Melissa is a UAE-based partner at Stephenson Harwood with extensive experience advising on regional and cross-border corporate transactions, as well as a wide range of corporate and commercial matters across the MENA region.

Having been in the region for over 15 years, Melissa is a trusted advisor and key point of contact to many multinational and regional clients for their legal needs. Melissa’s practice focuses primarily on M&A, joint ventures, restructuring and insolvency, FDI (foreign direct investment), corporate and shareholder disputes and private equity / venture capital. She has a reputation for providing legal advice that is commercially relevant, on-point, adds value and is strategic to the needs of the client.

Melissa’s client base spans a broad range of sectors, including financial services, insurance, life sciences, healthcare, technology, industrials and manufacturing, consumer, real estate and construction, professional services and hotels and leisure.

Her standing as a leading corporate lawyer in the region is evident from the various awards and accolades that she has received, including:

• Being ranked as a "Next Generation Partner" for Commercial, Corporate and M&A within the Legal 500 EMEA 2024 Guide;
• Named in The Legal 500's M&A Powerlist Series: Middle East Region 2024, recognising her as one of the region's top M&A practitioners;
• Being listed as one of the 50 outstanding lawyers operating in the MENA region in the Thomson Reuters' ALB "MENA Super 50" list for two consecutive years, in both 2023 and 2024; and
• Receiving an "Honourable Mention" for Corporate Lawyer of the Year at LexisNexis' Women in Law Awards 2024.

Dr. Karim El Solh is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Capital. Dr. El Solh is also the co-Managing Partner of Gulf Related, a leading real estate development company launched in partnership with the Related Companies. Dr. El Solh is a board member of the Global Private Capital Association (formerly EMPEA) and the Chairman of the GPCA Middle East Council. Dr. El Solh is serving or has served as the Chairman of Geidea, ART Fertility, Metito Holdings and Maritime Industrial Services, and as the Director of Gulf Marine Services, Middle East Glass, Ma’arif for Education & Training, Reach Group, Depa Group, Metamed, the Galleria Mall Al Maryah Island, Antara Residential Project, NAS TPA and Aramex. Dr Karim El Solh recently joined some of the world’s leading CEOs in supporting HRH The Prince of Wales’ Terra Carta, which provides a roadmap for businesses to move towards a sustainable future by 2030. The charter’s vision to help build an inspiring, inclusive, equitable, prosperous, and sustainable future. He is also a member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative and the Private Equity Taskforce on Sustainability.

Prior to founding Gulf Capital, Dr El Solh was the CEO of the leading UAE investment bank, The National Investor. Under his leadership, the Firm was involved in a number of groundbreaking private equity transactions and was ranked as the number one IPO underwriter in the Gulf. Dr El Solh was also a Co-Founder of the European High Yield Capital Markets/Leveraged Buy-Outs division at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette (DLJ – now part of Credit Suisse) and a senior investment banker in charge of equity offerings at Citigroup.

Dr. El Solh has a B.S. in civil engineering from Cornell University, an MBA from Georgetown University and a doctorate in economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). He is also a Chartered Management Accountant and a Professional Civil Engineer. He is on the Board of Advisors of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, a Board member of Georgetown’s Center for Financial Markets and Policy, a member of the Future of Work Initiative Advisory Group and on the Board of Trustees of the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (ADMAF). Dr. El Solh has been named as one of the Top 100 CEOs in the Gulf by CEO Magazine, one of the 500 Most Influential Arabs by Arabian Business Magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Yaser Moustafa is Head of Emerging Market Private Investments, formerly NBK Capital Partners which Janus Henderson Investors acquired in 2024. He serves as chair of the Emerging Market private investments investment committee, a role he has held since joining the firm in 2015. Prior to this, he was managing director of Alvarez & Marsal, responsible for private equity and corporate advisory in the MENA region. Before A&M, Yaser was an executive director and head of Saudi Arabia investment banking for Nomura International. And before Nomura, Yaser acted as interim CEO for a leading support services company and for the largest restaurant operator in Qatar, amongst other roles. Yaser started his career in 1998 at Lehman Brothers in investment banking in the United States.

Yaser earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Chicago and received an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. Yaser has 28 years of financial industry experience.

Michael is the Chief Investment Officer of 2PointZero Group, a publicly listed investment holding company in Abu Dhabi with over US$33bn in assets across multiple sectors and geographies. He specializes in alternative investments, private & public equity, and institutional governance of investment platforms.  

Before joining 2PointZero (previously Multiply Group), he played a key role in the development of Positive Zero, a regional climate and energy transition platform backed by a US$400m investment from BlackRock, and co-founded Blend Development, a European real estate and hospitality investment company.  

Previously, he was Deputy CEO and Head of the Investment Committee at QInvest LLC, where he managed c.100 investment professionals and directed investments exceeding US$2.0bn. Over his 25+ year career across MENA, Europe, and the U.S., he has executed transactions worth over US$80bn and served in senior roles at Credit Suisse, ABN Amro, Procter & Gamble, and Shell Oil.  

He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics, is a CFA charterholder, a Chartered Director (CDir) from the U.K. Institute of Directors, and a graduate of INSEAD’s International Directors Programme. He also serves on the boards of public and private companies.

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Walid Majdalani is the Head of Emerging Markets Private Equity at Investcorp. He joined in 2007 from ABN AMRO Bank NV, where he spent close to ten years, mainly in private equity. In his last role, he was an Investment Director in a €1.1 billion third party infrastructure fund where he was involved in sourcing and closing a number of transactions globally. Prior to this, Walid worked with Oracle Corporation in the UAE where he set up the Abu Dhabi office.

Walid holds a BBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas and an MBA from Harvard University.

Yağız Özgüven is an Executive Director at Waha Capital’s Private Investments Team.

Yağız has led investments in Waha’s global co-investment portfolio and currently leads Waha Health, Waha Capital’s healthcare vertical. He also serves on the advisory board of a global cybersecurity company with headquarters in Germany.

Before Waha, Yağız Özgüven worked at Turkven, Turkiye’s leading Private Equity Fund for nearly a decade, serving on Medical Park, MNG Kargo, Elif Plastik, and Provus boards. Before Turkven, he worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London as part of the CEEMEA Investment Banking team, advising on deals in Turkiye. He is a graduate of Columbia University with a major in Operations Research and a minor in Economics.