Ryan Lemand

Dr Ryan Lemand, a French national, is currently Advisor to the Board of Directors of Securrency Capital, the fully owned subsidiary of Securrency, a major FinTech group in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) backed by Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners (ADCP), State Street, US Bank and WisdomTree. Previously, he served as the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of ADS Investment Solutions (ADSI), the ADSS Group’s Wealth and Asset Management Company, which he founded on behalf of the Group and grew it to become one of the largest fund management companies in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). The ADSS Group is a multinational financial services company with a paid-up capital of 585 million USD and has regulated presence in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. The ADSS Group provides financial services to tens of thousands of clients and processes client transactions in tens of billions USD each year.

Dr Ryan was the Senior Advisor and Head of Risk Management at the Emirates Securities & Commodities Authority, the UAE’s federal securities regulator. In this capacity, Dr Ryan led and contributed to initiatives which gave way to the development of several fundamental financial regulations in the UAE, including the collective investment scheme regulations, as well as regulations on financial analysis and consultancy services, market making and others. He was principally responsible for leading the Funds and Investment Management team that handled the licensing and approvals for local and foreign mutual funds and investment managers.

Prior to that, Dr Ryan was the Lead Portfolio Manager at Fortis Investments in Europe, where he was responsible for managing a 14.6-billion-euro portfolio of assets, namely in the space of credit derivatives, across several mutual funds and hedge funds.

Dr Ryan previously served on several boards in multiple jurisdictions, where he is an approved person by the Hong Kong regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the French capital markets regulator (Autorités des marches financiers – AMF), and the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

Dr Ryan is a sought-after speaker and contributor to major financial market discussions and events in the UAE and the wider MENA region. Dr Ryan holds a PhD (summa cum laude) in Financial Econometrics from the École Normale Supérieure, France, and is the author of two books on financial contagion, as well as several research articles on financial correlation.

Dr Ryan is trilingual in French, English and Arabic, and holds the United Arab Emirates 10-year Golden Visa, which is granted to a very limited number of expatriates.