Dubai: amana, the leading online trading specialists in the MENA region, today announced the appointment of Haris Loucaides as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of amana. He succeeds Mr. Mazen Yazbeck after the latter’s untimely passing.Muhammad Rasoul, CEO at amana, said: "I am pleased to announce the appointment of Haris Loucaides as our new Chief Financial Officer. Haris combines six years of financial consulting experience in senior advisory roles with executive roles specifically in the financial services sector across Europe. Haris will play a pivotal role in transforming our financial strategies and driving excellence in our operations. We are excited to have Haris join our team, and we are confident that his leadership skills will contribute to the growth and innovation of our company as we prepare to scale further in 2024."As the new CFO of amana, Haris’s focus will be on implementing tools and mechanisms within the finance team that will enable amana to grow. His approach includes integrating new technology and optimizing team dynamics for enhanced performance."Finance is a dynamic field that underpins the success of any enterprise," says Haris. "I’m enthusiastic about the fast-paced nature of the markets and committed to driving financial excellence. I am perfectly aligned with amana’s transparency principle, I am honored to be part of amana's journey and look forward to contributing to the growth and innovation of the company."Loucaides brings with him a wealth of experience in the finance sector. He began his finance career in London, having studied at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Haris later joined PwC in Cyprus, where he spent six years advising on IPOs as well as conducting statutory audits of companies offering CFDs, holding companies and investment funds, before moving on to hold executive roles in multiple companies. His tenure as Group CFO at FxPro further honed his skills and prepared him for the complexities and dynamics of the industry. Haris is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. His expertise, enthusiasm, and transformative leadership skills will play an instrumental role in supporting amana through its next phase of growth.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Armonk, NY: Today, Riyadh Air and IBM announced the signing of a strategic agreement in which IBM Consulting will be the lead systems integrator to support creating, building and orchestrating the technology foundation that can help the digitally native airline to offer exceptional and seamless travel experiences.Together, Riyadh Air and IBM Consulting have already created the airline’s digital and technology strategy. Now, Riyadh Air has selected IBM Consulting to support building the key business and technology capabilities that underpin the strategy. That includes implementing and integrating more than 50 airline industry solutions and core technology capabilities, including security, infrastructure, integration and data platforms, using a hybrid cloud approach. IBM will also orchestrate the work of over 40 partners by providing program and technical governance, project management, quality assurance, change and communications management and training.The collaboration is expected to help position Riyadh Air strategically within the broader ecosystem to offer digital innovations and exceptional experiences for travelers and guests. Riyadh Air aims to create a world class airline with personalized and seamless guest experience powered by AI and state of the art digital technology, taking obsessive care for details that create memorable micro-moments across the traveler journey. It also includes empowering employees with data-driven insights and new ways of working to help Riyadh Air better serve their guests."Our ambition is to launch our first flight in 2025 and put Riyadh Air at the cutting edge of digital technology and innovation within the aviation industry, adopting the best international sustainability and safety practices to deliver an exceptional travel experience, for our guests locally and internationally," said Adam Boukadida, Chief Financial Officer, Riyadh Air. "IBM Consulting will be our principal partner driving us towards our vision with their deep expertise in managing large complex systems and integration programs as well as their expertise in the travel industry.""We're proud to be Riyadh Air's partner and help them bring this new era of the Kingdom's aviation industry to life," said John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. "A technology foundation built with an open, hybrid cloud approach and AI can help them achieve the flexibility and agility needed to support their goal of delivering an exceptional travel experience for their guests."IBM Consulting will also establish and maintain Riyadh Air's hybrid cloud integration platform. With IBM CloudPak for Integration and Red Hat OpenShift, this platform will provide integration tools to connect applications and data within a unified and simple user experience.Riyadh Air's digital and technology strategy supports its mission and is aligned to the Kingdom's Vision 2030 to lead the aviation industry by transforming Saudi Arabia, given its unique strategic location, into a global aviation and trade hub.IBM Consulting helps accelerate business transformation for our clients through hybrid cloud and AI technologies, leveraging our open ecosystem of partners. With deep industry and business expertise spanning strategy, experience design, technology, and operations, we have become a trusted partner to the world's most innovative and valuable companies, helping them modernize and secure their most complex systems. Our 160,000 consultants embrace an open way of working and apply our proven co-creation method, IBM Garage, to scale ideas into outcomes. As the only major global systems integrator inside a technology company, we don't just advise -- we invent and build what's next together with our clients. Find out more at IBM.com/consulting.

Waha Capital PJSC, an Abu Dhabi-listed investment management company, has appointed Mark Benn as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mr. Benn joined the company from Safanad, a Dubai and New York-based private equity firm.Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, Chairman of Waha Capital, said: “We are pleased to welcome Mark Benn to Waha Capital as the new Chief Financial Officer. Mark brings a wealth of financial expertise to the Company and I am confident that he will add immense value to the growth and success of Waha Capital. I look forward to working with Mark and the rest of the management team to achieve our strategic goals for 2023.”Having joined Safanad at its inception in 2008, Mr. Benn played a key role in its strategy development, capital raising and asset management operations, serving as CFO for over a decade. Mr. Benn previously held senior executive roles in Europe and is a chartered accountant, having qualified with Deloitte.

Collinson has today announced the board appointment of Jon Holmes as its new Chief Financial Officer. Jon comes to Collinson with more than 20 years financial and operations experience, including at travel companies such as Avios, TUI and Virgin Holidays.In his role as Chief Financial Officer, Jon will oversee all of Collinson’s financial teams from across the globe, with the aim of driving better financial global insights. He’ll work closely with, and report into, Joint CEO Christopher Evans, providing the overall financial governance to the group to support rapid growth, increased innovation, and the creation of new commercial models.Jon brings to Collinson a wealth of experience leading finance teams at some of the travel industry’s biggest companies. His previous roles include Head of Finance at AirMiles (now Avios/IAG Loyalty), Head of Finance at TUI, Finance and Strategy Director at Virgin Holidays and most recently CFO at INTO University Partnerships, a privately owned business recruiting international students globally into the US, UK and Australia. After gaining a First-Class degree in Engineering from the University of Nottingham, Jon trained with PWC and KPMG and has been a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants since 2012.“Jon's strong international experience and travel and loyalty experience, coupled with his track record in optimising business performance and platform transformation, means he is ideally placed to lead our finance teams and help deliver our strategic objectives and realise our full potential,” said Christopher Evans, Joint CEO, Collinson. “We know Jon will make a big shift in the way we capture, analyse and use financial information, giving us better insights that will drive faster and enhanced decision making, in what is a very dynamic environment as we accelerate out of the pandemic.” Over more than seven years with INTO, Jon helped the business to expand globally and triple profitability within five years. He also led the securing of major new bank financing and the group’s Covid-19 financial response planning to safely navigate through the pandemic. During his 10 years with Virgin Holidays, Jon led a number of initiatives which saw the company achieve record profits, launch V-ROOM airport lounges, and open over 100 new retail stores, as well as leading its push to replace all major systems."It’s a really exciting time to be joining Collinson. The travel industry is rapidly ramping back up, and now is the time to see what the company can be doing to even further improve travel experiences for its customers,” added Jon. “I’ve always enjoyed working in growing entrepreneurial businesses which have a strong focus both on their clients and their own people. Collinson is truly a people-led business, and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can evolve our propositions to help people really love their journeys again at this time.”