Independent advisory board counsel for institutional governance.

Ziad Barakat is Vice Chairman and CEO of Barakat Holding, a diversified Dubai-headquartered conglomerate with interests across media, IT, real estate, energy, power, construction, infrastructure, and industrial sectors. He also oversees his private family office and trust. Under his leadership, the group executed high-profile acquisitions including Emarat Al Oula Group — a leading GCC infrastructure contractor operating Abu Dhabi's largest water treatment plant on a BOT basis with the UAE government and delivering flagship mega-projects such as Habshan 5. He further expanded the group's industrial footprint through the acquisition of ABJ Industries, a major Abu Dhabi steel fabrication facility serving clients including Samsung Engineering, Marubeni, and ADNOC Group. His counsel to PWX focuses on acquisition evaluation, strategic partnerships, and disciplined capital deployment across complex industrial platforms.

William F. Gately is a financial-crime integrity and institutional compliance advisor whose career spans nearly three decades of local and federal law enforcement and subsequent specialist consulting on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. As a senior investigator with the U.S. Customs Service, he created the Systems Targeting methodology for money-laundering investigations — later adopted as standard operating procedure by U.S. Customs, the DEA, and the FBI — and organised and led Operation Casablanca (1995–1998), a landmark multi-year undercover investigation into banking networks facilitating illicit finance, resulting in more than USD 100 million recovered, 168 arrests, and indictments of banks and bankers. He has held multiple senior Customs leadership roles and has trained and advised institutions including FLETC, allied law-enforcement agencies, UNODC programmes in Southeast Asia, and U.S. Treasury counterparts. He now serves as a California-licensed private investigator and subject-matter consultant to federal agencies, intelligence communities, top-tier law firms, and private industry on AML/CTF systems and high-risk diligence, and has advised on the establishment of financial intelligence unit (FIU) capability for AML compliance at international banks. A U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and recipient of three Purple Hearts, he is also the author of Dead Ringer. His counsel to PWX centres on the Compliance pillar of governance, risk and compliance — AML and CTF system integrity, high-risk jurisdiction and counterparty diligence, and the illicit-finance exposures permanent capital must pressure-test across complex corridors.

Zuhair Ismail Kazerooni is a Bahraini entrepreneur, investor, and business leader with more than four decades of experience building companies across engineering, energy, manufacturing, industrial services, and infrastructure. As Founder, Investor, and Chairman of Ramsis Engineering across Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE — together with ScopeServ and EnerServ — he has shaped an integrated industrial platform serving oil and gas, petrochemical, power, water, mining, and process industries. His counsel to PWX centres on multi-sector portfolio coherence, industrial localization, joint-venture strategy, and the balance between group-wide alignment and operating-company autonomy across the GCC, Asia, and Africa.

Christopher A. Sands is a technology entrepreneur and secure-systems designer with approximately forty-five to fifty years of corporate experience building authentication, identity, and deployable secure solutions for mid-sized and large enterprises and for United States national-security institutions. He began his career in 1975 at Inco, Inc., a family-owned software company, designing and integrating software for the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, including contributions related to CONAD and NORAD; Inco was acquired by McDonnell Douglas Information Systems in 1985. In 1991 he co-founded AC Technology (ACT), serving as CEO for seventeen years as an Enterprise Elite Certified reseller and iForce partner with Sun Microsystems, designing ruggedized rackmount enclosures for deployable military and communications operations (including the patented Clamshell system). In 2001 he co-founded BiObex, developing patented biometric authentication systems — fingerprint, iris, and 3D facial recognition — with solutions for the Intelligence Community and DoD including Iris-on-the-Move at the Pentagon and PLAMS for the National Security Agency, and implementing the first biometric two-factor authentication for access to a satellite system (Hughes Network Solutions DIRECWAY). After ACT's acquisition in 2008, he developed the patented SAFE® (Strong Authentication Front End) protocol — random two-factor authentication designed to defeat keylogging, phishing, man-in-the-browser, man-in-the-middle, brute-force, replay, and insider threats — with eight national and thirteen international patents, validated by NIST at FIPS 140-2 Level 3. His counsel to PWX centres on cybersecurity governance, secure identity and authentication, and the technology-assurance standards required across a diversified institutional platform.

Antoine Michel Zakhia is Founder and Managing Partner of Zakhia International Law Firm, with more than four decades at the bar focused on cross-border transactions, international commercial arbitration, and the structuring of complex agreements between sovereign entities and private enterprise. For more than fifteen years he has advised policymakers and legislatures on regulatory design, government contracting, and public-sector governance — bringing practical judgment to the interface of law, state authority, and commercial investment. His practice spans international trade, government procurement, multi-jurisdiction investment agreements, and dispute resolution before international arbitral tribunals. His counsel to PWX centres on sovereign engagement, regulatory navigation, and the geopolitical and policy landscape that shapes market entry, cross-border partnerships, and corridor strategy across PWX operating regions.

