Our Team

Kamal Bahamdan

Founder & CEO

Kamal Abdullah Bahamdan is an entrepreneur and investor with a 25-year career establishing and growing businesses around the world. Simultaneous to his business career, Kamal is a competitive athlete. He is a five-time Olympic equestrian and bronze medal winner in the London 2012 Olympic Games. Across his professional and sporting endeavors, Kamal is driven by a relentless focus on lifelong learning, excellence, and a determination to push beyond boundaries. His success has been complemented by his ability to attract the very best talent and build industry-leading teams that support him in executing his vision be it in business, sport, or philanthropy.

Currently, Kamal is the Vice Chairman of the Bahamdan Group and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Safanad, a New-York based, global principal-led investment house established in 2009. Throughout his career, Kamal has created numerous world-class platforms across education, healthcare, financial services, technology, telecommunications, and digital infrastructure, among others. He has a rigorous approach to investing that starts with assessing unfolding macro trends and their resulting micro dislocations. He then identifies opportunities to address business and social challenges that have emerged. With an owner-operator mindset, he brings the ecosystems, networks, and key talent to bear to build scalable platforms. Kamal has leveraged this approach to launch greenfield and start-up ventures, assemble and scale businesses through a buy and build approach, and manage challenging and complex turnaround and restructuring situations across the US, Europe, Asia, and Middle East. He has replicated this success time and again including during some of the most turbulent market events of the past three decades.

Most recently, under his leadership, Safanad has executed over $10 billion in transactions and established multiple market-leading platforms. These include a fast growing K-12 education company with over 50,000 students worldwide, which was established to capture opportunities from increasing demand for high-quality private education globally, the UK’s largest care home operator, which was acquired as part of a restructuring process, turned around and scaled, and a leading US-based datacenter operator that was built after identifying the need for co-location datacenter operators and then executing additional bolt-on acquisitions to grow the business. He has also led sizable investments that have created multiple operationally-intensive real estate platforms across the US.

Prior to Safanad, Kamal was the CEO of the Bahamdan Group, a family-owned global investment group with a 70-year history of investing in the Middle East and global markets, and previously co-founded the Washington, DC-based private equity firm BV Group. 

At the Bahamdan Group, Kamal led a major turnaround of an industrial and consumer goods portfolio which included a water bottling company, repositioning the business from significant distress into a market leader, acquired, turned around, and significantly expanded a petrol station chain by increasing the sophistication in its real estate strategy and adding quality adjacent services and retail before exiting to one of the world’s largest energy companies, and created a telecommunications company in the first wave of the industry’s liberalization, before leading a complex nine-way merger and exiting to Saudi Arabia’s leading mobile operator. He also built one of the largest private school operators in the Kingdom and.  served as an early investor in the world’s largest online education company supporting the company’s expansion into MENA  through the launch of the  region’s first online school.

Similarly, at the BV Group, Kamal led the early identification of numerous greenfield and buy-and-build opportunities across real estate, technology, education and other areas in the US, Europe, and Asia. Key among these include the 2002 launch of a $1.0B property-focused real estate fund to acquire US government real estate and capitalize on the rapid growth in the size and scale of the federal government, investment in a credit research firm that was transformed into a market leader, seizing on the emergence of the tech industry and impact of increasing data on society, and investing early in a higher education company that has served millions of students in response to a growing need for high-quality and affordable university education globally.

Beyond making investments across his businesses into social-impact sectors for more than 20 years, Kamal is an education philanthropist. With an aim to giving children the best chance to succeed, he is dedicated to supporting early childhood development through his contributions to numerous initiatives and related organizations in the Middle East and globally. In 2022, he endowed the Bahamdan Professorship for Early Childhood Well-Being at Boston University, his alma matter, supporting greater research and innovation in the field, and serves on the Wheelock College of Education’s Dean’s Advisory Board.

He is also an active participant in global forums focused on enhancing quality and access to education including serving as a member of the B20 Taskforce on Education and Employment for both the 2020 G20 meeting in Saudi Arabia and 2021 meeting in Italy. Kamal is also a member of the Swedish-Saudi Business Council’s Education Committee.

