Wahid P. Chammas 

Founder & Chief Investment Officer | U.A.E., Cyprus, U.K.

Wahid Chammas is Founder and Chief Investment Officer of TyreGate Capital Holdings, LTD, the wholly owned Principal Holding Company of the Chammas Family Office and a private equity platform with ownership in 37 companies across media, technology, fashion, luxury and real estate.

He is a shareholder and Managing Partner of The Luxury Fund which, together with its affiliated entities Azure Fund and TLF Ventures, invests in a diversified range of private and public securities issued by companies with global premier brand names in the luxury goods, technology, fashion and services sectors.

Wahid serves as a Non-Executive Director of Maple Peak Investments Inc., a Canadian public investment company.

Previously, Wahid served as Global Chief Investment Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Sapinda Holding B.V., a privately owned Principal Investment Holding company focused on special situation investment opportunities across Continental Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Before that, Wahid was Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Janus, responsible for managing the Janus European Equity and Janus Emerging Markets Equity strategies. He established Janus' investment presence in Europe in 2008 and sat on the European Management Committee. He was recognized by Financial News (Dow Jones) as a Rising Star, 40 Under 40 in Asset Management, and has been highly rated on numerous occasions by Citywire. Earlier at Janus, he was an equity securities analyst focused primarily on the firm's investments in the leisure and consumer sectors globally.

Prior to joining Janus in January 2005, Wahid spent eight years at Goldman Sachs & Co., where he was a Vice President and Equity Securities Analyst covering the media sector. He joined Goldman Sachs' Investment Research Division as a Vice President in 2002 from Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), where he served as Chief-of-Staff for the U.S. distribution group, supporting strategic planning and management activities across the Asset Management Division.

Wahid was one of the youngest professionals ever to serve as an inter-divisional Chief-of-Staff. Prior to that, he worked in both institutional sales and the fixed income product management team.

Wahid sits on the Board of Directors of several companies, not-for-profits and funds.

He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Amherst College, where he graduated with highest distinction honors, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. He also conducted research and spent time at the University of Michigan Medical School and Harvard University. He was awarded two Howard Hughes Fellowships and the James R. Elster Award for outstanding achievement in Biology.

Léa Chaftari 

Portfolio Manager, Lebanon

Prior to joining the firm, Léa worked as an equity analyst at Janus Capital in London where she generated and recommended investment ideas in Europe and the industrials sector. Léa also spent a summer at the endowment fund of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Washington, DC where she helped refine the asset allocation strategy for emerging markets, developed equities and directional hedge funds. Before that, Léa worked as an equity analyst at Passport Capital in San Francisco and London where she focused on the Middle East and North Africa and conducted extensive due diligence on industries and companies in the region. 

Her educational background includes an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.Sc. in Business Mathematics and Statistics from the London School of Economics.

Léa is an avid biker and snowboarder and is fluent in French, English, Arabic and Spanish. She moved back to Beirut, her hometown city, after spending the previous 12 years in Europe and the US.

Michel A. Jaklis

Senior Analyst

Before joining TyreGate Capital as an analyst, Michel was completing his Master of Arts Degree in Economics at the University of Chicago where he focused his research on emerging markets, and the MENA region in particular. He was also awarded a Master of Science in Management from Imperial College Business School, and a Master of Arts in Financial Economics from the American University of Beirut.

Simon Abboud

Junior Analyst (Internship)

Prior to joining the TyreGate Capital team, Simon completed his Undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB) where he majored in Economics and Psychology. During his last semester at AUB Simon worked part-time at TyreGate Capital as an analyst. By working closely with the TyreGate team Simon gained a lot of “real-world” investment experience and practical financial knowledge. Simon also completed a 2-month summer internship at TyreGate Capital in 2017. In that same year Simon finished a Financial modelling course and was awarded with an official certificate from the Wall Street Prep and the Institute of Financial Analysts.