PIMCC Members

With around four decades of international banking experience, Mr. Adnan Ahmed Yousif is a global figure in the Islamic Banking & Financial Services industry. His contribution towards taking Islamic Banking on the global stage is pivotal to the present standing of Islamic Banking Internationally. The first footsteps of Islamic Banking in the European market was marked with Mr. Yousif establishing an Islamic Bank of Britain PLC (IBB – Now known as Al Rayan Bank) in the year 2004, with an authorized share capital of £ 50 million, Al Rayan Bank is the UK’s only wholly Sharia compliant retail bank. He also has the distinction of establishing the European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB) during January 2005 with an authorized share capital of £ 100 million. The sole objective was to make EIIB the first independent Islamic Investment Bank in Europe that was managed on a wholly Shari’a compliant basis, to provide investment opportunity for Arabs in UK and Europe. As President & Chief Executive, Mr. Yousif has led Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG) since inception, developing the Group into one of the largest and most diversified Islamic banking groups in the world, operating a network of around 700 branches in 17 countries, with its Head Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain. He was the Chairman of Al Baraka subsidiary banks at various points of time, namely, Jordan Islamic Bank, Al Baraka Bank Egypt, Al Baraka Bank Lebanon s.a.l, Al Baraka Bank Sudan, Al Baraka Turk Participation Bank, Al Baraka Bank Ltd. South Africa, Banque Al Baraka D'Algerie S.P.A., Al Baraka Bank (Pakistan) Ltd., Al Baraka Bank Syria s.a and BTI Bank, Morocco. Mr. Yousif is currently the Chairman of Bahrain Association of Banks. He has been the Chairman of the Union of Arab Banks, headquartered in Lebanon, for two consecutive terms (2007-2013). On June 9, 2019, a royal decree was issued appointing Adnan Ahmed Yousif as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Governmental Hospitals. In 2011, Mr. Yousif received the Medal of Efficiency, a unique honor conferred by His Majesty King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, the King of the Kingdom of Bahrain. In 2017, Mr. Yousif received the Honorary Freedom Award, the highest honor from the City of London for his outstanding contributions to international banking services. The Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) has declared Mr. Yousif as the Islamic Finance Personality of the Year 2017. He was also awarded by the LARIBA American Finance House the 2012 LARIBA Award for Excellence in Achievement in recognition of his leadership role in consolidating and operating the largest diversified Islamic banking group in the world. In 2004 and 2009, he twice received the Islamic Banker of the Year award (2004 and 2009). Mr. Adnan was awarded the "Excellence in Partner Empowerment for 2019" award by the Regional Network for Social Responsibility in collaboration with the United Nations Global Marketplace Organization and the Arab Planning Institute during the eighth meeting of the partners of the Regional Network for Social Responsibility in the Arab States held in Kuwait in January 2019. He was awarded also "The Arab Economic Socially Responsible- Personality" Award for 2018” by the Regional Network for Social Responsibility during the honoring ceremony held in the Kingdom of Bahrain in January 2019. Mr. Adnan was awarded the "Scientific Competency Award in the fields of Green Banking" by the Regional Network for Social Responsibility during the CSR conference, held online in June 2020. He was also awarded the Scientific Competency Award in the fields of CSR and business ethics as well as the International Excellence Award in the field of CSR during the International Congress of CSR in the Kingdom of Morocco in September 2019. In 2017, Mr. Yousif won the 12th Islamic Business & Finance Awards for his Outstanding Contribution in CSR in Islamic banking. In 2016, the CSR Regional Network named him as the High Commissioner for advocating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030. The CSR Regional Network, in 2015, named him the CSR International Ambassador (Kingdom of Bahrain). He also received the Gold Award for Sustainable Development for his major role in the social responsibility programs nationally and internationally in 2016, as well as recognition for the leading role of ABG in the field of CSR at Oman International Conference on Social Responsibility. Mr. Yousif was previously at the Arab Banking Corporation for over 20 years, and last served as Director on its Board. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from University of Hull, UK. In recognition of Mr. Yousif’s outstanding contribution in the field of contemporary Islamic finance and for modernizing its theoretical fundamentals in practice, the Al Jinan University of Lebanon granted him an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy in Business Administration.

