Join Moody’s analysts and industry experts as they discuss the rapid growth of Islamic finance in this series. Discover how the pandemic has changed the Islamic finance market, the potential of and challenges facing new sovereign sukuk issuers, and how regulations are changing the landscape for takaful
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Nitish Bhojnagarwala is a Senior Vice President/Manager with Moody’s Financial Institutions Group. Based in Dubai, Nitish covers a portfolio of large conventional as well as Islamic financial institutions in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
Nitish joined Moody’s in 2011, and has led sukuk roundtables and conducted workshops on Banking and Islamic finance at various conferences in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Nitish has also authored several research pieces, with a focus on regional banking, credit issues and issuer-in-depths for conventional as well as Islamic banks.
Prior to joining Moody’s, Nitish spent five years at Tamweel in the Treasury function. He has also worked for KPMG in the UAE, where he covered financial institutions. Nitish holds an MBA from S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, with a major in Finance (Investment Banking).

Ashraf Madani is a Vice President – Senior Analyst with Moody’s Financial Institutions Group. Based in Dubai, Ashraf covers a portfolio of large conventional as well as Islamic financial institutions in GCC. He is also responsible for the Saudi and Bahrain Banking system outlooks. Since Joining Moody’s in May 2017, Ashraf has authored many research pieces focusing on GCC credit, funding and liquidity conditions in addition to issuer in depth research. Before joining Moody’s in May 2017, Ashraf’s Career has been mostly in banking with 15+ years of experience working in international and regional banks like Citi, Arab Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank. He spent most of his banking career working in the global markets and risk divisions where he developed extensive knowledge on GCC markets. His last position before joining Moody’s has been the Head of FIs and NBFIs Risk for National Bank of Abu Dhabi (FAB now) managing the credit risk for a large portfolio of GCC and international issuers.

Henry MacNevin, who is based in London, is currently an Associate Managing Director responsible for bank ratings in the Middle-East, South-Eastern Europe and Turkey, and is also responsible for Moody’s global Islamic Finance initiatives. Mr MacNevin joined Moody’s London-based banking team in October 1996, initially as lead analyst for bank in Italy, the United Kingdom, the Nordic region, Belgium, Luxembourg and Hungary, and has also worked as a backup analyst for other banking systems, principally in Europe. He was also previously responsible Associate Managing Director for Moody’s bank ratings in Italy and the CEE region and was the Country Manager for Moody’s in Italy for several years.
Mr. MacNevin’s previous banking experience includes seven years with the Barclaysgroup, where he held positions in strategic planning, corporate banking, and credit risk management.Mr. MacNevin earned a B.A. (Hons) in Business Studies from PortsmouthPolytechnic in the United Kingdom
Tengfu Li is an Assistant Vice President – Analyst with Moody’s Financial Institutions Group.
Based in Singapore, he is responsible for the credit ratings of financial institutions in Indonesia and Malaysia. Prior to Moody’s, Tengfu worked at OCBC Bank, where he developed credit risk models.
Tengfu holds a MSc in Accountancy from Nanyang Technological University, and a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore.

Vanessa is a Vice President – Senior Credit Officer in the Funds & Asset Management group, based in Paris. She joined Moody’s in 1998. She is Team Leader in EMEA and Asia Pacific, responsible for analysing and rating:» money market and bond mutual funds;» the credit and the management quality of asset management companies. Vanessa is also responsible for coordinating fund monitoring globally. She is also a member of the Moody’s EMEA Environmental, Social and Governance(ESG) working group. Vanessa holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance from University Laval of Quebec, Canada and is also a graduate from EDHEC (Ecole de HautesEtudes Commerciales du Nord), a French Business School. She holds a SFAF diploma (i.e. the French equivalent to the CFA).

