Fares Zahir was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Xeraya Capital Sdn Bhd in January 2012. He has around 25 years of experience in the field of investments in public and private equities. Fares was previously with Khazanah Nasional Bhd, where he headed the Life Sciences Unit that formulates investment strategies and monitors the organisation’s life sciences investments. He also headed Khazanah’s Research Unit that undertakes research work in the areas of financial capital markets, industrial organisation and economics.

Fares co-founded Xeraya Capital during his tenure in Khazanah together with other team members who collectively provided key advice and guidance to the Government of Malaysia on incentivising the Malaysian private sector to invest in risk capital.

Fares has been a board member of the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) since October 2005 and was appointed as an independent board member of the Malaysian BioEconomy Development Corporation (formerly known as Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation) in December 2011. In addition, he sits on the board of investee companies in the US, Germany and in Malaysia.

From 1999 to 2005, Fares was Director, Investment Research at UBS Investment Bank where he was a key member of their top rated Malaysian equity research team. Prior to that he was a fund manager with the Schroder Group (also a JV company of the PNB Group) where he managed the Schroder Group’s institutional client portfolio after serving as an investment analyst, making investment recommendations to the Schroder Group’s portfolio managers worldwide. Fares started his career in Malaysia in the actuarial department of American International Assurance Co Ltd in Kuala Lumpur.

Fares holds a Bachelor of Economics degree in Actuarial Studies from Macquarie University in Australia and a Master of Applied Science in Operations Research from University Technology Sydney. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) of North America.