His Excellency Dr. Maher Sheikh Hasan holds the position of Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan  ( CBJ ) and Vice Chairman of the Board of  Directors  as of  2012 .By Royal Decree, His Excellency's appointment as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan was renewed for five years as of January 2^nd , 2017 . Dr. Maher Hasan started his professional career in 1994 at  CBJ where he assumed several positions including; Assistant  Director of the Banking Supervision Department, Director  and then Supervision & Banking Expert of the Governor’s Office . In 2005, he joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) where he worked as an economist/senior economist in the Middle East and Central Asia Department.In 2009, he became Deputy Division Chief at the Monetary and Capital Markets (MCM) department of the IMF. During his career in the IMF, he participated in several Article IV consultation missions and led several Financial Sector Assessment Programs (FSAPs) and Technical Assistance (TA) missions to member countries. In 2011,  he was awarded MCM  annual award for “exceptional" effort. Dr. Hasan is the Chairman of the Jordan Loan Guarantee Corp  (JLGC ),Vice Chairman of Jordan National Payment Council (JO-NPC) , Vice Chair of the National Committee of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Unit  (AMLU), board member of the Social Security Corp.(SSC) , member of the Technical Committee for the Management of the General Public Debt / Ministry of Finance , council member of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and member of the FSB Regional Consultative Group for the Middle East &North Africa(MENA) , in addition to his board membership in the Jordan Payments and Clearing Company ( Jo- PACC ) . Dr. Hasan coauthored several books and published several research papers on areas including, monetary policy, inflation, exchange rate assessment and regime choice, asset price bubbles, stress testing, Islamic banks, and simulation estimation methods. H.E. holds a PhD in economics and M.S. in Statistics from Washington State University Pullman, WA, 2001, M.A. in Economics, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan, 1996. B.A. in Economics, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan, 1993.

Dr. Abdelilah BELATIK is finance professional with twenty years of experience, including in leadership positions, in major financial centers from Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East. He is Secretary General of the General Council for Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions (CIBAFI), the global umbrella of Islamic financial institutions since March 2014. At the helm of CIBAFI, he brought the organisation to international arena by building working relationships with international multilateral institutions (United Nations, IDB, FSB, IMF, World Bank, etc.), international standard setting organisations (IFSB, BCBS, etc.) and regulatory and supervisory authorities. Dr. Abdelilah is also Chairman and Founder of Turritopsis, the Strategic Institute of Sustainable Development, Brussels, Belgium. Prior to joining CIBAFI, he was Assistant Secretary General at the Malaysia based Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), where he was the co-head of the Technical and Expertise Development Division. Dr. Abdelilah advised on strategic directions of technical projects undertaken by the IFSB. He led the preparation and rollup of the Strategic Performance Plan (SPP) 2012 – 2015 in accordance with Integrated Result Based Management framework. Before joining the IFSB, Dr. Abdelilah worked for 9 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Luxembourg, New York and Hong Kong, in the Assurance and Business Advisory Services, Financial Services practice. In 2004, he was seconded to the PricewaterhouseCoopers firm in New York to assist US- based firms on implementing the Sarbanes- Oxley 404 requirements. Dr. Abdelilah holds a Doctorate of Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Applied Business Research from Switzerland; and Masters of Science in Business Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Commercial Sciences from Brussels – Belgium. He is fluent in Arabic, English and French. Dr. Abdelilah has held membership positions in a number of international board and committee, including those of the International Assurance and Auditing Standard Board (IAASB) Consultative Advisory Group, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Advisory Group on Shariah compliant transactions and instruments, External Advisory Group of the IMF and the Waqf Fund in Bahrain. He is also member of the Committee of the Royal Award for Islamic Finance undertaken by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and Central Bank of Malaysia.

