Amana Bank announces 3 new appointments to its Board

Amana Bank PLC yesterday announced three new appointments to its Board of Director.

They are Paul Mercer and Omar Kassim as Non-Executive Non-Independent Directors and Tishan Harendranath Subasinghe as Non-Executive, Independent Director. 

Mercer is an English law qualified lawyer with over 20 years of experience working in banking, particularly in Islamic Finance. Paul has extensive experience in corporate governance and has used his skills and experience as a Director on a number of boards representing the Kuwait Finance House Group. Paul was the Chairman of Bahrain Investment Bank, Ibdar Bank, and as Chairman of the Board, he oversaw a three-way bank merger involving Elaf Bank, Capital Management House and Capivest.

In recent years Paul has been actively engaged on Islamic Banking regulation in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the implementation of capital and governance requirements.

While working as a lawyer in private practice and as in-house legal counsel at Kuwait Finance House (Bahrain), Paul has advised on a full range of legal issues relating to Islamic Finance and helped in the preparation of transactional documentation designed to comply with Islamic Law.

He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is registered as an arbitrator on the GCC Commercial Arbitration Centre roster of arbitrators. Paul is also registered as a mediator on the Saudi Centre for Commercial Arbitration Roster of Mediators.

Kassim is a fintech focused technology entrepreneur, who specialises in conceiving, building, and exiting interesting technology ventures. Omar is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nomod, a London headquartered startup building a highly efficient, scalable, business banking platform to empower millions of entrepreneurs and startups around the world to start and grow their businesses with inventive payment and banking tools. 

Omar also co-founded and was the Chief Executive Officer of Esanjo, a trading, investment, and technology business based in Dubai, where he remains a member of the Board. Omar previously founded and exited JadoPado, a highly regarded e-commerce technology platform addressing the Middle East, North African, and South Asia. Omar holds a BSc in Electronics Engineering and Business Studies from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.

Tishan is a Fellow and Council Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) and the Managing Director and Joint Managing Partner of Moore Stephens Consulting Ltd. and Moore Stephens Aiyar respectively. Before that he was the Head of Audit and Assurance at BDO Partners. He is also the Chairman of Sanasa General Insurance Company Limited and is also a Council Member of the University of Moratuwa.

His profession also expands overseas where he had work experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Botswana spanning several years. These were supported by the international training that he has undergone in USA, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Malaysia, Indonesia and Rome.

As a member of CA Sri Lanka, Tishan has served as the Chairman of the Annual Report Awards Committee, National Conference Committee and Examinations Committee. He also held the post of Vice President of the Young Chartered Accountants Forum (YCAF).

Tishan is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA-USA) and has an MBA in Finance by the University of Colombo with a Gold Medal and has earned an LLB (Hons.) degree from Buckinghamshire New University. He is also a visiting lecturer at several Government universities and had also conducted international training in Maldives and Bhutan.