The MENA Region’s Most Influential Financier

In this edition of Industry Voices, we sat down with Youssef Salem, CFO at ADNOC Drilling and one of the MENA region’s most influential finance leaders. Over the past decade, Youssef has navigated every corner of the region’s financial landscape, from investment banking and startup IPOs to AI ventures and multibillion-dollar public markets. His story offers a rare insider look into MENA’s evolving capital markets.

A Career Built on Opportunities and Relationships

Youssef’s career has been defined by serendipitous opportunities, each chapter opening the door to the next, often in unexpected ways.

It all began at Q-Invest, Qatar’s first investment bank, where Youssef built the foundations of his finance career. He later joined Moelis & Company in Dubai as an Executive Director, advising some of the region’s largest corporations on complex transactions, capital raises, and strategic deals. 

Two of those clients would later define his career: Swvl, the mass transit platform, and ADNOC, the UAE's national oil company. 

From Advising Swvl to Leading Its SPAC

During his time at Moelis, Youssef worked closely with Swvl, helping the company raise capital and prepare for its U.S. listing. What began as an advisory relationship with co-founder and CEO Mustafa Kandil deepened into a friendship. So when the time came to appoint a CFO to lead Swvl’s public listing in-house, Mustafa didn’t have to look far, Youssef was the obvious choice.

For Youssef, the opportunity was historic: being part of the first Egyptian company to go public in the US, the first MENA unicorn to list on Nasdaq, and the only mass transit tech platform on any global exchange at the time. “Joining Swvl as CFO made perfect sense,” Youssef reflects. “I believed in the mission and I wanted to help open this uncharted territory.” For him, breaking new ground wasn’t about publicity; it was about creating a path others could follow. And a lot of it was very new to him.

The scope of Youssef’s role expanded far beyond the capital raises and transactions that had defined his career up to that point. Suddenly, finance took on an entirely new meaning, encompassing accounting, tax, reporting, compliance, governance, enterprise IT, sustainability, business planning, corporate performance, and corporate development. He found himself navigating complex SEC regulatory filings, producing U.S. standard audited financials, and building a governance framework from the ground up, complete with an independent board, all to ensure Swvl was fully prepared for life as a publicly listed company. 

But the biggest shift, Youssef says, was one of ownership and accountability. “In banking, you advise and move on. In-house, you own the outcomes: the wins, the losses, and everything in between.”

Why SPAC?

Interestingly, Swvl chose to go public through a SPAC, becoming the largest Middle Eastern SPAC listing at the time and only the second company from the region to do so, following Anghami. The goal wasn’t an exit or a liquidity event. “The SPAC was purely a way of raising primary capital,” Youssef explains. “There was no secondary component; the real comparison was to a private round.”

“The advantage of the SPAC,” Youssef said, “was really the ability for people to subscribe to the long-term growth story, as opposed to the short-term dynamics.” In other words, the SPAC allowed Swvl to raise on more friendly terms from investors willing to bet on Swvl’s market size and future potential.

It was also a move well-timed to the macro environment. SPACs tend to flourish when interest rates are low, and the post-COVID period was no exception. “A SPAC allows investors to park their money for one to two years while it searches for a company to merge with,” Youssef explains. “In a zero-interest-rate environment, the opportunity cost of that capital is minimal.” That dynamic, he notes, is what fueled the SPAC boom during the COVID era and made Swvl’s timing particularly strategic.

What Public Markets Actually Demand

Going public fundamentally redefined Youssef's role. “When you're a private company, you're very focused on execution, building heads down,” he says. “Whereas once you're public, you have a lot of stakeholders and public matters that you need to manage.”Governance and investor relations became central: quarterly board meetings, audit and nomination committees, earnings calls, analyst coverage, investor updates, and conference strategies. 

One of the key lessons for Youssef was about what really drives value once you’re public. “When companies go public, the conversation fixates on market cap and share price,” he says. “But what matters far more is liquidity, how much the stock is actually traded.” He compares it to real estate: “You can list a property at any price, but without an active market of buyers and sellers, the price is just a number.”

Liquidity, in his view, is what gives meaning to valuation, and it’s been a guiding focus in his current role at ADNOC Drilling as well. “Share price and market cap going up is very important,” he says, “but liquidity going up is even more crucial, because long-term, that’s what allows you to bring in investors in size, and that will allow the price to trend up over time.”