In 2006, Kamal was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and holds a BSc in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University.

Ziad Dannaoui

Senior Partner

Ziad Dannaoui is a Senior Partner at Safanad and a member of the firm’s Investment and Executive Committees.

Prior to assuming his current role in 2016, Mr. Dannaoui served as the Head of Investments for Safanad and was responsible for overseeing all investment activities.. Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Dannaoui was the Head of Investments at Bahamdan Group and was previously a Managing Partner of a Middle East Law Firm.

Mr. Dannaoui holds an LL.M. degree from the James E. Rogers School of Law and an LL.B. degree from the Holy Spirit University School of Law.

Christopher Fazekas

Senior Partner, Head of Strategic Initiatives and Business Development

Christopher is responsible for leading all firm strategic initiatives and business development. Christopher has 20 years of investment, finance, operations, and legal experience. 

He most recently has spent the last three years investing in and supporting founders in the growth and technology space to help them institutionalize their businesses and lead their capital formation, strategy, and business development initiatives. Previously, Christopher spent ten years as a member of the leadership team, board member and investment committee member of the asset management subsidiary of one of the world’s largest investment companies, where he was a principal architect of the private equity, venture capital, hedge fund, credit, and emerging markets businesses of the firm, which now has over $20 billion in AUM. He serves as the Lead Director of XNRGY Climate Systems, a leading climate solutions provider for the mission critical industry and is also a Board Member of Element Critical, a co-location data center operator, and of GSM, a global school management platform. He also serves as a venture partner and advisor to several family offices, venture capital firms, early-stage companies, and entrepreneurs.

Faisal Rehman

Senior Partner and Head of Investments

Faisal Rehman is responsible for overseeing all global transaction activity and financing solutions for Safanad. Faisal is based in Dubai and spends significant time in our Riyadh, London, and New York offices. 

Faisal’s career spans 20 years at Deutsche Bank where he worked in the Sydney, London, Riyadh, and Dubai offices of the bank across Corporate Finance Advisory, Leveraged Finance, Equity & Debt Capital Markets and cross-asset class Securities Origination. Faisal was most recently Managing Partner at the Softbank Vision Fund, where he oversaw all MENA investments, global debt capital markets, and was a key transaction execution and structuring partner for Softbank. He serves on the Board of multiple US, UK and GCC technology companies. Faisal also serves on the Advisory Board of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy. He is a graduate of the LSE and a chartered account.

Saleh Romeih

Senior Partner and Global Managing Partner

Saleh Romeih has broad management responsibilities for the firm as Global Managing Partner, leads all capital formation activities of the firm, and chairs the firm’s operating partners group. He splits his time between the London, New York, Riyadh, and Dubai offices.

Saleh has over 30 years of experience, including in investment banking at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs and most recently as a Founding Partner at the Softbank Vision Fund. He remains a member of the Vision Fund 1 Investment Committee, and was head of the operating group (over 250 portfolios companies) and closely managed the firm’s strategic relationships in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He also served as a Board Member of SoftBank Investment Advisors. Saleh serves as a director and member of the executive committee of Beyon (Batelco) and is a member of the Board of Advisors of Georgetown McDonough School of Business. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and holds an MBA from The University of Pennsylvania. Saleh is a UK, French and Saudi national and fluent in Arabic, Japanese, French, and English.

Joseph Azrak

Chief Investment Officer

Joseph Azrack is Safanad’s Chief Investment Officer in addition to being a Board and Investment Committee Member. He brings over 30 years of real estate investment experience to the Safanad team.

Previously, Mr. Azrack was the Chairman and Managing Partner of Apollo Global Real Estate. Prior to joining Apollo, he was Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Citi Property Investors (“CPI”) where he chaired the firm’s Management and Investment Committees and directed investment policy and strategy. Prior to that, Mr. Azrack was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of AEW Capital Management, L.P., Founder and President of the AEW Partners Funds, Founder and Chairman of the Board of IXIS AEW Europe and a Member of the Board of Curzon Global Partners.