Abdurrahman Cetin was born in Turkey on 20 December 1977. He received the BA degree in finance from Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2001. He completed a Master of Arts in Management (MBA) in 2011 at Fatih University. He graduated M.A degree in Technology Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2015. Also, he has completed his PhD. program in “Market Efficiency of Participation Banks and Comparative Analyses with Commercial Banking System” from Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey (2011 – 2017). In 2002, he joined the Ministry of Finance of Turkey as an assistant tax auditor. In 2004 he linked the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency of Turkey as an assistant specialist. He has experience in many departments in the BRSA as a banking assistant specialist, banking specialist, project coordinator, and three heads of departments and achieved many projects. He was appointed Head of the Islamic Finance Department in 2015. Later he worked Directorate of Strategy Management from 2018-2020. In addition, he worked as Acting Head of the Foreign Relation Department in BRSA until the end of 2020. He managed many relations on behalf of the BRSA with international institutions such as AAOIFI, IFSB, IMF, OECD, Standard and Poor’s, Fitch, World Bank, and Islamic Development Bank (IDB). He has given many lectures at the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim and Marmara University. He is a General Publication Manager at the Journal of Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency Banking and Financial Markets. Besides, he is on the editorial board and is the Assistant Editor in this journal. Many of his articles and books have been published in several refereed international journals. Participation Banks Associations Publication released his last book, “Accounting for Interest-Free Financial Institutions within the framework of AAOIFI” in Turkey in September 2020. Technically, he has experience in banking, finance, Islamic finance, crypto money, Islamic Coin, financial reporting, regulation, auditing, international accounting standards, and accounting in interest-free financial institutions. He can speak English and Arabic fluently. He is married and has four children.

Dr Aishath Muneeza is an Associate Professor at INCEIF, Malaysia which is known as the global University of Islamic Finance. She has served as the first female Deputy Minister of Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Maldives; Deputy Minister of Ministry of Finance and Treasury in Maldives; Head of Islamic Finance of Capital Market Development Authority of Maldives; member of Islamic Fiqh Academy (National Fatawa Council of Maldives); first chairman of Hajj pilgrimage fund, Maldives Hajj Corporation Limited; chairman of Maldives Center for Islamic Finance Limited which was set by government of Maldives to strategize Maldives as the hub of Islamic finance in South Asia; Islamic Finance consultant who developed the first shariah compliant Islamic microfinance scheme offered in Maldives; the Shariah Advisor who structured all the corporate sukuks offered in Maldives; Shariah Adviser who structured the private sukuk and Islamic treasury instruments for the government of Maldives; and the consultant who drafted the Islamic capital market legal framework for the country. Since 2013, Dr Muneeza is a registered Shariah Adviser with the Capital Market Development Authority of Maldives to structure Islamic capital market products and she is a registered Shariah Adviser at Securities Commission Malaysia. Since 2011, she has been the chairman of apex Shariah Advisory Council of Capital Market Development Authority of Maldives and she is the chairperson of different in-house shariah advisory committees. She is also a member of Board Shariah Committee of CIMB Islamic, Malaysia and Munich Re. Dr Muneeza has also published research papers in different academic journals and has published books. She has won gold and silver medals for her research papers presented at IIUM Research Invention and Innovation Exhibition in 2012 and 2013. In 2010, she also won first place in the world-wide essay competition of Kuala Lumpur Islamic Finance Forum (KLIFF). She is an invited speaker to different events held on Islamic finance around the world. Dr Muneeza has won numerous national and international awards and recognitions for her unabated effort in creating a full-fledge Islamic finance industry in Maldives. Among these include, being the recipient of highest recognition award conferred for women in Maldives, Rehendhi Award in 2018 in recognition for her outstanding service to develop Islamic finance; Womani Award for Top 50 Most Influential Women in Islamic Business and Finance 2018 & 2019, Cambridge IFA; Inspirational Women of the Year 2018 by Women in Management; Upcoming Personality in Islamic Finance in 2017 by Flemingulf; Ten Outstanding Young Persons’ Award 2016 by Junior Chamber International (JCI) Maldives Junior Chamber International (JCI); Service Recognition Award by Maldives Islamic Bank for the key role played in introduction and structuring of Islamic treasury instruments to Maldives and assisting Maldives Islamic Bank to sustain in a jurisdiction where there was no halal avenue for investments; service recognition award by Housing Development and Finance Corporation PLC for the work in introducing HDFC Amna; service recognition award by Amana Takaful Maldives to celebrate the persons who contributed for the development Islamic Finance industry for 15 years; Honorary Award for the Contribution made to the Development of Islamic Finance Industry by UTO EduConsult of Sri Lanka and is recognized in Islamica 500 as an influential personality in Islamic economics. Dr Muneeza holds an LLB (HONS), LLM (Banking) and PhD in law from International Islamic University of Malaysia.

