About

Having completed successful spells in the public sector with the Financial Markets Authority of Tunisia and as part of the in-house legal team in charge of derivatives transactions of BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking (while simultaneously completing a Ph.D) in Paris, Dr Souhayel Tayeb ‘felt the need to diversify his experience by doing corporate finance and project finance banking transactions’ and decided that moving to the Middle East in-house legal community would be the best opportunity for this; he therefore moved there in 2012. Having been in place at Commercial Bank of Dubai since December 2013, he has a number of notable project and corporate finance transactions to look back on fondly, including an AED1.8bn secured amortising syndicated term loan for a large local group, a US$655m and AED1.2bn revolving credit facilities for another large local group and a US$325m Murabaha Facility for a large local conglomerate. He has also successfully managed and completed multiple hedging deals and complex restructuring transactions, all while taking care of the company secretariat and corporate governance aspects. Internally, he has been just as successful in moulding the Commercial Bank of Dubai legal department: ‘almost six years after joining, I am proud of the achievements we have completed with the team’, he says. ‘The department is today placed at the heart of the engine, and is trusted for the added value it provides while offering responsive and accurate legal advice to the different internal stakeholders. It keeps the Bank’s core values in mind in each interaction and also leverages technology and digitisation when completing tasks’.