CLE - China Language Education

University of Cambridge

Cambridge Judge Business School

CFA Institute

London School of Economics and Political Science

Fin  -  Tech  -  Business  -  Leadership  -  Asia / 中国

Singapore

Hyphen Group is a leading fintech company in Greater Southeast Asia, reaching over 10 million people per month and working with more than 220 financial institutions across six markets including Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Our portfolio includes the leading personal finance marketplaces in Asia focusing on personal banking, wealth management and investments (including crypto), as well as a large, proprietary B2B2C technology network connecting financial institutions to affiliates.

Report directly to the CCO/President and jointly responsible for Group P&L

-  Oversight of overall group revenue targets, strategic sales processes, account level profitability, sales incentives and KPIs across Asia

-  Hiring of key strategic commercially related hires (e.g. Heads of Commercial)

-  Management of all technology and data / analysis initiatives related to commercial (CRM, sales enablement, operational metrics)

-  Help oversee senior C-level or Regional Head level relationships with financial services firms

-  Help structure and deliver commercial related training and ongoing learning initiatives for sales enablement, leadership and management

-  Strategy and product development with respect to new business / growth initiatives

-  Oversight of commercial elements related to M&A and strategic projects

-  Help oversee overall business management (incluing setting North Star Metrics, Leading Indicators, OKRs)

-  Oversight of analytical frameworks to identify relevant industry trends, provider/user insights and the detemination of how that can be translated into actionable business outcomes

-  Creation from scratch of a regional, multi-disciplinary and diverse team to oversee these outcomes

Hyphen Group

Head Of Commercial Strategy & Operations

Insights on the intersection of tech, business, finance and culture globally, and in Asia / China. Read/subscribe here: <a href="https://ucintelligence.substack.com/">https://ucintelligence.substack.com/</a>

Open for consulting on financial management, operations, go-to-market, strategy, capital markets as it applies to technology generally and tech companies specifically.

UC Intelligence

Writer / Consultant

One of the largest mobility technology companies in India. Pioneered the model of allowing consumers to buy and rent vehicles using an online platform.

Worked directly with the founders of Zoom to optimize all aspects of business strategy (operational, marketing, finance) at the early stage of the venture. Helped raise and syndicate initial seed rounds.

Zoomcar

Investor, Ex Board of Advisors

CareListings is a US elderly care focused technology company on a mission to completely remove all obstacles that families and providers face in achieving the best senior care. Carelistings has created an online platform that connects over 10,000 caregivers and millions of people in the US with over 150,000 elder care facilities nationwide. Worked on a consulting basis on evenings (London time) and weekends so as not to compromise my Issufy responsibilities.

-  Assisted in the due diligence and vetting of investors for private equity fundraising. Oversaw the creation of specific strategies and target investment engagement roadmap.

-  Created investor materials and associated documentation/decks.

-  Provide guidance on deal structure and creation.

-  Reviewed and provided guidance on effective financial and operational investor financial modelling.

-  Reviewed company-wide operating plans, key performance indicators (“KPIs”) and objective and key results (“OKRs”), aligning capital investment requirements with business strategy and revenue generation.

-  Coached chief executive officer on engaging with accredited investors, including role-play and scenario planning.

-  Providing oversight on overall deal structuring.

Currently an advisor for the company.

CareListings

Interim Chief Financial Officer

Issufy is a capital markets infrastructure provider offering banks, advisory firms and corporates an end-to-end cloud native software platform to improve overall information management around primary capital markets transactions and generate more detailed investor engagement data (>5x improvement in information quality) to achieve better execution outcomes. Achieved production deployment in institutional offerings and revenue generation.

-  Responsible for setting firm strategy, technology strategy, key hiring and people management, business planning, pricing strategy and critical client acquisition. Built and oversaw offices in London and Pakistan with a total staff count of 30 at the peak. Raised private equity financing

-  Established and oversee all levels of operational, legal infrastructure and KPIs / metrics for all aspects of Issufy

-  Oversee all aspects and stages of product development, from software architecting, to design and execution of all technology

-  Built relationships with leadership of 50+ banks, advisory firms, sponsors and exchanges to create a strategic sales pipeline

-  Led engagement with the Financial Conduct Authority (UK) from inception through to acceptance into the world’s first ever Regulatory Sandbox. Accepted into the Accenture Fintech Lab 2018 and worked with over 30 partner global and regional i-banks, insurance companies and asset managers.