Dr. Hassane Abdallah, MD, FACS, FESC, FACC, is a cardiac surgeon and institutional educator whose career spans clinical excellence and leadership development across Morocco, France, Belgium, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. As Consultant at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center Al-Hassa and Deputy Program Director of the cardiac surgery residency, he shapes succession pathways, clinical standards, and the next generation of specialist talent. His fellowships at the University of Montreal, the University of Sherbrooke, and leading European centres, together with service on institutional research and ECMO committees, inform counsel on organizational depth, professional formation, and governance continuity in complex clinical enterprises — experience that strengthens PWX's perspective on leadership development across a multi-division institutional platform.

Alexandre Markarov is a banking and investment professional with more than 25 years spanning equity capital markets, private equity, and regulated fund management. He began his career at BNP Paribas plc in London, rising to Head of Southern Europe and Emerging Markets in Media & Telecom Investment Banking, advising governments and private companies on IPOs, convertible bonds, block trades, sector transactions, privatisations, and restructurings. As a founder and Board Member of Millennium Finance Corporation and Millennium Private Equity in the DIFC, he served as Managing Director for Products (M&A and Capital Markets) and sat on the Investment Committee overseeing private equity investments including Kuwait Energy Company and Bharti Airtel Towers — while helping originate landmark regional offerings such as the DP World IPO. From 2014 to 2020 he was Managing Director at VTB Capital plc responsible for MENA multiproduct origination across loans, trade finance, commodities, structured products, and investment banking. He is Founder of Auxilium Global and, since 2024, Senior Executive Officer of Shuaa GMC Ltd, an ADGM-based, FSRA-regulated fund manager with approximately USD 1.2bn under management, and a Member of the Investment Committee of the Board of Shuaa Capital PJSC. He also serves on the boards of NCM Financial and Thalassa GP, a Cayman private equity fund with about USD 500m in assets. His counsel to PWX centres on institutional investment judgment, portfolio oversight, capital-markets dynamics, and the risk-adjusted deployment discipline permanent capital demands across diversified asset classes.

Capt. George Fournaris brings more than 43 years of experience across the international maritime industry — from Master Mariner command to executive leadership in fleet and technical management. As Chief Executive Officer of Holger Navigation Corp., and formerly CEO of Bariba Corp., he has overseen commercial and technical ship operations, safety systems, and regulatory compliance for diverse maritime clients. His expertise spans petroleum inspections, Oil Major attendance, marine risk management, dry-docking and newbuilding supervision, and ship and terminal safety audits. Thirteen years as Fleet Manager at Thenamaris, including tanker operations and newbuildings at leading Asian yards, underpin his counsel to PWX on maritime operational excellence, asset integrity, and the standards required of a permanent-capital logistics platform.

Kareem A. Odah brings more than 34 years of experience in Iraq's oil industry, progressing from maintenance engineering to project leadership at Basra Oil Company and subsequent consulting roles. He has directed pipeline and facilities design, overseen mega-project participation with international contractors, and served as Chairman of the Joint Management Committee for the Siba Gas Field with Kuwait Energy and UEG. Senior posts as BOC Production and Operation Director and Exporting Director — spanning Al-Basra Oil Terminals, SPM systems, and major depot operations — inform his counsel on energy project delivery, field integrity, and the operational discipline required across PWX's energy and infrastructure platforms.

David A. Hodson brings more than three decades of experience at the intersection of energy project development and structured capital — from capital-project leadership at ExxonMobil to Managing Director roles covering oil and gas finance across the MENA region at Société Générale and Standard Chartered Bank, with prior senior energy-finance experience at BNP Paribas. As founder of BluePearl Management in Dubai, he advises energy companies, project sponsors, and financial institutions on project development, joint ventures, project finance, and transaction structuring in demanding and frontier markets. His counsel to PWX focuses on energy project finance architecture, structured-capital pathways, and the sequencing discipline required to bring complex energy and infrastructure initiatives from concept to bankable execution — distinct from day-to-day field operations and from group-level M&A mandate.

Marwan Mansour is an energy markets and commercial origination executive whose career spans commodity trading, structured markets, and regional deal origination across the MENA energy complex. As Regional Commercial Head for RWE Supply & Trading in Dubai, and formerly Regional Head for Hess Energy Trading Co (HETCO) in the Middle East and North Africa, he has operated at the intersection of physical energy markets, commercial structuring, and institutional counterparties. Earlier, as Regional Head of Global Markets MENA Origination at Standard Bank Plc, he led origination and execution across project finance in oil and gas, commodity finance and hedging, fixed income and primary markets, Islamic banking, and trade and structured trade finance. A Chartered Management Accountant with degrees in Physics (Imperial College) and a Master's from City University, his counsel to PWX centres on energy and commodity market dynamics, commercial structuring and hedging, and the origination discipline that connects market conditions to energy-linked commercial decisions across the platform — distinct from field operations and from project-finance structuring.