Mr. Azrack is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business where he has taught Real Estate Entrepreneurship since 2014 and is a member of the Real Estate Program Advisory Board. Mr. Azrack holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.Sc. degree from Villanova University.

Richard Cleaver

Chief Financial Officer

Richard Cleaver is Safanad’s Chief Financial Officer and a member of the firm’s Management Committee, based in New York. He is responsible for Safanad’s global finance, treasury, technology and operations functions.

Previously, Mr. Cleaver was CFO and an Investment Committee Member at Waypoint Residential, where he built out and led the Finance and IT teams.  Previously, Mr. Cleaver worked as Co-Founder of Verasite LLC, a data analytics platform for real estate investment vehicles.  He also worked at Ellington Management Group as the Controller of their REIT and commenced his career at Ernst & Young in Audit, focused on private equity funds, hedge funds, and fund of funds.

Mr. Cleaver holds a B.A. degree in Accounting from Western Connecticut State University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Jessica Crossfield

Vice President, Strategy

Jessica Crossfield is a Vice President, Strategy, based in Dubai, and part of the CEO Office. She supports the development and execution of Safanad’s strategy.

Prior to joining Safanad, Ms. Crossfield was a Consultant at Bain & Company in Dubai, in the firm’s education and energy practices, working on growth strategies for both private and public entities. Ms. Crossfield also has 4 years of experience with Chevron in Houston where she managed cross-functional teams to execute environmental projects across the US and APAC.

Ms. Crossfield holds a Master of Business Administration from London Business School in London, United Kingdom and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Sean Dailey

Chief Legal & Compliance Officer

Sean Dailey is Safanad’s Chief Legal Officer & Chief Compliance Officer and a member of the firm’s Management Committee, based in New York.

Prior to joining Safanad, he was Associate General Counsel, Vice President of Legal Affairs at a credit-focused asset manager in New York. He also worked in investment management groups at international law firms, primarily Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Mr. Dailey has advised funds and their managers and sponsors on an array of legal issues relating to their formation and operation, including compliance with the U.S. Investment Advisers Act, the U.S. Investment Company Act, and the rules and regulations of FINRA.

Mr. Dailey holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. from Dartmouth College, and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is admitted to the New York and Massachusetts bars and is qualified as a solicitor in England & Wales.

Adam Giansiracusa

Chief of Staff

Adam Giansiracusa is Safanad’s Chief of Staff, based in Dubai, reporting to the CEO. He helps lead strategic initiatives across the firm.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Giansiracusa was a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, in the firm’s real estate and private equity practices, focused on developing investment strategies for sovereign-linked entities, primarily in Saudi Arabia.  Mr. Giansiracusa also has 3 years of experience with Monitor Deloitte in Chicago and Dubai, where he led small teams focusing on economic development, real estate, and industrials across the Middle East and the US.

Mr. Giansiracusa holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (magna cum laude) from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Danny Jumblatt

Managing Director, Investments

Danny Jumblatt is a Managing Director, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for sourcing and executing investments across the US.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Jumblatt was on the Real Estate team at York Capital Management in New York where he was involved in evaluating and executing opportunistic real estate investments. He led diligence processes and managed relationships with general partners. Prior to York Capital Management, he was a Summer Associate within the Real Estate team at Fir Tree Partners in New York, and prior to this was an Investment Analyst at LEM Capital and an Associate at RCLCO.

Mr. Jumblatt holds an M.B.A. degree in Real Estate and Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in addition to a B.Sc. degree in Finance.

Conor Kelly

Associate, Investments

Conor Kelly is an Associate, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for executing and asset managing portfolio investments while supporting Safanad’s fundraising processes.

Previously, Mr. Kelly was an Associate at L.E.K. Consulting. While at L.E.K., he worked on several private equity due diligence and corporate strategy engagements across a range of industries. Prior to L.E.K., he was a Consultant at Simon-Kucher & Partners where he worked on growth strategy and price optimization for corporate clients.

Mr. Kelly holds a BSc in Management with concentrations in Finance and Computer Science from the Boston College Carroll School of Management.

