OUR PEOPLE

Always delivering the difference

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We listen and adapt, considering all views and options, always expanding our knowledge and expertise. That way we provide the best advise at the right time.

We listen and adapt, considering all views and options, always expanding our knowledge and expertise. That way we provide the best advice at the right time.

We listen and adapt, considering all views and options, always expanding our knowledge and expertise. That way we provide the best advice at the right time.

Our Practitioner-Led Approach

Our people are from different backgrounds, different cultures, with diverse perspectives. But in our work together we bring a common vision and clarity. We empower our clients to solve their most complex challenges faster and better.

WHAT WE VALUE

Integrity

WE ALWAYS ACT WITH INTEGRITY

Because we demonstrate that the most productive way to behave in business is to ensure everyone profits.

Being open, professional and honest in all our interactions, defines how we do business.

Individually and collectively we always put the enduring good of the company and our clients first.

What we say is accurate and measured. What we promise we deliver. We take responsibility. We can be depended on.

Every day, we challenge ourselves to inspire and fully deserve the trust of our colleagues and clients.

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WHAT WE VALUE

Integrity

WE ALWAYS ACT WITH INTEGRITY

Because we demonstrate that the most productive way to behave in business is to ensure everyone profits.

Being open, professional and honest in all our interactions, defines how we do business.

Individually and collectively we always put the enduring good of the company and our clients first.

What we say is accurate and measured. What we promise we deliver. We take responsibility. We can be depended on.

Every day, we challenge ourselves to inspire and fully deserve the trust of our colleagues and clients.

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Our Team

Executive Chairman

Colin Macdonald

Colin has 30+ years of wide ranging financial services experience from Retail through to Private banking, Corporate and Investment Banking with transformation and restructuring experience throughout his career. Colin has extensive Middle East experience, including being permanently based in the region for the last 15 years. Prior to setting up his own successful advisory business he has held a number of leadership roles as Deputy CEO of a large GCC bank, Group CEO of a leading a Investment Bank and Regional Head of a large full service international bank. All of these leadership roles entailed significant restructuring, change and transformation. He has held several Board positions during his various roles.

Prior to this Colin held a number of leadership positions primarily in commercial and investment banking across the origination, structuring and operating functions; including covering the Middle East.

Email:colin.macdonald@aspiro.me

Managing Partner

William Higgins

William has been providing oversight across our client’s transformation projects for the last 5 years. Previously, he was Head of Group Operations for RBS, with responsibility for a $2bn P&L. He created and ran offshore centres in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi with 15,000 professionals, servicing nine global locations. Group Operations were recognised as the number one employer of choice in 2013. He was responsible for overseeing the delivery of post-merger benefits.

Prior to RBS, William was Global Head of Operations at ABN AMRO Bank. Before this, William was Managing Director of Investment Banking Operations at UBS. He is a Qualified Chartered Accountant, who has reduced costs substantially through LEAN, outsourcing, offshoring, digital automation, and cost rationalisation.

Email:william.higgins@aspiro.me

Partner

Lasse Hall

Lasse provides deep industry-based experience and expertise in digital banking solutions and FinTech, to support all phases of digital strategy and delivery.

He brings 18+ years experience combining technology, management, business know-how, digital banking and financial technology for market-leading products and services.  He is a seasoned executive, having previously worked as Vice President for SpareBank1, the second largest banking conglomerate in Norway, where he headed up their complete digitization. Lasse serves as a Mentor and advisor for the largest accelerator in the Nordics and sits on multiple boards of financial companies.

Recently he has built and sold two European FinTech businesses, both being acquired by European banks. He has advised PE clients on digital strategic infrastructure transformation and has most recently been CEO for a working capital SaaS startup.

Email:Lasse.hall@aspiro.me

Partner

Murray Falconer

Murray leads client engagements in digital banking and M&A, leveraging over 25 years of international experience in financial services, technology and consultancy.

