On a charm offensive

The ‘Open Sesame’ for unlocking what made BankMed, one of Lebanon’s top five banks by both assets and deposits, move into Dubai this spring is ‘opportunity.’ This is no coincidence. This term and the art of seeking out opportunities were the key words by which Mohamed Ali Beyhum, BankMed’s executive general manager, describes the bank’s strategy in an exhaustive interview with Executive. [pullquote]”We do not define ourselves as an international, regional or local bank”[/pullquote] “In our expansion strategy, we move into opportunities. We do not define ourselves as an international, regional or local bank. We are a commercial bank with different activities, including investment banking activities, but what we do is look for opportunities to grow our business,” Beyhum says. Sustainable opportunities have a habit of being sequential and interconnected — meaning one good opportunity tends to lead to the next. This is what attracted BankMed to not venture this time into