Khaled Al-Gazawi is the Chief Executive Officer of the First Microfinance Foundation – Egypt (FMF-E). Mr. Khaled has more than 11 years of experience in micro-finance, plus an extensive experience in banking, marketing, and business consultancy. Prior to joining FMF-E, Mr. Khaled served as the director of operations at Quality Finance International (QFI). Earlier in his career, he worked for FINCA International, in the capacity of the Greater Middle East Program Manager. He also founded and served as the CEO of the Jordan Micro Credit Company (Tamweelcom), the leading Jordanian Microfinance institution in Jordan. Prior to Tamweelcom, Mr. Khaled was the Director of Operations at CHF International in Jordan. Mr. Khaled is a certified Trainer in various fields of microfinance, such as business planning, delinquency management, interest rate setting, accounting, operational risks management and financial analysis. Khaled holds a PhD. degree in International Management from the University of Phoenix, and an MBA from the Yarmouk University in Jordan. He is fluent in Arabic and English.

Ms. Btissam joined MicroRate in 2009 as a bilingual rating analyst, she has more than 2 years experience in Microfinance working for a leading Moroccan MFI. She has conducted 10 performance and social ratings. She is in charge of MicroRate’s Operations in the MENA region.

Dominique Villeneuve is the PlaNet Finance Advisory Services expert. He is in charge of linking microfinance to national posts in order to promote financial inclusion. In 2009 he managed a research project on migrants’ expectations in terms of money transfers in the Euro-Mediterranean area with interviews of migrants in France, Italy & Spain and he is currently working on the formalization of the comparison of the different postal financial services models.

Mohammed Al-LAI joined Al-Amal Microfinance Bank in 2007 as Vice Chairman. He was Responsible for the establishment of the Bank as the first microfinance bank in the region. Before joining Al-Amal Microfinance Bank , He worked as Head of Small and Micro Enterprise Development Unit (SMED) at the Social Fund for Development-Yemen. He later became Deputy Governor for the Central Bank of Yemen on the banking supervision sector. He is now the CEO of Al-Amal Microfinance Bank .Mr. Al-Lai holds various board positions. He is Chairman of the board of the Yemen Microfinance network (YMN), and the acting board chairman of the Aden Microfinance Foundation. He also was a Member of the Board of Directors of Al-Awa’el Microfinance Company, the first microfinance company in Yemen. Mr. Allai has been closely associated with institutions that have played pioneering roles in microfinance locally and internationally. He has played a significant role in bringing the Yemeni Microfinance law to existence and on the establishment of the Yemen Microfinance Network (YMN). He attended and was a speaker on a number of local, regional and International Conferences, summits and seminars. Mr. Allai holds a master degree in International Banking and Finance from the John Moores University- Liverpool, UK.

Ashraf Nassif Used to work for the development projects of the Egyptian-German Technical Cooperation, carried out by GTZ for six years. In 2004, he joined the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in Egypt where he managed the micro-credit program and in 2005 spearheaded the successful transfer of operations form AKTC to the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) where he established and managed First Microfinance Foundation – Egypt. Asharf is currently the COO of First Microfinance Institution – Syria (the first regulated Social Financial Institution in the region.

Sherif Battisha is currently the Vice Chairman (Relations & External Affairs) and board member of Egypt Post. From October 2005 to August 2006 he occupied the position of Egypt Post Vice Chairman (Operations & Maintenance). From September 2000 to October 2005 he worked with The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) as the Trade Development Program Manager and Projects Manager (Trade & Industry Sectors). He was also appointed as the director of Trade Information Center from Nov.2001 to May 2003. Prior to Joining MCIT, Dr. Battisha was the area manager of MANCREW (1998-2000). He was also Head of Teaching Staff Affairs, Military Technical College (1998-1997), Chairman of Electrical Engineering Branch (1997-1998), Head of Aircraft Electronics Department (1996-1997), and Head of Training & Education Affair (1993-1996). Dr. Battisha took part in MCIT e-Business and e-Government workgroups, the committee on drafting electronic signature and e-commerce. He is x-chairman of the Egyptian Company for Electronic Services (ECES) and board member of many companies. He is a member in the Society of Future Engineers, Egyptian Association for Design & Technology Development and Arab Management Association. Dr. Battisha received a B.Sc. in Aircraft Electronic Engineering (Distinction with honor), Diploma in Control Engineering and an M.Sc. in Digital Control from Military Technical College (Egypt – 1972, 74 & 76), and a Ph.D. in Automation & Information Engineering from University of Paris XI –Orsay (France – 1981). He held research positions at UMIST (England), ESE (France) and other prestigious research centers and institutes.