Miray Zaki
Dr. Miray Zaki is a Managing Director and Head of Sustainability Investments at Gulf Capital- which includes investments across food, water, renewables, and circular economy, investing across the West to East Asia corridor. She was also a Senior Advisor to the UN Conference of Parties COP28 Presidency, UAE – advising on behalf of Gulf Capital on tech and innovation, sustainable food systems, and climate finance. Dr Miray was instrumental in delivering guidance across tech and innovation, startup village curation, food systems, and climate finance. In this role, she provided insights that led to the curation of a wholistic debate across all greenhouse gases (GHG) contributing sectors including the much-ignored food and agriculture sectors. Along with her counterparts at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, the team endeavoured to deliver the “Financing the Future of Food (F3)” initiative along with the World Bank and private market participants. She currently chairs Planthesis, a food security and sustainability Venture Capital fund in the US and Europe. Prior to that, she was the first female Chief Investment officer (CIO) of the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Charitable & Humanitarian Foundation, after a decade as a senior investment professional with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). Before that, her experiences span Endeavor Capital in the US, Deutsche Bank in the UK, Orascom, and France Telecom. Managing investments totaling over $18.5 billion over the last 17 years, she has increasingly become more focused on climate and sustainability investments across the spectrum. Miray is a twice-nominated Top 100 Most Influential Women in Finance by Dow Jones Financial News for both 2015 and 2016, and an award-winning Fulbright Scholar. She holds a PhD in building sustainability-focused investment management platforms from SSBR, an MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (Booth), and a Bachelor of Science from the American University in Cairo. She also obtained her CFA Charter in 2010.