Building that liquidity requires layered strategies that go far beyond financial performance. It means:

• Engaging retail investors through platforms like Robinhood, eToro, and Reddit; hosting AMAs; and maintaining a steady flow of news.

• Creating momentum and trading windows for hedge funds through M&A announcements, capital markets days, and announcements.

• Earning the trust of institutions by consistently beating estimates, raising guidance, and maintaining transparency quarter after quarter.

• Expanding visibility by maximizing free float, securing analyst research coverage, attending investor conferences and roadshows, and targeting inclusion in indices like MSCI and FTSE.

He sums it up simply: “when you become a public company you're half building, half marketing. The market needs to see it, understand it, and believe in it, otherwise, the value doesn’t translate.”

AIQ: Building Optionality Into Every Exit

After Swvl, Youssef’s next move followed a familiar pattern: seizing an opportunity born from trust and long-standing relationships.

In April 2023, that opportunity came in the form of AIQ, a joint venture between ADNOC, a long-time client Youssef had advised on multiple M&A transactions and IPOs during his tenure at Moelis, and G42, Abu Dhabi’s leading AI firm. “It was basically the two biggest players in energy and AI coming together to create an AI venture,” he said. “It was clear this had the right backing and could scale very quickly.”

When he joined, AIQ’s plan was to go public. The company was building governance structures, tightening financials, and preparing for market readiness. But within six months, the direction shifted. Presight, already publicly listed and dominant in sectors like healthcare and finance, saw AIQ as its entry point into energy, and acquired a controlling stake at a $1.4 billion valuation.

For Youssef, it wasn’t a detour, but validation of a core belief: optionality is built, not found. “Whatever you do, you’re always creating optionality. A lot of what you do in terms of governance, building, and value maximization opens options for you,” he said, “an attractive IPO story and an attractive M&A story share the same DNA.” The work done for an IPO wasn’t wasted when the strategy pivoted to acquisition. It created the very conditions that made that acquisition possible and valuable.

Operating at Scale & M&A Playbook

As AIQ’s acquisition by Presight closed, another door opened for Youssef, one that would push his leadership to an entirely new scale, this time as CFO of ADNOC Drilling. The shared leadership between AIQ and ADNOC Drilling made the transition seamless, but the leap itself was staggering. “I had never operated at that level before,” he admits. “AIQ had about 100 people, Swvl a few hundred, Moelis 50 in the Middle East, Q-Invest 200. ADNOC Drilling had 11,000.”

The jump in market value was just as dramatic. Swvl had peaked at $1 billion, AIQ was valued at $1.4 billion when acquired, and ADNOC Drilling stood at $15 billion when he joined, growing to over $27 billion today. That scale changes everything: governance, decision-making, and the way value is created. 

As CFO, Youssef now oversees one of the company’s most active strategic engines, M&A. ADNOC Drilling executes M&A as a key pillar of its growth strategy, but under his leadership, it’s approached with precision and discipline. Every transaction must make sense on two fronts: financially accretive and strategically aligned. “If something is accretive on earnings per share, dividends per share, return on equity, and return on capital employed, it’s a clear yes financially,” Youssef explains. “But even then, it needs to fit the core strategy. Deals that distract from the long-term focus or confuse investors are not worth pursuing. You don’t want to drift too far from your core business as that dilutes the multiple at which you trade”.

The company’s acquisition of SLB’s land drilling rigs business in Oman and Kuwait perfectly illustrates this balance. Strategically, the markets are neighboring and growing, with dynamics closely aligned to the UAE. Operationally, the rigs are fully transferable across regions. Financially, the deal is accretive across all key metrics, ticking both the strategic and financial boxes.

Integration after acquisitions also follows a disciplined playbook. “We focus on commercial integration,” Youssef explains. “We don’t alter the brand, management, or core DNA of the companies we acquire. Instead, we concentrate on synergies and cross-selling opportunities. Our goal is growth-driven integration, not cost-driven restructuring.”

The Evolving MENA Capital Markets

Over the past few years, the MENA region’s capital markets have made remarkable progress. But according to Youssef, the journey toward a fully mature ecosystem is still underway.

Early-stage funding has matured significantly. Pre-seed, seed, and Series A investors are now active and well established. Yet the ecosystem struggles to support companies in the growth stage, those that have validated their model and need capital to scale before going public or being acquired. “Funds like BECO’s growth vehicle are helping, but there’s still a long way to go before this layer of capital becomes robust.” Youssef explains.

