Steve is Director of Outreach – MENA, based in CFA Institute’s Abu Dhabi office and is responsible for managing external institutional relationships across the MENA region. He was visiting lecturer at Cranfield School of Management in Investment Banking and Ethics in Finance 2014-17 and has over 20 years’ experience in the investment industry. Steve started his career as investment strategy & portfolio construction specialist for private bank clients in Australia. On returning home to London he joined Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking on the cash equity desk in relationship management before being headhunted to run the relationship management function for the emerging markets cash equity desk at ING. Subsequently, Steve managed the UK office of an emerging market equity hedge fund and headed the EMEA & Australia business development activities of CAIA Association as its first industry relations hire. On leaving the CAIA Association, Steve ran his own consulting business where he structured a UCITS platform to onboard US hedge funds for EU distribution and offered EU hedge fund distribution advice to non-EU hedge funds in addition to running commercial contracts for a number of clients. Steve joined CFA Institute’s London office in December 2014 as Director of Institutional Partnerships – EMEA before transferring to their Abu Dhabi office in August 2018. Steve has a Bachelor of Business in Financial Planning from RMIT, holds the Certificate of Investment Management and Certificate in Commodity Derivatives from CISI, the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation and CFA Institute Investment Foundations Certificate. Steve is an avid epee fencer and has represented England in the Commonwealth Fencing Federation tournament and Great Britain in the European Veterans Fencing Championships.