Comgest
Hala is currently a portfolio manager for European Equities at Comgest, a USD-16bn fund based in Paris and Hong-Kong. She started and now runs the Shariah fund practice within Comgest as well as the SRI (Socially Responsible Investment) practice there. She started her career in 1996 as a financial analyst for BT Wolfensohn and then Merrill Lynch in London in mergers and acquisitions.
Hala graduated from HEC in France with a Masters in Financial Economics and Berkeley Haas School of Business, and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Besides her professional commitment, Hala is a leading figure in CSR activities in Lebanon and the Middle East.
While at MIT she participated and won the MIT 50K business plan competition. She started there Booleo, a telecom software business. Building on this experience, and upon her return to Lebanon, she started the MIT Arab Business plan competition, that now receives thousands of applications from more than 20 Arab countries. This competition is part of the CSR activities of Abdul Latif Jameel companies, one of the largest in the region.
She also works on several development projects in Lebanon (Grow my Business Competition, Maurice Fadel Prize among others) and has recently initiated Tripoli Carfree Day, the first of its kind in the Arab region.
She is married and has 3 children.
