Thomson Reuters appoints Rushdi Siddiqui as Head of Islamic Finance

Mr. Siddiqui's appointment represents another investment by Thomson Reuters in this sector.

Thomson Reuters, which has been active in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia since 1865, has strong Islamic Finance assets covering leading content, news, analytics and trading capabilities.

In this newly created role, Mr. Siddiqui will be utilizing these assets and working closely with Islamic finance and banking professionals including fund managers, treasury, financial hubs, regulators, stock exchanges, central banks, Takafol (insurance) entities, Halal industry, intra-OIC (57 Muslim countries), trade, investment, as well as others to strengthen and grow this business.

Basil Moftah, Managing Director for Thomson Reuters in the Middle East and Africa, commented, "Rushdi's appointment demonstrates our commitment to Islamic Finance and follows years of investment in specialized regional content, news and data across the Middle East and Africa."

Rushdi Siddiqui, Head of Islamic Finance at Thomson Reuters added, "Thomson Reuters has deep roots and strong assets in the existing and emerging hubs of Islamic finance which I found very attractive. Its platform also addresses several of the bottlenecks hindering the growth of Islamic Finance including the reduction of information search costs, connectivity to the global Islamic finance community, and executing transactions."

"I am looking forward to this new challenge and aim to support the growth of all aspects of Islamic finance and building bridges to its brethren - the social-ethical and sustainability industry players and funds," Siddiqui added.

Mr. Siddiqui joined Thomson Reuters from Dow Jones, where he was Global Director for their Islamic Market Indices. Over 10 years there, he led Dow Jones Indexes entry and its global expansion into Islamic finance. His contribution has resulted in numerous awards from leading finance organizations and media outlets alike. Mr. Siddiqui has considerable experience in the financial markets having worked at a Wall Street investment bank and commercial bank in the 1990s.

Thomson Reuters has regional headquarters in Dubai, with 600 staff in 68 countries across the Middle East and Africa region with main offices in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Thomson Reuters covers all the exchanges in the Middle East, the Sukkuk bond market, strong regional commodities coverage, its Lipper division provides full coverage of all funds in the Gulf, and across the Middle East and Africa region is covering all 1,000 companies with a primary-listing. Reuters News has been adding editorial positions to stretch the news services into more specialized topics such as commodities, property and telecommunications as well as Arabic service.