CHARLES FRANCIS

Charles was born and educated in the UK and has over 20 years of work experience from living and working in Europe, Middle East and Asia. He started his career at Barclay De Zoete Wedd (BZW) London in 1997, the organisation went through several mergers and acquisitions over the years becoming Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) in 1998 and finally Credit Suisse where he spent a total of 12 years. He was an Equity trader in the pan-European trading team trading on behalf of clients as well as managing a $200m proprietary trading book.   In 2008 he was hired by Libertas Capital (Dubai) to set up and expand their Dubai branch from a corporate finance and advisory business to an institutional brokerage trading platform.  He has extensive knowledge of a variety of sectors including Securities, Investment Banking, Corporate Banking and support services. He also holds the Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) from the Securities & Investments Institute.

In 2008 he co-founded Capital Search which has become a hugely successful Banking & Financial services company.  The business has grown year on year by double digit % and now operates in two main regions Asia Pacific and MENA / GCC. Due to the extensive time he spent in the market Charles has very strong relationships at all level in the global markets sector particularly in London, Singapore and Hong Kong and is one of the areas he focuses on, along with the Buy Side and asset managers across APAC.