December 2015, Saleh served as Senior Manager of the Bank’s branches in Northern Emirates for 3 years. He is currently a Board Member of RAK Islamic Finance Company. Saleh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from San Jose State University, USA.