Barclays/Barclaycard

John Vitalo 

Chief Executive Officer, Middle East & North Africa for Barclays PLC

John Vitalo is the Chief Executive Officer of Barclays in the Middle East and North Africa, comprising Barclays Capital, Barclays Wealth and Barclays Corporate.

Mr. Vitalo is based in Dubai. He was Chief Executive Officer of Absa Capital, Barclays Capital’s affiliate in South Africa, from 2005 to 2009. In 2008 he also took on responsibility for Absa Wealth’s South African operations. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer for Barclays Investment Banking and Investment Management in the Middle East in May 2009.

Prior to moving to Absa Capital, in 2005, Mr. Vitalo was based in London as a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Barclays Capital’s Rates businesses, covering Fixed Income Derivatives and Government Bond Trading, Foreign Exchange, Commodities, Money Markets, Equity-linked Products, Emerging Markets and Collateralised Finance. Before that he was Chief Operating Officer of Emerging Markets.

Mr. Vitalo joined Barclays in 2002 from Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, where he held a number of senior positions including Director of e-Commerce for Emerging Markets, Proprietary Trader for the Emerging Markets Group, Global Head of the Emerging Markets Structured Financing & Repo Desk and Head of the Emerging Markets Fixed Income Arbitrage Desk. He began his tenure at CSFB in Debt Capital Markets.

Prior to CSFB he worked in Mergers & Acquisitions at Gleacher & Co. and in private equity at Morgan Stanley, both in New York. His career as an investment banker started when he was selected to participate in the Morgan Stanley graduate training programme.

Mr. Vitalo has a Bachelor of Sciences degree summa cum laude in Business Administration from Georgetown University in Washington DC. He graduated in 1990.

Rezwan Mirza

Managing Director

Head of Corporate Coverage Barclays, UAE & GCC

Rezwan Mirza is the Head of Corporate Coverage for Barclays for the UAE and GCC.

Rezwan is responsible for driving the corporate banking business in the Gulf region and providing the best solutions to our clients by leveraging the overall capabilities of the Barclays Group to serve the corporate client base. Rezwan was Head of Debt Finance for Barclays in the Gulf region; a role he continues to be responsible for in a temporary capacity.

Prior to this Rezwan was a Director with Barclays Capital in the Dubai office. Rezwan’s responsibilities included client coverage and business origination across the GCC region. His client base included a number of the Sovereign Wealth Funds as well as other government related entities responsible for developing various sectors of the economy in these markets. During this time, Rezwan worked closely with Barclays team of corporate bankers to ensure that their clients were provided investment banking coverage.

Before joining Barclays, Rezwan was an Executive Director in the Investment Banking Division at UBS in New York. Rezwan’s transaction and advisory experience includes a variety of public and private equity financings, bank and bond debt origination, corporate restructurings, M&A and risk management.

Rezwan started his career with Ernst & Young in Houston and is a Certified Public Accountant.  Rezwan has a B.A. in Economics and a Masters in Accounting from Rice University, Houston and a MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago.

Venkatesh Srikantan

Head of Consumer Bank

Barclays UAE

Venky joined Barclays in August 2010 and has overall responsibility for Barclays’ retail strategy in the UAE.

Venky joined Barclays from HSBC where he held the position of Head of Retail from 2007 to 2010 across eight countries in the Middle East. Prior to HSBC Venky was with Citibank for 13 years where he held a number of roles across India, Indonesia, Poland and the Middle East. Venky has extensive experience of building franchises with assignments ranging from building a wealth business in India, an insurance business in Poland, to launching consumer banking in Algeria and Kuwait.

Rory Gilbert

Head of Middle East and North Africa, International Private Bank EMEA

Rory Gilbert is Managing Director and Head of Middle East and North Africa for Barclays Wealth, based in Dubai. He joined Barclays Wealth in 2007.

Prior to this, Rory was at UBS where he spent five years as a client adviser and team leader, most recently managing a team of investment professionals in UBS’s London-based high net worth business.

Before joining UBS, Rory worked at Goldman Sachs. He has also served as an officer in the British Army’s Parachute Regiment.

Rory has a degree from BristolUniversity in Biochemistry and Physiology and an MBA from London Business School.

Makram Azar

Vice Chairman, Investment Banking

Makram Azar is Vice Chairman of Barclays Capital, responsible for EMEA activities.
In addition, he is a Managing Director and Senior Relationship Banker Europe, Middle East and North Africa and Head of Investment Banking, Middle East and North Africa at Barclays Capital. 
 
Mr Azar joined Barclays Capital in September 2010 from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co ('KKR') where he was Managing Director and Head of Middle East and North Africa.
 
Prior to joining KKR, Mr Azar had spent 18 years at Lehman Brothers, latterly as Managing Director, Global Head of Sovereign Wealth Funds and Chairman of Media Investment Banking for Europe & the Middle-East.  Previously he led the Media, Consumer & Retail Investment Banking businesses of Lehman Brothers in Europe & Middle-East, based in London.
 
Mr Azar holds a Master's Degree in Management and Finance from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris and a BA in Applied Economics from the University Paris-IX Dauphine.