Shifting Horizons: The Middle East in the Age of Trumponomics 2.0

Renée has 20+ years experience as an economist. Prior to joining EXANTE in 2021, she was a managing editor at The Economist Group, a macro strategist at Societe Generale and a bond fund manager at WestLB. She’s also served as an economist to the UK’s Treasury Committee and Senior Economist/Chief Technical Adviser for the UNDP.

Serena Sebastiani is a Senior Director in the Financial Services Advisory arm of PwC Middle East and Consulting Virtual Assets Leader. She also looks after the PwC innovative Assets & Wealth Management platform.
Serena has 15 years of experience in supporting Regulators, Governments and the Private Sector to achieve these objectives, through designing strategies, policies and implementation actions that will define the Future of Banking and Finance.
As an ex-Regulator, Serena supports Regulatory Authorities in the Region to design their future -looking strategies and policies in the Fintech and Virtual Assets space, works with Banks and other TradFi institutions to enter the Virtual Assets space, and advises VASPs on their strategies, operations, compliance issues.
Serena supports the growth of the Fintech and Web3 ecosystem in the Region by contributing to the active community of players across the value chain. She is also co-chair of the Digital Assets Committee at the Mena Fintech Association, a mentor in acceleration programs and speaker at major industry events.

Deepak Mehra serves as the Chief Economist at Commercial Bank of Dubai, where he is primarily responsible for analyzing the macroeconomic landscape to identify emerging risks and opportunities that impact the bank's various functions. He is also a member of the executive board of CBD Financial Services LLC, the equity brokerage subsidiary of the bank. Previously, at CBD, he was the Head of Investments starting in 2007 and was instrumental in establishing the product and advisory platforms. He was also instrumental in launching the region's first Robo Advisory app from a bank in 2021.
In his career spanning over three decades, Deepak has held leadership positions in banks like Citibank and Credit Suisse. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA degree from IMT. A regular speaker at conferences and on television he is also the author of two successful self-help books Ready, Steady, Go and Think Like a Golfer.

Zeina joined Amwal in January 2024 as a Co- Head of Fixed Income and Partner based in Dubai. Zeina will be focused on leading the public fixed income.
Prior to joining Amwal, Zeina was a portfolio manager for Arqaam Capital. Where she was lead PM on all the funds and all the discretionary mandates managing various strategies in Global Emerging Markets Conventional and Global Sukuk for institutional accounts.
Zeina has over 15 years of experience in the financial services, 13-year track record co-managing Global Credit Funds, and 10-year track record co-managing Shariah Global Credit funds. Prior to joining Arqaam, Zeina was part of the management team of a global fixed income fund domiciled in Luxembourg and worked as a fixed income advisor to the Private Banking Team. Previously, Zeina held a position as a credit and market risk supervisor and worked in securitization part of the structuring team for asset-backed securitization deals. Zeina holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Finance and has been a CFA Charterholder since 2011.