-  Managed stakeholder relationships in Asia (SFC, SGX)

-  Went from conception to revenue generation with operational resilience (ISO 27001 certification and EU Horizon 2020 Seal of Excellence)

Use cases include:
-  Initial Public Offerings
-  Rights Issues
-  Marketed Follow On Offerings
-  High Yield Debt Issuance
-  Leveraged Loan Syndication
-  Emerging Markets Debt Issuance
-  Private Capital Raises
-  Security Token Offerings
-  Management of Non Deal Roadshows / Corporate Broking
-  Investor engagement around secondary research distribution (e.g. thematic pieces, sector reports, initiations)

Issufy

Founder & CEO

- Led the generation of best ideas and portfolio strategy across cash equities (detailed single stock analysis, long/short, index), derivatives (single stock, index, exotics), thematic opportunities and looked across asset classes in the CEEMEA region for cross asset investment opportunities

-  Analysed investment situations across other asset classes (rates, fixed income, FX) and look at relative value to equities

-  Integrated thought leadership from across GEMs (global emerging markets)

-  Built Citi's presence across top tier global asset managers across all investor types

Citi

Head of Emerging Markets Equity Trading Strategy

- Chosen to advise leading Indonesian, Singaporean and Malaysian ultra high net worth private clients and family offices on overall portfolio management and investment strategy, across all asset classes (equities, fixed income, FX, alternative assets in both cash and derivatives form) on a global basis along with broader relationship management for assets, liabilities and succession planning

-  Built a significant pipeline of potential new clients through actively pursuing client acquisition strategies

-  Built a strong professional advisory network in Asia (lawyers, bankers, accountants, sovereign related)

-  Generated significant insight into corporate decision making and strategy given the nature of the client base (leading business owners and C-level corporate executives across different industries, whose companies have assets across Asia and other Emerging Markets)

-  Collaborated with J.P. Morgan Investment Bank and J.P. Morgan Private Equity to help develop corporate solutions for clients. These included strategic asset sales, debt and equity financing, investor relations and ECM advisory

J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Portfolio Manager (Private Wealth Management)

Focused on international strategy, marketing and organisational development with a view of complementing my international finance and investing background.

MBA Candidate

Lived in Beijing studying Chinese Mandarin full time (6+ hours of 1-1 or 1-3 group classes daily and living with a non English speaking Chinese family) - achieved business level proficiency (see education section)

Consulted with a London based startup called Growth Intelligence (at the time), a boutique research provider to the VC community, providing corporate strategy and product development strategy advice to the CEO.

Consulted with a private language school in Beijing on financing strategy.

Private Initiatives

Studying Chinese Mandarin in China / Consulting

- Used fundamental, strategic and technical analysis to generate and implement single stock investment ideas within the universe of investable equities across Emerging Markets for Citi's principal capital and institutional client facilitation risk portfolio. Key sectors: financials, TMT, consumer, metals and mining, oil and gas, real estate. Worked with 2 Managing Directors to oversee portfolio.

-  Led integration of analysis and idea generation across different asset classes and teams in EM: credit, FX, Local Rates Markets and Commodities strategy and research. Fully proficient with detailed DCF, economic profit analysis, comparable companies analysis, operating models, merger modelling. Travelled extensively within Europe, Russia, Turkey, Middle East, Africa and Asia interacting with senior executives at potential investments and key firm-wide clients

-  Worked with head of desks globally (e.g. technology, quantitative research) to generate and deliver new products for the business such as an Emerging Markets Pairs Trading product.

-  Appointed to the global steering committee with Palantir Technologies to optimize their product for global internal rollout.

-  Mandated by the Head of Emerging Markets to lead an internal consulting project analyzing ‘The Future of Investment Banking, Advisory and Asset Management in EM’

-  Founding member and Co-Chair of Citi's Volunteer Council - coordinating and strategically developing Citi's London based philanthropic and volunteering activities in association with the Citi Foundation.

-  Led the development of Citi’s first Emerging Markets acquisition transaction case study for recruiting in the UK – presented at the LSE, Oxford University and Imperial College.

Emerging Markets (CEEMEA) Principal Strategies

- Co-managed the London based CEEMEA (Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) sales team from Apr 2009 to Oct 2009. Jointly responsible for client strategy, interviewing and conducting strategic senior hires such as MENA specialist sales for Dubai, CEEMEA senior sales to augment the team in London, Turkey specialist sales as well as senior analysts.

-  Took control of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) international equity sales product within two months of joining. Developed into a top 5 ranked business in 1 year. Modelled specific companies such as Commercial Bank of Qatar, National Industries Group (Kuwait) from an investing perspective.

-  Deal captained IPOs such as Jordan’s privatization of Royal Jordanian Airlines. Worked on Uralkali ($1bn+) IPO, Naspers ($1bn+) secondary and VTB (largest Russian IPO in history).

-  Advised a wide range of top tier long only and hedge fund (multiple equity strategies) clients in London, Frankfurt, Holland and Singapore.

-  Ran successful, significantly positive alpha MENA hedge fund client long/short equity model portfolio for one of the UK's largest hedge funds, which was used for actual investing decisions.

-  Travelled extensively (c50% of working time) within Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Gulf to gain access to senior management, as well as travelling to meet with clients within Europe.

-  Mentored junior analysts and interns, heavily involved in graduate recruitment and strategic development.

Nawaz Imam, CFA