Charting Your Course:

Born and raised in Azerbaijan, my first foray in the United States came as a high school student in 1997, when I was selected to participate in the US Government-funded Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program for exceptional young talents from the former Soviet Union. This transformative year living with a local family and attending school in Indiana sparked my ambition to write my own story and continue exploring new places, while working on the host family’s farm led to a lifelong interest in agribusiness.

I soon returned to the US, where I earned an undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Maine before moving to New York to start a career on Wall Street. After learning the ropes in Mike Mayo’s top-flight analyst team covering the largest banks in the US at Prudential Equity Group, I embarked on a full-time MBA program at Harvard University, with an internship position at global investment firm Temasek Holdings in Singapore. As part of Temasek’s banking team, I worked on investment opportunities in the emerging Central and East European financial services sector.
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After graduating from Harvard, I worked at various multinational firms – Altima Partners in New York, Delin Capital in London and Open Mineral in Abu Dhabi – where I was engaged in a wide array of investments in the natural resources sector. This journey led me to spend extended spells in the Black Sea basin to invest in and establish local integrated farming and food production businesses on a large scale.

Drawing on the expertise and entrepreneurial drive gained from these diverse experiences, I eventually launched a London-based investment advisory business. For over a decade, I worked on SME-focused investment deals across Europe and a range of industries, embodying my affinity for high-potential sectors in frontier markets.
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Outside of the business life, I continue to value opportunities for sharing my knowledge and experiences to help the broader community. During my early days on Wall Street, I volunteered for Minds Matter, an NGO supporting young people from underprivileged backgrounds, and am currently supporting a charity whose cause is close to my heart.