Hassan Abdalla

Early life and education

Hassan Abdalla was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1960 to an Egyptian father and mother . Abdalla received his Junior and High school education at Port Said School in Zamalek, Cairo. He went on to attend the American University in Cairo (AUC), where he graduated with a BA in Business Administration in 1982. He then returned to AUC in 1992 to receive his MBA. He is currently a part-time faculty Member at the AUC, and a Member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the School of Business at the AUC.

Abdalla is married to Mrs. Suzan El Henawi, Deputy Executive Director at the German Chamber of Commerce (GCC) and is the father of two children; Jasmine, who studied at the AUC and Ahmed, who is a student at the Deutsche Evangelische Oberschule – Cairo (DEO).

Career

Upon graduating from the AUC in 1982, Abdalla began working at AAIB . His first position was in the bank’s dealing room back office. He later moved to the dealing room, where he started at the Marketable Securities division and moved on to work in FX, Money Markets, Derivatives Markets and Futures Trading.

In 1988, Abdalla moved to AAIB’s New York City branch. There, he managed the bank’s U.S. Treasury Portfolio and hedging policy, alongside working on portfolio restructuring Bond Swaps and REPOs. One year later he returned to Cairo as AAIB’s Chief Dealer.

Abdalla was promoted to Assistant General Manager in 1994. In 1999 he was appointed as the bank’s General Manager; in March 2002, Abdalla was appointed as the bank’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director. During the early period of his last appointment, AAIB was in the midst of financial difficulties that threatened its existence. Abdalla’s leadership during these difficult times was the beginning of a major reversal in the bank’s fortunes. From that time, AAIB’s branch network expanded from 11 branches to 80 with a number of first to market innovative products introduced in the Egyptian financial sector.

Abdalla arranged AAIB’s acquisition of Misr America International Bank (MAIB). The merger – finalized by the end of 2005 as the first market based private acquisition in the Egyptian market – resulted in substantial growth and a higher market share for AAIB. This marked the beginning of what is to date AAIB's largest expansion on record.

He succeeded in turning AAIB into a fully-fledged financial group. The Bank's growth was propelled in 2008 with the establishment of four subsidiaries; Arab African Investment Holding (AAIH), Arab African Investment Management (AAIM), Arab African International Securities (AAIS), Arab African International Mortgage Finance (AAIMF) and Arab African International Leasing (AAIL). In addition to establishing Sandah “a micro finance company” in 2016.

Abdalla also managed to complete the acquisition of Scotiabank’s Deposit and Loan portfolio in Egypt in 2015, which created a powerful expansion platform to accomplish the growth of AAIB in the region.

He was the first to introduce the notion of sustainability in to the Egyptian banking sector by embedding its policies in AAIB’s daily banking traditions. He was the first in the Egyptian banking sector to establish a foundation for social development the “We Owe it to Egypt foundation”. The foundation focuses on developing the health and education sectors in Egypt believing that A better Egypt is inside us all.

Abdalla is currently the Chairman of UBAF Hong Kong, board member of UBAF Paris, UBAC Curacao, and the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Abdalla formerly served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of International Finance “IIF”, the IIF Emerging Markets Advisory Council (EMAC), the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX), Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), Ghabbour Auto (GA), The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt, Endeavour Egypt, and Telecom Egypt. He also occupied the position of the Chairman of the Middle East, Far East and Africa regional committee of the International Capital Association in Zurich (ICMA). Founding member of the Egyptian National Competitiveness council (ENCC). In addition to being a founding member and former Chairman of the Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJBA), and a board of trustees member of the Egyptian Banking Institute (EBI).

Awards and recognitions

Abdalla’s career highlights and academic track record earned him both the "Distinguished Alumni Award" in 2002 and "Outstanding Alumni Award" from the AUC in 2010. In 2014, Abdalla was recognized by International Banker Magazine as Banking CEO of the Year - Middle East for his work at AAIB.

Notably, Mr. Abdalla is one of a handful of Arab financiers to serve on the Board of the IIF and to be elected for six consecutive terms (2006-2012); a rare exception to the standard two term rule.