Kathy Kim

Senior Associate, Investments

Kathy Kim is a Senior Associate, Investments, based in New York. She is responsible for executing and asset managing portfolio investments while supporting Safanad’s fundraising processes.

Prior to joining Safanad, Ms. Kim was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Healthcare Team at Jefferies LLC, New York.  Previously, she was an Investment Banking Analyst (Mergers and Acquisitions) at PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance, New York, and an Investment Banking Credit Risk Analyst at J.P. Morgan, New York.

Ms. Kim holds a B.Sc. in Applied Economics & Management and Information Science from the Charles H. Dyson School at Cornell University, New York.

John Loyer

Vice President, Finance

Mr. Loyer is a Vice President, Finance, based in New York. He is responsible for financial planning, analytics, and strategic operational projects.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Loyer was a Director of Asset Management at Mosser Capital, San Francisco where he managed a portfolio of investments as well as led the finance and business intelligence functions. He previously held roles in finance and real estate at national retailers where he specialized in underwriting and analytics.

Mr. Loyer holds a B.A. in Economics and Sociology from The College of New Jersey, where he graduated with Cum Laude honors.

Brad Matthews

Director, Human Resources

Brad Matthews is a Director, Human Resources, based in New York. He is responsible for managing all operational and organizational aspects of Human Resources for Safanad’s global employee population.

Previously, Mr. Matthews was the Senior Human Resources Business Partner at Franklin Templeton, where he provided strategic support and risk mitigation to multiple Franklin Templeton businesses including Alternative Assets, Investment Risk Management, Cyber Security and Mutual Series. Prior to Franklin Templeton, Mr. Matthews worked as the VP of Human Resources at K2 Advisors, a Fund of Hedge Funds financial firm in Stamford CT, until K2 was acquired by Franklin Templeton in 2013.

Mr. Matthews holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Classical Languages from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Christopher Morris

Director, Finance

Christopher Morris is a Director, Finance, based in New York. He is responsible for managing Safanad’s corporate finance team and participates in overseeing Safanad’s accounting standards and financial controls. 

He supports the management of business plans and financial strategies, the budget, financial statements, external audits, board presentations, and financial policies and procedures for Safanad.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Morris was a Corporate Controller at Strategic Value Partners in Greenwich, CT. He is experienced in managing the annual budget, external audit, financial reporting, and tax returns. Mr. Morris has over 25 years of finance and accounting experience and prior to Strategic Value Partners, held various roles at Citigroup and Arthur Andersen.

Mr. Morris holds an M.B.A. in Accounting from Pace University’s Lubin Graduate School of Business and a B.A. degree in Political Science from the State University of New York at Purchase.

Mitchell Oh

Director, Investments

Mitchell Oh is a Director, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for sourcing and executing investments across the US and the UK.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Oh was an Associate at Thomas H. Lee Partners in Boston, where he focused on investments in the Information Services, Media, and Technology sectors. Prior to that, Mr. Oh worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co in the Private Equity Group and the Merchant Banking Division.

Mr. Oh holds a B.A. degree, cum laude, in Mathematics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Phillip Pennell

Vice President, Investments

Phillip Pennell is a Vice President, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for executing and asset managing portfolio investments.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Pennell was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Aerospace, Defence & Industrials Group at Cowen and Company, New York, where he worked on a variety of transactions including both buy-side and sell-side M&A as well as financings.

Mr. Pennell holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Mathematics from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine.

Vincent Pica

Senior Advisor

Vincent Pica is a Senior Advisor, based in New York. Since joining Safanad in 2009, Mr. Pica has held various senior positions within the firm focused on its transaction efforts. He currently advises senior management with regards to several key firm initiatives.

Prior to Safanad, Mr. Pica was Managing Partner and President of ARC Global. Mr. Pica joined ARC Global through ARC’s acquisition of Neuwing Real Estate Ventures LLC, the successor firm to Longwing, a US $250 million real estate fund. Mr. Pica managed Longwing from late 2002 to May 2006 as its Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Mr. Pica was  Group President at Prudential Securities Inc. and a member of its Board of Directors.

