Banking and finance expert Ghassan Abou Adal shares his tactics and strategies with long years of experience in his field to engrave the footprints for successful strategies and advices to deal with different financial institutions specially banks. In addition to great insights for whoever is seeking career in banking and finance sectors . 

Personality – Ghassan Abou Adal

Current Designation- Senior Advisor, AM Bank

I am currently associated with AM bank as Senior Advisor after I held with them the position of Risk Manager for several years. My current position involves advising the bank on risk related stategies following the Lebanese financial and banking crisis that is prevailing since 2019.

How did you reach or stumble upon your current profession?

Since my last year in school I had in my mind 2 options : either Engineering or Finance with Banking as an aim. I have appeared at the entrance exams for both, and I found that I had more skills in Finance. Therefore, I have studied Business Administration with a Major in Money, Finance and Banking. I completed the degrees of Bachelor in Business Adminstration and 2 Masters in Business Administration (Money, Finance and Banking).

Is this your ultimate dream career or just a vocation- please elaborate ? Are you still in the search mode?

It was a very early dream in my life to embrace a career in finance and banking. The cumulative years of experience througout this career path from position to position and from bank to bank, gave me a tremendous experience that would culminate by reaching the most high possible position in the industry.

Did you find your calling? If yes, how?

Yes. I have lived more than 25 years of career in the banking sector with great passion. I had the chance to shift between several functions and several banks in Lebanon and UAE, including the Saradar bank, Ahil International Bank in addition to Cedar. This gave me the opportunity to acquire skills in various departments and know the banking business like very few people in Top Management do. 

According to you, what are the best market trends and practices in current times?

Banking, like many other businesses, witnesses tremendous changes due to the Digital world that we live in. Digital transformation is a new function in banking where many people find their passion. Other more traditional functions would be in Risk, Compliance and wholesale banking including Cash Management.

In order to gain skills and advance in those functions, one needs a solid academic background but also on the job training and following specific courses.

What challenges you faced throughout your career path? How you overcome those challenges?

Banking regulations are usually governed by the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) and the Basle accords. That’s why there are constantly new rules and regulations to learn and to abide by, therefore a major challenge is to keep up-to-date and attend seminars and conferrences where we can exchange experience with our peers.

On another note, I was sometimes offered senior positions where I had little previous experience and where I was expected to perform and achieve targets in record time. This required from me to work extra hours and make a lot of research in order to deliver the expected targets.

How did the Covid 19 crisis affected your career perception and path?

The Covid-19 crisis created a lot of new challenges for all businesses, especially working remotely and trying to put in place new procedures and processes to cope with this situation. Fortunately, it turned out that this experience was very rewarding because the required new processes were created in a record time and proved to be effective.

The perception that a lot of time was needed to put in place such procedures, has beed wiped out by the urgency to act in this regard. The results were very satisfactory.