HAMID JAFAR - CHAIRMAN
Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas have a long heritage in the Middle East. Crescent Petroleum is the region’s oldest private sector upstream oil and gas company, while Dana Gas was the Middle East’s first private sector integrated natural gas company. Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas have also helped pioneer the natural gas industry in the Middle East, including as the largest gas investors in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq through the development of the Khor Mor field and gas plant.
Through Crescent Enterprises Mr. Jafar also has a variety of commercial interests including container shipping, port logistics, real estate, power generation and private equity. He is the Chairman of Gulftainer Ltd, a specialist in container terminal operations which manages Sharjah, Jubail and Umm Qasr Ports and a founding shareholder of the URUK Group engaged in the Iraqi electrical contracting sector.
He is the founder of the UAE Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization and the World Presidents Organization and is also a member of the International Chief Executives Organization, and the Community of Chairmen of the World Economic Forum.
Hamid Jafar has a wide range of philanthropic interests and is particularly involved in charities supporting disabled and disadvantaged children and cancer treatment. He is a member of the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the American University of Sharjah (AUS). In 2011, the AUS renamed its Center for Executive Education as the Jafar Center for Executive Education in recognition of Mr Jafar’s ‘active and outstanding support to AUS and its academic activities’. In a personal capacity, Mr Jafar funded the first Professorship in Petroleum Engineering at Cambridge University.
He is actively promoting a culture of transparency and accountability in the Gulf Region through the ‘Pearl Initiative’, founded in co-operation with the United Nations Office of Partnerships. The Pearl Initiative is a private sector not-for-profit set up to improve business practices in the region and Mr Jafar serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors.
Mr. Jafar was educated at St. Paul’s School in London and Churchill College, Cambridge University, where he obtained his Bachelor’s Engineering degree in 1967 before going on to post-graduate studies, achieving a Master’s in Engineering (Thermodynamics and Fluid Flow).