Biography: Abdul-Ghabar Hayel Saeed is the chairman of Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, Yemen’s biggest sharia-compliant bank. A member of the country’s powerful Hayel Saeed family, which holds the majority share in the bank, he is also general manager of the industrial unit of Hayel Saeed Group, one of Yemen’s biggest business conglomerates.

Abdul-Ghabar was instrumental in setting up Tadhamon in 1995, and has been chairman since then. He is also a member of the board of the Central Bank of Yemen. Tadhamon estimates that it has assets of more than $1.4bn.

Like International Bank of Yemen, the lender did a good job of surviving the 2011 crisis, and in 2012, was voted Yemen’s top domestic foreign exchange services bank at the Asian Banking & Finance Awards. Abdul-Ghabar has a degree in economics and politics from the University of Cairo in Egypt.

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