Leila Nasser-Fahim

Leila Nasser-Fahim runs investment strategy at Falcon Ridge Capital Partners, a Dubai-based growth equity firm managing capital on behalf of regional family offices and a small number of institutional partners. She joined in 2014 from a London infrastructure fund and took the chief investment officer role in 2019.

Her approach is deliberately narrow. Falcon Ridge writes a small number of cheques each year into logistics, industrial services and unglamorous enterprise software, categories she describes as businesses that continue to exist regardless of sentiment. The firm avoids consumer, avoids pre-revenue, and has declined to raise a dedicated technology vehicle despite repeated encouragement from placement agents during the 2021 cycle, a decision that looked conservative at the time and considerably less so afterwards.

Nasser-Fahim is unusually direct about the governance side of growth capital, which she treats as the actual product. Falcon Ridge takes board seats, insists on audited accounts within a defined window, and has walked away from at least two competitive processes over reporting standards. She has argued in regional forums that the shortage in Gulf private markets is not capital but institutional-grade financial reporting at the mid-market level, and that solving it is a precondition for companies in the region to attract cross-border buyers at fair value.

She began her career as a credit analyst, an origin she cites frequently, and reads every set of accounts herself before an investment committee meeting. Colleagues describe a habit of asking about working capital before asking about the product. She mentors through a regional women-in-finance network, holds a degree in mathematics and a CFA charter, and is a reluctant but competent public speaker.