Ziad Makkawi has a track-record in building high-powered teams to execute on new market opportunities of which the private shares market is the most recent. Ziad has 30 plus years experience as an investor and business builder in the financial services sector. Ziad chairs the Manager’s Investment Committee and is responsible for the firm’s overall strategic direction and product offering.
Ziad started his career at JP Morgan in New York in 1986 as a currency and derivatives trader where as Vice President, he spearheaded the firm’s arbitrage activity in the currency and interest rate derivatives markets. Ziad has served as a CEO for both private and publicly listed companies. He served as CEO of Dubai Bank and later Qatar First Bank; CEO of PE firm Istithmar World a USD 5+ billion SWF based in Dubai. Ziad also co-founded two emerging market focused investment banks MECG and SHUAA Capital. He was the Founder, CEO and CIO of Algebra Capital an emerging markets manager which he successfully sold in 2011 to global asset manager Franklin Templeton.
Ziad served on the boards of more than a dozen firms on four continents, as chairman, executive and investment committee member, director, and observer at companies such as Cirque du Soleil (entertainment – Canada), Barneys (retail – New York), IHI (hospitality – Malta), ISS (marine solutions – UK), Pension Corporation Group (insurance – UK), Istithmar P&O (real estate – UK), Dubai World Africa (hospitality – Dubai), Capital Management House (asset management – Bahrain), Algebra Capital (asset management – Dubai), Memorial Hospitals (healthcare – Turkey), David Morris (luxury retail – UK), as well as numerous other companies and funds.
Ziad holds a B.A. in Economics from Rice University, an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business, a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University and has participated in several executive development programs including the Harvard YPO President University. He is a member and served as Chairman of both YPO Emirates Chapter as well as the YPO’s Regional MENA Board and the YPO’s global Art Network.
John was the first hire at the Manager. He was instrumental in the successful launch and subsequent operation of the firm. He led the direct-to-investor fundraising efforts for, the Equiam Private Tech30 Fund I (Fund I) and EQUIAM Private Alpha Fund (Fund II). John currently oversees the day-to-day execution of the investment strategy for the Fund. Further, John has and continues to be instrumental in the building and on-going optimization of the Manager’s proprietary GENIUS model that underlies the Fund’s investment strategy. John is a member of EQUIAM’s Investment Committee.
Prior to joining Equiam, John was hired as the 6th non-founder hire employee at Forge. While there, he facilitated $400 million+ of private tech equity transactions. He executed 500+ transactions across dozens of issuers, gaining best-in-class knowledge of private secondary transaction mechanics, issuer-specific idiosyncrasies, and general private equity market dynamics. Additionally, John led various data analytics and special projects efforts at Forge developing the Forge Tech30 Capped Index and creating a proprietary valuation model for private technology companies. John holds a B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.
Arin currently shares responsibility for the execution of the investment strategy and ongoing optimization of the Equiam GENIUS model. Arin helps develop and maintain the optimal mix of proprietary signals underpinning the GENIUS model while adhering to goals, return objectives and risk tolerance constraints for the portfolio. Arin’s day-to-day duties include identifying the top companies for Equiam to invest in and building relationships with brokers and companies to acquire positions for the portfolio. Arin is a member of the Investment Committee.
Arin has over a decade of principal investment experience across Private Equity and Venture Capital industries. He has worked with a variety of early-stage and late-stage start-ups in an advisory capacity, investing family office capital of a pre-IPO Goldman Sachs partners. He was the 7th employee and Principal at the Kingfish Group, where he helped lead private equity co-investment and direct investing activities representing $1 billion+ of invested capital. He is a graduate of the Marshall School of Business Honors Program at the University of Southern California.
Kirk, led the institutional outreach and distribution for Fund II’s $50M raise. He is in charge of qualifying and sourcing investors, strategic outreach initiatives, and managing the firm’s distribution partner relationships. He also manages several key broker relationships for the investment committee.
Kirk was formerly institutional equity sales at B. Riley FBR where he worked with some of the top asset managers in the U.S. and abroad. He worked with a variety of start-ups in an advisory capacity and has bootstrapped various projects in the Tech & Real Estate sector. He is a web developer hobbyist and graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder, Quantitative Finance and Computer Science.
Laxus, as part of the investment team is responsible for codifying and back-testing our proprietary algorithms, and working on new model optimization functions. He also focuses on our data gathering, ingestion, and insight derivations.
Laxus has extensive experience investing within in multi-billion AUM quant asset management strategies. His primary function was producing and applying quantitative research to drive investment decisions, predictive signal construction, and overall process improvement. Laxus is a data science, machine learning and optimization enthusiast. He has been programming since 9th grade and previously a professional gamer. He holds a Masters of Financial Engineering from UCLA Anderson, B.S. in Computer Science from University of Colorado at Boulder.
Samantha is focused on building an institutional-grade operational framework. Her day-to- day activity focuses on investor onboarding, reporting, and distributions. She also assists with liaising with EQUIAM’s external providers as well as fund investment execution and settlement. Her overall focus is to improve the firm and/or fund level operation efficiency at EQUIAM.
Prior to joining EQUIAM, Samantha worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where she focused on trade settlement and operational work for Goldman Mutual Funds. Preceding Goldman, Samantha worked at Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services, bringing along experience working with multi-billion dollar hedge funds and private equity funds. Samantha holds a B.S. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is currently working towards her Masters in Accountancy from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies College of Business.
Shachi is an operator, entrepreneur, and executive. She leads multiple business projects and strategic initiatives to completion for Equiam. She drives fund execution & operations, branding, content, marketing, sales effectiveness, and various cross-functional projects.
She has over 6 years of experience in the Financial Services and Venture Capital industry. She was responsible for implementing systems & tools, process improvements for sales, marketing, finance, reporting and human resources. She was formerly at Plug and Play Tech Centre, set up the Automation and Commercial Ops team. She is a graduate from UC Berkeley; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (M.B.A.), Nirma University (B.Tech.).
Yusef is the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at EQUIAM. Prior to joining EQUIAM, Yusef was a Director and Senior Counsel at Allianz Global Investors, where he oversaw the hedge funds and the institutional accounts businesses. At Allianz, Yusef was also responsible for ensuring compliance with all regulatory developments impacting the North America region. Previously, Yusef was an associate at K&L Gates LLP in the investment management and corporate practice groups, where he counseled a broad range of financial industry clients on regulatory compliance, fund formation, and corporate transactions. During law school, Yusef worked as a regulatory intern at the Pacific Exchange (now NYSE Arca).
Yusef holds a B.A. from Howard University and a J.D. from University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He is a member of the California State Bar. Yusef also provides pro bono support to Bay Area non-profit organizations focused on child development and welfare.
Roni is an Associate the core operational function of EQUIAM responsible for ensuring best-in-class client service for our investors and managing various key operational elements related to our family of VC funds. Prior to joining EQUIAM, Roni was the tenth US hire at EquityBee, working in Operations. Prior experience at an early stage B2C fintech startup performing investment and data operations in the private secondary market along with operations and client service experience at Halbert Hargrove, a wealth management company with over $3B in AUM.
B.A. in Economics from California State University, Long Beach
