Events

Fahad Alturki, Vice President of Research, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC)

Dr. Fahad Alturki is Vice President of Research at King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC). In this role he oversees KAPSARC’s research programs and priorities, ensuring that these are strategically focused on impacts within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both regionally and globally. Dr. Fahad interacts with key stakeholder groups within the Kingdom and internationally, in the private, academic, and government sectors. Moreover, he is responsible for setting the overall directions and parameters for collaboration with KAPSARC’s partners and affiliates.

Externally, Dr. Fahad is an independent board member of the General Authority of Statistics Board of Directors and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD). He frequently presents papers at a number of high profile local, regional, and international conferences, participates in roundtable discussions and is a well-known media figure in Saudi Arabia and overseas.

Prior to joining KAPSARC, Dr. Fahad was the chief economist and head of research at Jadwa Investment Company in Riyadh, where he managed the economic research department and published regular reports on issues related to the Saudi and global economies and the world oil market. He was also the chairperson of the Public Funds Board, a board member of the Jadwa REIT Al Haramain Fund and Jadwa REIT Saudi Fund, and a member of Jadwa’s executive management committee.

Dr. Fahad has a proven track record in economics, with more than 20 years of experience in the field. Before joining Jadwa, Dr Fahad was the chief economist at Barclays, Saudi Arabia. Prior to his time at Barclays, Dr. Fahad was an economic specialist at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, where he worked for 11 years in the Economic Research and Statistics Department. Dr. Fahad has also worked as an economist at the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund.

Dr. Fahad holds a B.A. in Business Administration from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Oregon (Eugene, United States).

Rym Ayadi, President, Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association and Professor at the Business School, City University of London

Professor Rym Ayadi is Professor at CASS Business School, Member of the Centre for Banking Research (CBR) at the City University in London, U.K. and Associated Scholar at the Centre for Relationship Banking and Economics (CERBE) at LUMSA University in Rome. She is the Founder and President of the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), Founder and Scientific Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Network for Economic Studies (EMNES). She is Senior Advisor at the Economic Policy Unit of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

She is Academic Member of several high-level expert groups including the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC), the European Banking Authority (EBA) Banking Stakeholders Group (BSG) of which she was elected Chair in February 2019, the European Commission’s Financial Services Users Group (FSUG), the European Parliament – Economic and Financial Committee and Committee on Foreign Affairs (EP Think Tank), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), and an invited expert in international organisations including OECD and IMF, among others. She is also member of Finance Watch (FW) a Brussels-based NGO that strives to make finance serve the society since its set-up. She is also the Founder and Co-chair of International Workshop on Financial System Architecture and Stability (IWFSAS), an Annual Conference that provides a forum for academic researchers, practitioners and policy makers to discuss current issues related to the structure and design of financial systems and their impact on macro-financial stability and sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

Rym’s fields of expertise include international financial systems, financial markets and institutions, global financial regulation, governance and consumer protection in finance, and socio-economic development and foresight in economies in transition. Her current research focuses on the redesign of a global stable, sustainable and inclusive financial system that better serves economic and societal long-term objectives and with a particular emphasis on the diversity of corporate and business models, private-public partnerships and the conditions for their success, SME financing and the role of financial markets to achieve developmental objectives and the impacts on business models in finance and role of financial regulation and resolution and impacts on incentives in the financial market. Rym works on economies in transition, policy development and foresight.

Previously, 2013-2018, Rym served as Professor of International Business and Finance at the Department of International Business, as Director and Board Member of the Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins Institute for Cooperatives, and Founding Director of the International Research Centre on Cooperative Finance (IRCCF) at HEC Montreal, Canada; as Senior Research Advisor at the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) (2015-2019) in Piran, Slovenia; and 2001-2013 as Senior Research Fellow and Head of Research of the Financial Institutions Unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a policy think tank in Brussels.

She served as an academic senior expert member of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) Stakeholder Group (Between 2011 and 2013). She was the promoter and director of the Mediterranean Prospects Research Network (MEDPRO) an international research network for foresight analysis in the Euro-Mediterranean region (Between 2009 and 2013) funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the EU. She was also Vice President of the European Financial Inclusion Network (EFIN), a European network that promotes mutual learning on financial inclusion which currently part of Finance Watch.

She authors several books and scholarly articles on her areas of expertise and is member of several editorial boards. Rym Ayadi holds a Ph.D. in Economics and Finance from University Paris Dauphine.

Mina Baliamoune, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South

Biography

Gerardo Traslosheros, Associate, Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI)

He is currently Executive Director of PECC México and Managing Partner at SCS Consulting. He is an academic and a columnist. He was Ambassador of Mexico in New Zealand and Consul General of Mexico in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was Minister in the Representation of Mexico before the OECD. He worked as a Professor and Researcher at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus. He was Technical Secretary of the Process for Strengthening the Regulatory Framework for Competitiveness of the Ministry of Economy and the OECD. In the Ministry of Economy, he was Director General of Multilateral and Asian Affairs, where he coordinated the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico and Japan, the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico and Israel, and was President of the Meeting of Senior Officials of APEC in 2002 when Mexico was the host of said organization. He participated in the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol and the Cartagena Protocol, both on environmental matters. He was a member of the negotiating team for the North American Free Trade Agreement and various trade agreements with Latin America.