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Omar Shaikh

Omar Shaikh
Advisory Board Member & Director of the Islamic Finance Council, UK, Islamic Finance Council UK

Omar is the Managing Director of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) and Board Member of the UK Islamic Finance Council (UKIFC)

A Chartered Accountant by profession, he specialises in ethical/responsible finance, Islamic finance, and private equity. He has extensive experience in financial services and has advised multiple governments and regulators on ecosystem building as a leading advocate for sustainable and Islamic finance. His background includes working with EY London, where he qualified as a CA and was the former Head of Islamic finance

Through his GEFI work, Omar has established a number of initiatives, including the Path to COP, the SDG Financial Products platform with UNDP, which promotes innovative financing structures for the SDGs, the Global Islamic Finance and UN SDGs Taskforce launched with the UK Government and IsDB, and the award-winning interfaith Edinburgh Finance Declaration—the world’s first shared values approach to finance between Islamic finance and the Church. He also served on the Board of the University of Oxford Faith-Aligned Impact Finance Project

Omar received a BAcc and a PhD from the University of Glasgow along with an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University conferred for his work in developing ethical finance. Beyond finance, he is actively involved with Colourful Heritage which works with Glasgow Museums to preserve and celebrate South Asian heritage in Scotland, The King’s Trust Scotland and Olivewood Primary School.