Since joining the firm in 2019, he has advised several UAE and KSA clients in digital strategy, developed innovative propositions and prepared delivery roadmaps. He led the technology workstream and an Accenture team for the 2020 mega-merger of NCB and Samba Financial Group in KSA, delivering the due diligence reports for both banks, the integration playbook, target state design, integration plans and migration approach.

Prior to Aspiro, he led EY’s EMEIA FS practice, based in London, for technology and operations pre-deal diligence and post-deal integration/carveout, performing in over 70 transactions.  His career prior to EY was as a partner in IBM Consulting, various interim CIO/COO/CTO roles and successful delivery of major programmes for Barclays Bank, JPMorgan, Santander, RBS, Tesco Bank (new bank build and launch), Coop Bank, Old Mutual SA, AXA PPP Healthcare, Amex MENA and NBK (Kuwait).

Email:murray.falconer@aspiro.me

Partner

Neil Kramer

Neil supports our clients with delivering digital banking, strategic sourcing programs and managing key cost reduction initiatives.

He is working with two Banks in UAE to support their successful business & IT outsourcing to service providers in India. Both Banks have achieved savings & improved client service. Prior to Aspiro, Neil was Managing Director Strategic Change Programs at Euroclear Group (world’s largest CSD) and his team was responsible for delivering their large programmes. Neil was Head of Global Operations Programs for ABN AMRO Bank & RBS Bank, delivering projects including the implementation of integrated banking applications and KYC/CDD remediation to remove Federal Reserve sanctions.

Email:neil.kramer@aspiro.me

Partner

Chris Renardson

Chris has over 30 years’ experience in banking operations and has worked for a number of global institutions across Europe, the UK and US including Credit Suisse, NM Rothschild, JP Morgan and more recently, ABN Amro where he was Global Head for Securities Operations.  Prior to joining Aspiro, Chris led a Capital Markets Operations practice for KPMG.  He has led major transformation programmes focused on simplification, regulatory conformance and new ways of working and has extensive experience of process optimisation, operating model design, regulatory compliance, and new Ways of Working.

Email:chris.renardson@aspiro.me

Partner

Ben Almond

An experienced Global Real Estate Executive with a background in Finance, Operations and Banking.

Ben is the former Global Head of Property at Pearson PLC, the world’s learning company, where he provided strategic and operational leadership of a complex, global portfolio and managed a large, geographically dispersed team across 6 continents. Ben orchestrated and led Pearson’s global location strategy and transformation programme for 5 years, implementing new innovative workplaces to support the company’s digital and growth agenda, and delivering over £300m of financial benefits.

He spent 15 years in the earlier part of his career working in Finance, Capital Markets and Derivatives COO roles for leading Investment Banks.

Ben has a track record of advising global, listed corporate institutions on real estate transformation strategies, governance, organisational design and delivering complex change programmes across multiple geographies.

He is adept at assessing risks, identifying financial and operational improvement opportunities, designing and leading location strategies and delivering business-enhancing change.

He is an effective communicator and confident presenting at all levels of organisations.

Ben is an accomplished leader with a passion for simplifying complexity, developing talent and delivering excellence.

Email:ben.almond@aspiro.me

Partner

David Goodyear

David has 30 years experience in the Banking Industry covering senior roles in Risk Management, Operations and Treasury & Trading.

He is head of Aspiro’s Risk & Control practice.

He has successfully led programmes including opening offices in Saudi Arabia, Dubai & Turkey from a Risk and Operations perspective.  Recently he advised a leading Japanese Bank on setting up their KSA unit.

His interests include the regulatory conformity for Risk Frameworks, Enterprise Risk, Operational Risk and Operational Resilience (including Business Continuity).

He is a highly experienced General Manager and Risk SME from both a first and second line perspective and adds value through a balanced, collaborative approach to identify a coherent way forward for the financial institution.

