Iraj Abedian

Biographical Information
Iraj Abedian, CE of Pan-African Capital Holdings: "Iraj holds a PhD in economics from Simon Fraser University, Canada. He was professor of economics at University of Cape Town (UCT) before joining Standard Bank as Group Chief Economist in 2000. He was extensively involved in economic and financial policy as well as institutional restructuring of South Africa’s public policy after 1994. In 2005, he founded Pan-African Capital Holdings (Pty) Ltd. In addition to growing the company’s investment portfolio, Iraj was centrally involved in the conceptualisation and capital raising for a KZN Infrastructure Growth Fund (R1,5 billion), and the establishment of South Africa’s first environmental clean tech Fund (US$ 94 million fund), as well as the design and establishment of a housing finance fund called Housing Investment Partners (HiP). Within the Pan-African Capital group, he has helped establish two private equity funds, totalling R650 million.

Iraj currently serves as a non-executive director on the board of Munich Re of Africa and Capital Fund Properties Ltd. He maintains an active interest in public policy discourse (macroeconomic policy, mining policy and infrastructure finance) and is an extraordinary professor of economics at Graduate School of Business Sciences (GIBS) of University of Pretoria. Over the past five years, he has also served as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i’s of South Africa- a not-for-profit religious body with focus on the promotion of spirituality within the society at large."