Mohammed Ali Londe is an Vice President – Senior Analyst within Moody’s Insurance Group, based in Dubai. He is responsible for Moody’s insurance ratings in the Middle East. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2013, Mohammed worked in the Planning and Performance Management department of Zurich International Middle East. Mohammed’s past experience also includes working with Chartis Middle East (AIG) and as an auditor, within the insurance department of Deloitte Bermuda where along with performing numerous insurance and reinsurance audits, he was seconded to work with Endurance Specialty Insurance Ltd.Mohammed Ali holds a BSc from Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Sean Marion heads up Moody’s EMEA Structured Finance Group, based in London. He is responsible for overseeing both primary issuance and surveillance functions for Consumer Assets, Corporate Assets and Covered Bonds, with teams based in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid and Milan.
Prior to joining the Structured Finance Group he was a London-based Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Group, responsible for ratings coverage in the Nordics, Baltics, South-Eastern Europe and emerging markets in the Middle East and Africa.
Before relocating to London in 2011, Mr. Marion held various positions of progressive responsibility in Moody’s, including working in the firm’s offices in Mexico City and Toronto. Before joining Moody’s, Mr. Marion worked for The Economist Intelligence Unit, conducting research on macroeconomic and country risk. Mr. Marion holds graduate degrees in economics from the Université Paris I (Sorbonne) and the London School of Economics. He also holds an undergraduate degree from Bishop’s University, Canada. Mr. Marion is fluent in French and Spanish.

Wahida Mohamed is the founder of The Islamic Fintech Hub of Sub Saharan Africa that is looking to ethically and in a participatory manner disrupt the regions’ Fintech industry.
She has participated in various Islamic Financial Capability and Inclusion Studies undertaken in Kenya, Sudan and Comoros by the Islamic Research Training Institute - the research arm of The Islamic Development Bank. Wahida has also contributed to the Kenya Bankers Association Working Paper Series via a study that explored Kenya’s prospects of using Islamic Banking for economic infrastructure development.
Wahida completed her undergraduate Statistics degree from Egerton University, holds Masters in Monitoring and Evaluation from Maseno University as well as a Post Graduate Certificate in Business Administration from The University of Manchester. She is an alumna of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Her research focus being the application of Machine Learning/Data Mining techniques in the classification of IslamicFinance Sharia Standards.

Alexander Perjéssy is Vice President – Senior Credit Officer at the Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group.
Based in Dubai, he has lead analyst responsibilities for a number of sovereigns in the Middle East, including most of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states and several regional multilateral institutions.
Prior to joining Moody’s in November 2017, Alex worked for two years as economist at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Before relocating to the Middle East, Alex spent more than 12 years covering macroeconomic developments and sovereign risk assessment in the emerging markets of the EMEA region for AllianceBernstein and The Rohatyn Group, both US-based asset management firms in New York, as well as for Goldman Sachs in London.
Alex holds an MA in Economics from the University of Maryland and a BA in Economics from Middlebury College.

Aurélien Mali is currently Vice President Senior Credit Officer. He acts as the firm’s expert in Africa. His position is a combined lead analyst and analytical outreach/credit ambassador role. As a member of the Sovereign Risk Group since August 2002, he was involved in Moody’s sovereign ratings in Europe and the Middle East at the beginning of his career. Over the last 8 years, he has been at the forefront of Moody’s growing footprint in Africa. He has been sovereign lead or backup analyst for almost all sovereign issuers and multilateral development banks we rate in Africa. Aurelien was relocated to our Dubai office early 2013 from our London office. Aurelien manages a research programme that supports the development of Moody’s reputation for analytical insight and excellence. He also assumes a greater role in participating in regular Moody’s and third-party conferences on the continent, Africa-related investor briefings, and undertaking analytical outreach to inform and explain Moody’s credit judgments. Aurelien also supports other Moody’s franchises using his unique experience and visibility across multiple sectors and asset classes in the region. Finally, he remains the lead/backup sovereign analyst for few countries including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and South Africa. Aurélien holds a BSc in Economics and a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Money, Finance and Banking from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.

Peter Mushangwe joined Moody’s in 2015 and is based in London where he is a lead analyst on a portfolio of Sub-Saharan African banks. Peter has covered banks in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, Ghana and the DRC. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2015, Peter worked primarily as sell-side equity research analyst based in South Africa where he covered South African, Nigerian, and Kenyan banks. In 2014, Peter was ranked in the top 5 for Small cap banks research by the Financial Mail, and was in a team ranked #3 for Governance research. Peter also worked in Treasury for a merchant bank in Zimbabwe.Peter is a CFA charterholder, and holds an MSc in Finance and Investment and a B.Com in Finance (Honours) degrees

Rehan Akbar is a Senior Vice President – Senior Credit Officer in Moody’s EMEA Corporate Finance Group based in Dubai. He covers a diversified portfolio including Oil & Gas, petrochemicals, transport and mining companies situated in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2011, Rehan worked as a credit analyst at Mashreq Capital where he covered emerging market corporates. He started his career as a software engineer and technology consultant.
Rehan has a Masters degree in Management Sciences and Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Lahore University of Management Sciences. He is a CFA charterholder.