Menas Directors
Dr Charles Gurdon, managing director
Charles Gurdon joined Menas Services Ltd in 1980 as a senior researcher on
international border disputes and other arbitration cases. In 1988, when the
company
diversified into consultancy work for corporate clients and newsletter
publishing, Charles helped found the Menas Associates subsidiary and became its
managing
director. Since then he has run the company's consultancy portfolio and
publication stable, and oversaw the restructuring of the Menas group which saw
Menas
Associates become the group's parent company.
Charles holds a B.A. (Hons.) Economics & Geography, M.Sc. (with
distinction) and Ph.D. from the University of London's School of Oriental & African
Studies (SOAS) where he specialised in the Middle East and Africa.
He is also the author of two books and numerous reports on Sudan and, before
time constraints made it impossible, he was a regular commentator on radio and
an
occasional one on TV.
charles.gurdon@menas.co.uk
Non-Executive Directors
Dr Noel Brehony, CMG, chairman
Noel joined Britain's Foreign Office after completing a Ph.D. on Libya and
spent most of his career in the Middle East with postings to Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan
and Egypt. He joined Rolls-Royce plc as Director of Middle East Affairs in
1992
and joined the board of Rolls-Royce companies in Egypt, Bahrain, UAE and
Saudi
Arabia.
He has been Chairman of the Middle East Association and a member of several UK
government advisory groups on trade policy on the Middle East. He has been a
member of the UK–Saudi Joint Offset Committee, the UK Saudi Business Council and
the Dubai UK Economic Committee. He is President of the British Society of
Middle
East Studies (BRISMES); Chairman of the Council for British Research in the
Levant; and a member of the Advisory Board at the London Middle East Institute
at
SOAS; and of the council of the British Egyptian Society.
Phillip Griffin, non-executive director
A consultant with extensive knowledge of banking and advisory services in the
Middle East, Phillip Griffin has considerable experience in the following areas:
-
Project development & finance
-
Advising Western corporations on specific
projects in the region or on their
country strategy
-
Industrial diversification,
offset and related areas
-
Advising on the structuring and execution of export credit, commodity and
structured trade finance business
-
Middle East bank advisory/restructuring work
-
Company/corporate restructuring in the Middle East
Phillip Griffin started his career in general banking in 1984 in London with
Australia's Westpac Banking Corporation before a period in stock-broking in the
late 1980s with a subsidiary of Gerrard & National. He then returned to
banking in 1989 at Citicorp Investment Bank, focusing on Emerging Markets, trade
and
corporate finance, earning the Citibank GAMS award in 1992. In 1993 he was
hired
to Morgan Grenfell (which subsequently became part of the Deutsche Bank
group)
to be the executive responsible for working on Middle East business with
the
bank's senior Middle East Adviser. He left Deutsche Bank in 2001 to
establish his
own consultancy business and was appointed a director of Menas at the
beginning
of
2002.
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