About The Speaker
Mr. Ayman Soliman
Mr. Soliman’s career spans over 22 years with experience in managing over 200 companies in diverse sectors, with a record of accomplishments in global investments and transactions, and a long-standing career in managing complex assets and mega transactions. Over the past 17 years, Mr. Soliman served as a board member of a wide range of companies with various capacities inclusive of Orascom Investment Holding, Beltone Financial, Lamancha Holding (Gold mining), Euronews plc, RiverBank (SME Banks in Europe), Auerbach Grayson (USA), Texegy (Oil & Gas USA), Ora Developers BV (Real estate), Nile Sugar Co (Egypt), Ezdehar Fund to name a few. Mr. Ayman Soliman was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gemini Holding for the past 10 years, a company investing in various industries. He led multiple merger and acquisition transactions for the Gemini group, as well as startups and greenfields, to build a diversified portfolio of assets in more than eight distinct industrial verticals. These fields included, technology, food, fashion, agroindustry, energy, financial services and fintech, media and real estate. The key success in this period was the ability to navigate through two global economic cycles and a local revolution in Egypt with a complex portfolio while hedging key areas of exposure against market and volatility risks. Prior to joining Gemini, Mr. Soliman headed Orascom Telecom Holding’s corporate strategy team where he spearheaded the formulation of the business development and growth strategy for the company. In addition to his role in the acquisition of Wind Telecom, by Weather Investments II in 2005, Mr. Soliman also helped formulate the turnaround strategy of Wind Telecom. The business development roadmap also led to several successful acquisitions which resulted in expanding Orascom’s footprint in Asia. Through this scope, Mr. Soliman was exposed to the fields of mobile and fixed telecom, software development, e-commerce, cloud infrastructure, construction and industrial operations. Prior to joining Orascom, Mr. Soliman had a career in investment banking, where he closed numerous IPO’s, Corporate Finance and M&A transactions spanning technology, food, and building materials sectors. Moreover, as Vice President of EFG-Hermes Private Equity, he focused on managing technology funds. In this period, he gained experience in various industries and dealt with global investment banks on landmark IPOs and M&A’s in the banking, cement, steel and food sectors and witnessed an accelerated growth in the equities market in Egypt which paved the way to the merger between EFG-Hermes and CIIC back in 2002, where he was part of the transaction team. Mr. Soliman holds an MSc. degree in International Business and Finance and a BSc. degree in Economics with a Minor in Computer Science, both from the American University in Cairo. In addition to the academic degrees, he attended various training courses including Leadership skills by London Business School, Strategy and Risk management by McKinsey and Credit and Evaluation course by EFG-Hermes. In addition to numerous specialized courses in the areas of finance, marketing and commercial strategies, computing and cost allocation.