There is a version of Egypt's modern financial story that begins and ends with one man. Hisham Ezz Al-Arab did not just run a bank — he reimagined what an Egyptian bank could be, and in doing so, gave the world a reason to take Egypt's private sector seriously.

Born in 1957 and educated at Cairo University, Ezz Al-Arab's journey took him far beyond Egypt's borders before he would return to transform it. He spent more than three years as Assistant Vice President at Merrill Lynch, seven years as Managing Director at JPMorgan in London, and around two years as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank — a career arc that placed him at the very heart of global finance during some of its most consequential decades. He was not an observer of the world's financial centres; he was a participant, shaping deals and strategies at institutions that define global capital.

When he returned to Egypt in 1999, joining CIB first as Deputy Managing Director, the bank was a relatively small wholesale lender. What followed over the next two decades was nothing short of a transformation.