Prof. Dr. Mohamad Akram is currently the Executive Director of International Shari’ah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA) and Professor at International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF). Prior to joining ISRA he was an Assistant Professor at the Kulliyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University, Malaysia (IIUM). In the period 2002-2004, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. At present, he is the Member of Bank Negara Malaysia Shari’ah Advisory Council, Chairman of Shari’ah Board of Employees Provident Fund Malaysia (EPF), Member of Shariah Supervisory Council of Labuan Financial Services Authority (FSA), Member of Board of Trustees of Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Foundation (YaPEIM), Member of Shariah Board DDCAP, London, Member of Internal Shariah Supervisory Committee, Dubai Islamic Bank, Member of Shariah Advisory Council International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM),Bahrain, Member Financial Regulation Advisory Council of Experts (FRACE), Central Bank of Nigeria, Member of The Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance (“P.R.I.M.E. Finance”), Member of Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia (ICDM) and other Boards locally and internationally. Prof. Akram holds a B.A. Honours degree in Islamic Jurisprudence and Legislation from the University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan and a Ph.D. in Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh) from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. He has presented many papers related to Islamic Banking and Finance and other Fiqh topics at national and International level and has conducted many training sessions particularly on Islamic Banking and Finance for different sectors since 1999. He is a registered Shariah Advisor for Islamic Securities with the Securities Commission of Malaysia and has acted as Shariah advisor in the issuance of several sukuks. In addition, he is also prolific author of academic works specifically in the areas of Islamic Banking and Finance. He is the recipient of Zaki Badawi Award for Excellence in Shariah Advisory and Research. Recipient of the Most Outstanding Individual Contribution to Islamic Finance during KLIFF 2016 organised by CERT. Winner of the 2017/1439H Malaysian Islamic Personality Award conferred by The Government of Malaysia on the occasion of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Hafiz Mohammad Yousaf is a highly qualified professional having diversified qualifications from the renowned Institutions of Pakistan, USA, and Canada.  He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), Fellow Member of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and Member of Canadian Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants (CICPA) besides being member of many other renowned international professional institutions. Mr. Yousaf possesses over three decades of diversified post qualification experience as a Chartered Accountant  in various specialized fields, having served on various leadership positions with key governmental, public and corporate entities (including two decades at a Big 4 professional accounting firm as Partner in Pakistan) which covers corporate compliance and regulations, governance and oversight, accounting and auditing standards setting, assurance and audits, corporate finance and restructuring, consulting and financial advisory services, etc. In the recent years the key areas of his focus are the high-end policies formulation and implementation, strategic directions, oversight of regulations and business operations, governance initiatives and organizational reforms and business decisions making, etc. at some of the most important corporate sector entities of the country. Yousaf has a unique and versatile exposure of having served Pakistan’s top regulators including State Bank of Pakistan (Central Bank of the country) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) as a board member and chairman of audit and oversight committees respectively besides being President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP) Mr. Yousaf has the honor of serving the council of ICAP for eight years (2009-17) in various leadership positions including being its President for 2015-16 term and represented Pakistan on various prestigious international forums including International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), International Accounting Standard Board (IASB), Asian Oceana Standards Setters Group (AOSSG), CA Worldwide (CAW)  and South Asian Federation of Accountants for many years on different meetings and conferences. Currently he is serving as a Board Member of some leading corporate entities of the country including SAMBA Bank Limited, Kot Addu Power Company Limited, Pakistan Security Printing Corporation and Security Papers Limited where he is also the Chairman of various important committees of the respective boards.