SIRIO Capital Partners is pleased to announce the appointment of Karim Samra as Partner MENA. In this role, Karim will establish SIRIO's presence in the GCC region to support ecosystem development, market creation, and the growth of the emerging VC fund management industry.

With this appointment, SIRIO brings institutional knowledge, deep networks and the ability to mobilise capital to support the region's rapidly evolving investment landscape — at a time when the GCC is actively building local asset management capabilities and seeking partners with proven frontier market expertise.

Jeroen Harteveld is the Managing Partner of SIRIO Capital Partners. He is an impact investor and fund manager with over 25 years of experience in development finance, private equity and emerging markets. As Fund Manager of MASSIF at FMO — the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank — he led one of the world's largest financial inclusion funds, managing over EUR 600 million in committed assets across 125+ investments in 40 countries. Under his leadership, the fund pioneered early-stage investments in fintech, venture capital, fragile states and market-building initiatives across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the MENA region.

Karim Samra is an experienced investment banker, ecosystem builder and entrepreneur. His investing background (US, KSA, UAE, North Africa) includes Swicorp Capital, GE Capital, Barclays Capital, Avanz Capital, and Booz & Co., where he helped structure more than $400M in funding to project finance, private equity, VC fund, and public-private deals.

He also served as COO of the Hult Prize Foundation — the world's largest social venture platform, recognised by TIME Magazine as “one of the top five ideas changing the world.” He subsequently founded ChangeLabs, a leading accelerator and ecosystem development organisation active across the Middle East and North Africa, working with investors, governments, development organisations and the private sector to ignite local startup and VC ecosystems and support entrepreneurship.

He brings direct GCC investment expertise and deep networks across sovereign wealth funds, family offices and institutional investors in the GCC.

SIRIO Capital Partners is an investment and advisory firm focused on emerging and frontier markets. Through its three business lines — Build, Invest and Scale — SIRIO supports the development of the fund management ecosystem by building institutional capabilities, investing in fund managers and scaling proven platforms. SIRIO brings knowledge, networks and capital to back the next generation of fund managers.