Menu
Senior Management
May Nasrallah
Founder and Executive Chairwoman of deNovo Corporate Advisors
May Nasrallah is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of deNovo Partners, an Independent, Middle-East focused, best-in-class corporate finance advisory firm, offering international bulge bracket expertise to MENA-wide and centric corporates and institutions. deNovo’s activities include regional and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and capital raising transactions covering clients across services and industries region-wide.
deNovo Partners under May’s leadership has over the past 10 years established its reputation and track record as the pre-eminent independent, regionally-headquartered boutique advisory firm. deNovo has successfully executed numerous sellsides, buysides, stake sales, restructurings, valuations, fundings, capital structure and strategic reviews on behalf of its continuously growing client base. May and deNovo’s advice is consistently sought by the region’s leading family groups, corporates and sovereign wealth funds as well as global firms seeking regional acquisitions. deNovo entered a Strategic Alliance to enhance global coverage with PJT Partners in 2020, and with Bank Itau in 2019.
Prior to founding deNovo, May spent over 15 years at Morgan Stanley in numerous Investment Banking roles and geographies including New York, Hong Kong, London and Dubai. Most recently, she was Head of Investment Banking for the Middle East and North Africa region, where she established, led and grew Morgan Stanley’s first-ever on-the-ground investment banking presence in the Middle East, based in the DIFC, Dubai.
May worked briefly at McKinsey & Company in New York, and after receiving her Masters Degree, May joined Morgan Stanley in the Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructuring Group in New York. May’s career at Morgan Stanley then led her to the Global Infrastructure and Project Finance Group followed by the High- Yield Capital Markets Group, focusing on Asian corporate and sovereign high-yield bond issuances where she spent a significant amount of time in Asia based in Hong Kong. Following the Asia crisis of 1997, May relocated to New York where she worked on a number of large leveraged buyouts for US companies and private equity funds. In 2000, May moved to London where she became responsible for European corporate leveraged and acquisition financings for telecom, media and industrial companies and, following the dotcom crash, worked on restructuring the debt of a number of these corporates. In 2003, May set up and led the Liability Management Group for Europe and MENA, where she was instrumental in establishing Morgan Stanley’s presence and dominance in sovereign and corporate debt optimization and restructurings. May also led the efforts to initiate Morgan Stanley’s Islamic finance presence. In 2005, May was named Morgan Stanley’s Head of Investment Banking for the MENA region, and relocated to Dubai to set up the Investment Banking business for Morgan Stanley, a position she held until retiring from the firm in late 2009.
May graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”) with Dual Degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. May further received her Masters in Management and Finance from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. May was a Member of MIT’s Sigma Xi Honor Society and received numerous awards and recognitions for various competitions, initiatives and volunteer work during her years at MIT, including being the Research Assistant to Economic Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Franco Modigliani.
May speaks fluent Arabic, English and conversational French. She is married and is the mother of four boys.
Notable Highlights
- Ranked one of 50 most Influential Women in the Middle East in 2019 by Financial News.
- In 2015, May was named Businesswoman of the Year for the UAE at the Arab Woman Awards Ceremony; the award was bestowed by His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al Nahayan.
- Ranked in top 500 Most Influential Arabs in Arabian Business magazine in 2013 and 2012; Ranked in top 100 most influential Arab Women
- Featured in the Financial Times’ List of The Leading Business Women in the Arab World
- Featured in the Women and Leadership Publication Case Study in the National Newspaper’s Celebration of the 100th International Women’s Day
- Selected as one of twelve Arab Business Professionals by the UAE Prime Minister’s Office to an exclusive Private Forum with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum and then U.S. President George W. Bush, during the first ever US President’s Official Visit to the Emirate of Dubai.
- Featured as Keynote Speaker in Multiple Global Business and Economic Forums and Conferences internationally and regionally addressing topics such as: Regional M&A trends, Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance, Capital Markets, Initial Public Offerings, Macro Economic trends etc.
- Quoted in numerous business articles in international and regional news publications on various business and economic related topics.
- Youngest Woman to be named Managing Director at Morgan Stanley; and first Arab Woman Managing Director at Morgan Stanley.
- May is an active sponsor, proponent and fundraiser for education of the under privileged youth of Lebanon, job creation and providing humanitarian aid to families across Lebanon.
Jawad Qasim
Board member, CEO, and Head of Advising
Jawad is a Partner at deNovo Partners, where he heads up Sovereign Wealth Funds coverage and cross border advisory.
Prior to joining deNovo in 2019, Jawad was the Senior Executive Officer of Itau Middle East, a DFSA regulated entity based in DIFC, Dubai, and a subsidiary of Itaú Unibanco, Latin America’s largest financial institution. In that role, Jawad established and ran the Investment Banking business of Itaú BBA in the MENA region, spanning M&A and cross border advisory, fixed income and equities sales and FIG coverage, with primary responsibility for covering Sovereign Wealth Funds and large corporates with interests in Latin America. Jawad played an important role advising Brazilian and LatAm conglomerates on raising capital and establishing partnerships with Middle East clients. He was a member of the team
that advised EBX Group on Mubadala’s USD 2bn preferred equity investment in 2012. Jawad also oversaw the regional Asset Management business activity of Itaú Unibanco, which managed over $1bn of SWFs money in LatAm equities and fixed income.
Jawad comes from an investment background having worked for Dubai International Capital (‘DIC’), a subsidiary of Dubai Holding, an investment vehicle controlled by the Ruler of Dubai. He was involved in the leveraged buyout acquisitions of Doncasters Group and Travelodge Hotels in 2006, and led the execution and structuring of over $3 billion PIPE investments into HSBC Holdings, EADS, Sony Corporation and ICICI Bank. During his tenure at DIC, Jawad assisted in establishing and managing Jordan Dubai Capital (‘JDCapital’), a country specific fund that managed around $1 billion of assets in power generation, electricity distribution, Islamic banking, and real estate development.
Raised between the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, Jawad graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in Montreal, majoring in finance, and is a CFA Charter holder.
Alexandre Halm
Head of Arranging
Alexandre Halm has been with deNovo Partners since 2016. As a managing director he covers the buildings, fintech and telecom spaces among others. Over the past 7 years, Alexandre has led transactions in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.
Alexandre has over 18 years financial and strategic advisory experience in Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Before joining deNovo, Alexandre founded IOTA, a boutique investment bank based in Paris and Dubai focused on Sub-Saharan Africa. There, he successfully advised corporates, financial investors and governments on acquisitions, disposals, fundraising, PPPs, and strategic negotiations in over 10 different countries.
Prior to that, Alexandre had worked as a management consultant for The Boston Consulting Group in Paris where he focused on the financial sector.`
Alexandre’s areas of expertise include valuation techniques in emerging markets and complex transaction structuring.
He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, where he majored in Economics and Statistics; he then received a Masters in Finance from HEC, Paris.
Alexandre speaks fluent French and English and basic German.