Key areas of expertise include: risk appetite framework, enterprise risk, operational risk including risk control self-assessment, resilience, operations management, liquidity risk and contingency plans, onboarding of major asset acquisitions, business continuity management, market and credit portfolio risk.

Email:david.goodyear@aspiro.me

Principal

Karim Beg

Karim is a results-oriented Marketing and Business professional with extensive experience in Marketing, Consumer Banking and Payment Cards across the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

He has a successful track-record with leading global organizations including Visa International, ABN AMRO Bank, Citibank, Royal Bank of Scotland and PepsiCo Corporation. He has extensive experience in managing and building global brands, driving marketing strategy, setting up and managing all aspects of Credit & Debit cards and payments businesses including Product Development & Management, Sales & Distribution, Portfolio Management & Analytics, and delivering profitability and market share growth.

In his last assignment Karim was the Head of Marketing for Visa in the Middle East & North Africa region, where he was responsible for leading Visa’s Marketing Management function in the region. Additional y, he was also the Regional hub lead for Digital, Cross-Border & e-Commerce Marketing across the CEMEA region.

Email:karim.beg@aspiro.me

Principal

Arup Basu

Arup is a senior banking professional with over 25 years of global experience in operational excellence and transformation with several large multinational banks including Bank of America, Citi, Barclays and Deutsche Bank including a stint with the Bank of England, UK’s central bank.

Arup has lived and worked in several countries including India, Australia, China, Singapore, Malaysia US, Canada, UK and most of Western Europe delivering operations strategy, transformation, large scale migrations, automation, digital/robotic solutions, green site set-up, LEAN transformation and cost optimisation.

In his most recent assignment prior to Aspiro, he was the Head of Operations at Noor Bank responsible for BAU operations and bank-wide transformation.

Arup is an MBA from INSEAD and also has a Master’s degree in Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering.

Email:arup.basu@aspiro.me

Principal

Punit Khanna

A result oriented professional with 21 years of Banking experience in the areas of Change and Project Management, Operations and Risk.

Delivery Consultant specializing in the implementation of change and transformation programs for Financial Services Client in UK, US & UAE.

Punit has proven track record in implementing organization wide change and transformation programs, consistent successful delivery of end-to-end off-shoring/transition programs.

Email:Punit.Khanna@aspiro.me

Principal

Gaurav Diwan

Gaurav has 28+ years of experience in the Banking industry focused in the areas of Digital Transformation and strategy

Gaurav has worked with leading global organizations like Barclays Bank PLC, Oracle & ADCB and lead Digital transformation programs across Asian and African nations. Gaurav has been instrumental in bringing paradigm shift in organisations with large technological debt through an agile delivery supported by cutting edge technology and trends including Cloud strategy, AI / ML capabilities amongst others

Gaurav has run technology operations across the Banking space including Retail Banking, Corporate banking, Risk, Compliance, Payments Credit, Finance etc. He has consulted and transformed organisations with archaic technology landscapes, built customer journeys to create technology savvy organization keeping customer at the center.

Gaurav has also established COE for Cloud strategy, Payments, Digital customer journey through Agile, Waterfall and hybrid implementation methodologies. He has built and implemented the Demand Management framework to support annual and ad hoc planning of initiatives enterprise wide.

Email:gaurav.diwan@aspiro.me

Principal

Hammad Akhtar

Hammad is senior financial practitioner with over 15 years of international experience, specialising in all financial aspects of T24 deployment and migration.  He has extensive experience across the implementation, maintenance and migration of the Temenos T24 core banking platform, across International Banks, in line with the Banks strategy, ensuring that the institution benefits from the software’s accounting capabilities.

Previously, Hammad has been accountable for the oversight of day-to-day administration of the T24 system, seeing to it that security of accounting data is maintained in accordance with the institution’s protocols, risk appetite and policies.  He understands the development  of Finance Divisions requirements, proposing innovative and robust solutions in T24 to supporting the institutions requirements.

Hammad is skilled at stakeholder management and developing creative solutions, he is well known for delivering in challenging and time critical environments.