Mr. Pica obtained his B.B.A. degree from Iona College and was awarded his M.Sc. degree in Business Policy from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Holly Power

Associate, Investments

Holly Power is an Associate, Investments, based in New York. She is responsible for executing and managing portfolio investments while supporting Safanad’s fundraising processes.

Prior to joining Safanad, Ms. Power was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at J.P. Morgan, where she worked on a variety of transactions including both buy-side and sell-side M&A.

Previously, she worked at Hamilton Lane on their Direct Equity team where she focused on private equity co-investments. Ms. Power holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Saif Rahman

Managing Director, Investments & CFO, Element Critical

Saif Rahman is a Managing Director, Investments and the Chief Financial Officer for Element Critical, based in New York. He is responsible for executing and managing transactions across the US. 

Saif brings over two decades of M&A, capital markets and public/private equity investing experience.

Most recently, Mr. Rahman served as Chief Financial Officer & Head of Investments for Argus Holdings, a Media & Technology-focused private equity investment platform seeking to invest in scaled businesses transitioning to a digital-first model. Previously, he served as CFO for Argus Capital Corp and Falcon Capital Acquisition Corp, special purpose acquisition companies focused on the Media, Technology & Health/Fitness sectors, where he led the investment identification & execution process.

Previously, Mr. Rahman spent over 15 years as a Media & Technology-focused merchant banker at AGM Partners, where he led the firm’s private equity advisory & investing activities. Mr. Rahman began his career in Salomon Smith Barney’s Mergers & Acquisitions group after graduating from Cornell University with a B.S.

Dr. John Rutledge

Chief Investment Strategist

Dr. John Rutledge is Safanad’s Chief Investment Strategist and a member of the Investment Committee.

Dr. Rutledge was one of the principal architects of the Reagan Economic Plan in 1980-81 and an adviser to the Bush White House on tax policy and Iraq. He has advised government leaders in China, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on economic, financial and investment issues. Currently, he is Senior Research Professor at Claremont Graduate University, focusing on monetary and financial economics and the causes of financial crises. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chief Advisor for Finance to the Governor of the Haidian district of Beijing.

Dr. Rutledge was granted the Beijing’s Great Wall Friendship Award in recognition of his role as a trusted advisor to China’s top officials. He is the author of three books and currently is the Economics Contributor to CNBC. He holds a B.A. degree from Lake Forest College and a PhD in economics from the University of Virginia.

Riley Solter

Senior Associate, Investments

Riley Solter is a Senior Associate, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for executing and asset managing portfolio investments while supporting Safanad’s fundraising processes.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Solter worked as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Real Estate, Lodging and Leisure Group at UBS in New York.  He also completed an internship with The World Bank Group, working on urban planning and financing initiatives in the MENA region, and spent a summer as a Transfer Pricing Analyst with Deloitte.

Mr. Solter holds a B.Sc. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, with a major in Global Business, where he graduated with Cum Laude honors.

Fouad Tabbara

Director, Investor Partners Group

Fouad Tabbara is a Director, Investor Partners Group, based in Dubai. He is responsible for developing and maintaining the firm’s key relationships in the MENA region.

Prior to joining Safanad, Mr. Tabbara was a Senior Vice President at Shuaa Capital where he focused on transactions in the logistics, hospitality, and real estate sectors. Prior to this, he accumulated significant capital market experience as Senior Investment Advisor at the Arab Finance Corporation. He has more than 22 years of investment management experience in the MENA region. Prior to joining Safanad,

Mr. Tabbara holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the American University of Beirut.

David Wall

Director, Investments

David Wall is a Director, Investments, based in New York. He is responsible for asset managing portfolio investments.

Previously, Mr. Wall was a Managing Director at the BV Group, where for 14 years he was engaged in the development of the BV Group’s private equity, real estate and hedge fund activities. Mr. Wall was responsible for due diligence, structuring and monitoring of both direct and fund investments. He also managed a number of strategic joint-venture relationships on behalf of the firm, and served in various operating roles in a number of the portfolio companies.

Mr. Wall holds a B.Sc. degree in Business Administration from the Boston University School of Management.