ZACHARY L. ZAVIDÉ
Founder and CEO
Born in Kuwait but forced to leave during the Gulf War in an epic road trip through 4 countries. Following that his childhood turned out to be a tale of two cities shuttling between Paris and London. Homeschooling on the Eurostar turned out to be the only option for his education. He graduated with a BA at age 14 from the University of Westminster and with an MS from Cass Business School (2003) aged just 18 years.
Zachary spent a large part of his professional career trading European distressed and high-yield assets at Dresdner Kleinwort, Nomura International, TD Securities before co-founding the Private Equity franchise, TLG Capital, in 2009. Zachary's experience at TLG included investments in a pharmaceuticals plant in Uganda making anti-retroviral and anti-malarial drugs, a cancer centre in Ghana and a Cambodian company running cruises along the Mekong river.
He has appeared as a guest host on CNBC several times between the years 2012-2015 including on the prestigious morning show, Squawk Box.
When he is not working, he is an actor and playwright, with his works performed in the West End. He also enjoys rock climbing, having climbed in Spain, Turkey & Africa.
SAMI QURAISHY
Partner
Sami started his career as an Audit Associate at KPMG in London, following which he worked as a Global Analyst in Dubai, London and Singapore at The Abraaj Group, a US$10 billion private equity investment group focused on global growth markets.
He has also previously trained at Deutsche Bank and Yum Brands China. In addition, he was the co-founder of Snackly, an online start-up focused on gluten-free customers in the UK which he grew to become the second largest snack box brand in the country.
Sami graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with a BSc in Philosophy and Economics.
In his spare time, he is focused on practicing internal martial arts, playing football, and travelling.
RAMESH LALCHAND
Head of Trading
Ramesh has been trading for more than 30 years in a variety of jurisdictions. He started his career in South Korea before returning to India in the late 80’s and subsequently starting two successful trading firms. He has been heavily involved in the Africa-India trading nexus and pioneered the garment export trade to Cameroon. Simultaneously his import oriented firm Glodium was the largest importer of label tapes in the whole of India, where it was supplying to more than 30 cities from Taiwan.
In the mid 90’s he shifted his focus to exporting polyester fabrics to Sri Lanka where his export oriented company Sahara was the dominant player through to the early noughties. At the same time he expanded Glodium to specifically look into importation from China into the Sri Lankan market.
His core expertise lies in back to back LC financing, West African markets and textiles exportation. Furthermore he has extensive trading experience with a wide variety of products including teak wood, CFL bulbs, chemical trading and rice.
NA'ÍM ANÍS PEYMÁN
Affiliate Partner
Naim is Silicon Fen’s riposte to Silicon Valley. He started his property management company, Peymans, in his dorm room at Cambridge University. It had humble beginnings where he used his spare time knocking on doors; starting with 2 properties to eventually managing 60 within a span of 2 years.
Peymans is an AirBnb inspired concept where people want to live in homes when they holiday. Peymans is now expanding from Oxbridge to other parts of the country, including London. It is an ingenious business concept, connecting property owners into the lucrative short term letting market.
Naim is an amateur linguist, fluent in five languages and with further proficiencies in four more. In addition to being a CEO of a successful startup at 23, he is also a perennial overachiever having won a series of awards. He is an active philanthropist and participates in many outreach programs for underprivileged children.
Introduction to Peymans
OLINGA WILLIAM LEUNG
Brand Executive
Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese father and Iranian mother, Olinga grew up in the multicultural society of Asia for most of his life. After he was accepted to study Product Design Engineering at Northumbria University, he moved to the United Kingdom and graduated with first-class honours in 2018.
With skills and proficiencies in graphic design, product design, architecture, computer-aided-design, business management, website design, and many more, he was hungry for a new challenge. After having a taste of setting up his own business during university and winning an award, he began his own freelancing design website, made contact with Raef, and eventually joined the company as a Brand Executive in late 2018.
Olinga speaks 4 languages, is an avid lover of design and loves to showcase all his projects at his own personal website below.