Email:hammad.akhtar@aspiro.me

Senior Associate

Clark Fisher

Clark has been delivering strategic transformation programme management services for clients in the UAE for the past three years. He has been working closely with stakeholders to drive programme delivery, manage risks and issues, and ensure programme benefits are achieved.

Clark has extensive experience delivering strategic projects over the past 10 years in the Middle East.

Previously, Clark worked with PwC and KPMG in Bahrain and Dubai, covering financial services across the GCC. His previous clients include central, commercial and retail banks, and has worked on various strategy and change management projects. He has supported and delivered over $50 million US in projects, such as launching a brand redesign, overseeing the PMO for digital transformation, and governance set up for a cross-border FI.

Email:clark.fisher@aspiro.me

Senior Associate

Francis van de Laarschot

Francis is an experienced executive in the business operations and technology domains with significant international exposure in Europe, Asia and now also in the Middle East.

He has held Executive Director with large banks like ABN AMRO, RBS and Standard Chartered.

Francis has successfully managed large complex programs ranging from offshoring, migrations/integrations and creating  a global shared service achieving cost savings and creating business value.

Furthermore Francis has managed large teams across multiple countries leading them through organisational change and improve overall performance.

His knowledge domains include payments, cards, liquidity management, enterprise content management and KYC/Transaction filtering.

Email:francis.vandeLaarschot@aspiro.me

Associate

Yusuf Tarajia

Yusuf is a recent graduate with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Manchester and is a Prince2 Foundation certificate holder. During his degree studies, Yusuf was able to support delivery of key projects in banking and engineering companies, as well as providing technical support to delivery teams. Since then, he has provided project management support throughout a digitisation programme for a global real estate provider. He has also supported in the implementation of ITIL compliant change management processes to assist in project delivery.

Yusuf has experience working in both agile and waterfall environments, while engaging and managing stakeholders globally and possesses a strong ability to work in diverse and multi-faceted teams across a variety of industries. He is a self-starter, known for his work ethic and adaptability, who is continually improving his project management skills and professional experience.

Email:yusuf.tarajia@aspiro.me

Associate

Siddharth Kalra

Siddharth is a versatile and self-motivated technical project manager with education in computer science, data science and project management. Working as part of the PMO team to deliver 3 IT projects for a Student Housing company with operations in Europe, Australia and UAE.

Siddharth is experienced in simultaneously managing, ensuring on-time and within budget delivery of IT projects. Highly-skilled in predictive modelling, data processing and visualization to deliver insights and implement action oriented solutions to complex business problems.

Email:Siddharth.kalra@aspiro.me

Associate

Daniela Avery

Daniela is an Experienced Finacial Services Test Manager. She was responsible for user acceptance testing of Mastercard New Payments Platforms across multiple countries.  Most recently she ran a team of manual and automation Test Analysts to develop and implemented an automated simulator test solution for Instant Payment Services in KSA.

Prior to this she was responsible for Business User Acceptance and Live Proving for regulatory & mandatory Card Schemes (including MasterCard/Visa/JCB) at Barclaycard.

Associate

Ayesha Azhar

Ayesha has four years experience delivering best in class project management offices by creating and maintaining key project documentation to present to stakeholders.   She has a focus on quality control and quality assurance for ensuring relevant information is distributed and retained for audit purposes.

Ayesha’s projects include working with a large global real estate company, a government entity and a MENA fintech start-up. She delivered project office solutions which eliminated manual entry duplication across all PMOs in a large institution and introduced process level documentation practices in a rapidly growing UAE organisation.

She holds a MA Degree in Business & Finance, is a Prince 2 Project Manager Practitioner and an aspiring US CMA.

Email:ayesha.azhar@aspiro.me

Ready for
Transformation?

Let’s start the conversation.

GET IN TOUCH

Ready for
Transformation?

Let’s start the conversation.

GET IN TOUCH