Mr Wael El-Nagar joined the DFSA in 2013. Mr El-Nagar is responsible for supervising the operations and activities of the exchanges, clearing houses and alternative trading systems within the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). Mr. El-Nagar is also responsible for reviewing applications from and ongoing monitoring of exchanges, clearing houses, and brokerage firms that are not located within the DIFC but which seek to conduct business in the DIFC. Mr. El-Nagar is heavily involved in steering the DFSA’s regulatory initiatives around Fintech, especially in regards to regulating market platforms that deal in digital assets. Mr. El-Nagar also led DFSA thematic reviews that focused on the DIFC OTC Fixed Income Securities market, and the Exempt Offerings regime.

Prior to joining the DFSA, Mr El-Nagar was a Lead Senior Regulatory Specialist at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) where he worked for more than thirteen (13) years. Mr El-Nagar’s work experience included conducting reviews, examinations, and thematic sweeps that pertained to a wide and diverse variety of topics. Mr El-Nagar also worked, in collaboration with other units within FINRA and other U.S. Regulators on designing, enhancing, and implementing national examination initiatives and programs to supervise business conduct, sales practices and trading activity. Mr El-Nagar has a Bachelor of Science – Mechanical Engineering degree from the American University in Cairo (Egypt), and an MBA – Finance from Rutgers University (USA).