A similar story plays out in private credit. It’s beginning to emerge, with initiatives such as the Ajeej–Nuwa joint venture and Shorooq’s private credit fund, alongside selective activity from international banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, often financing fintech players like Tabby, Tamara, or Lendo. “These are encouraging signs,” he notes, “but we still need more diversity in private credit providers, covering a broader range of industries.”

The private equity scene also remains thin. “After Abraaj, we lost the pure-play private equity culture,” Youssef says. “Most of what we see today are deal-by-deal vehicles, not the blind-pool funds that drive sustained investment ecosystems. And much of it is still government-backed.”

Beyond capital availability, structural constraints continue to hold the region’s public markets back. The first is listing eligibility. “Most major exchanges in the region still don’t allow pre-profitability companies to list,” Youssef points out. “As of today, Saudi’s Nomu is the only major platform that does. If you’re a pre-profitability company in the UAE, Saudi (on Tadawul), or Egypt, you effectively can’t go public.”

Another challenge is regional fragmentation. Unlike the U.S. or China, MENA doesn’t have a unified market. “Each country has its own regulatory framework, licensing rules, and barriers to cross-border sales,” Youssef says. “That makes it difficult to build true regional scale, the kind global investors are attracted to.”

Still, he sees positive momentum. Companies like Jahez, which expanded into Qatar through acquisitions, or Tabby, which operates across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, show what successful  pan-regional plays can look like. 

Missing Infrastructure & Investor Appetite

Youssef also touches on ecosystem design. He points to Hong Kong and Japan as examples of integrated ecosystems where universities, corporates, tech parks, and startups collaborate closely. “It’s not just about funding startups, it’s about connecting them to corporations that are developing IP and doing real R&D. That’s what creates a sustainable tech ecosystem.”

In the Middle East, that connective tissue is still thin. Furthermore, most public investors in the region retain a dividend-focused mindset, which clashes with the needs of high-growth companies. “Growth companies aren’t in a position to pay dividends,” he says. “That makes them less attractive locally compared to markets like the U.S., where investors value long-term potential and growth.”

The Secondary Market Void

Another critical missing piece is a functioning secondary market. In developed markets, a broad base of retail, hedge fund, and micro-cap investors actively trade smaller companies, providing liquidity and valuation signals. “That layer doesn’t really exist here,” Youssef explains. “Historically, secondary exchanges like Nasdaq Dubai or the Nile Exchange haven’t been very active.”

He also advocates for private exchanges that would allow large startups to trade shares before going public, similar to the Nasdaq Private Market in the U.S. “Right now, in the Middle East, you either trade publicly with a ticker or you don’t trade at all,” Youssef notes. “We need that middle layer.”

Government Role

All these gaps, from private credit to secondary markets, share a common root: how to get them started. “It’s always a chicken-and-egg problem,” Youssef says. “You need enough demand and supply to create a functioning market.”

Governments can play a catalytic role in market development. “When ADNOC’s subsidiaries and other state-owned companies go public, they create supply,” Youssef explains. “That supply attracts both local and international investors, which in turn enables private companies to follow suit and access public markets.” 

“Ultimately, you need either a demand incentive or a supply incentive to break the cycle. Once one side moves, the other follows,” Youssef adds.

Why Foreign Investors Are Eyeing MENA

Youssef believes that MENA will continue to draw increasing interest from foreign investors; a trend that will, in turn, boost market liquidity and open more pathways for local exits. 

At ADNOC Drilling, more than 60% of the free float is held by international investors, including Fidelity, BlackRock, Capital Group, and GIC. “We’re actually the most overweight stock by investors across all global emerging markets,” Youssef notes.

“You don’t really have a lot of safe havens left, and that’s where the Middle East, and especially the UAE, shines strong,” Youssef explains. Stable governance, strong government backing, transparent systems, and growth potential make it an attractive alternative for investors seeking emerging market exposure without the geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility affecting other regions.

Youssef’s Guiding Principles

For Youssef, success is rooted in focus, trust, and the relationships you cultivate along the way. Beyond his role as CFO at ADNOC Drilling, he actively supports the region’s innovation ecosystem as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Hub71, an advisor to BECO Capital, and a board member for several companies. In these roles, he stays closely connected to emerging startups and the key dynamics of MENA’s capital markets. His philosophy is simple: build genuine relationships, deliver results, and let opportunities follow naturally.