BrazilAlvarez & Marsal appoints Pietro Castronovo as Senior Director in Middle East
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has enhanced its leadership team in the Middle East with the appointment of Pietro Castronovo as a Senior Director for the firm’s local Private Equity and Principal Investments practice.
Tasked with defining and supervising Alvarez & Marsal’s Professional Development programme for the Middle East region, from the firm’s regional MENA base in Dubai, Castronovo brings to the role over 12 years of strategy, regulatory, and transformation experience in the financial services sector for a variety of leading consultancies across numerous regions, including the Middle East, Southern and Central Eastern Europe, Russia, the U.K. and Ireland.
Castronovo crosses from leading strategy and management firm Bain & Company, where he was Principal after 13 years across its London and Rome offices, prior to which he served as a Public Sector Senior Consultant and an Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Analyst for a year each at big-name firms Ernst & Young and Accenture following a Masters in Economics at Università Bocconi in Milan. In addition to his MBA, Castronovo is a Chartered Financial Accountant.
Primarily focused on the financial services and private equity sectors, Castronovo has throughout his career performed multiple fund strategy, commercial, operations and vendor due diligence projects for both public institutions and large-cap private equity funds and private investors, as well as being previously appointed CEO and a Board Member for a trading company and for a leading consumer credit company in Italy.
Alvarez & Marsal Managing Director for the Middle East, Saeeda Jaffa, herself a former Bain & Company Principal with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT, said of the appointment; “Pietro comes to A&M as a seasoned professional advising clients across different countries. We are delighted to welcome him on board and look forward to working with him as we further cement A&M’s position as the leading professional services firm in the region.”
Operating across four continents, Alvarez and Marsal has grown since its founding in 1983 to more than 50 worldwide offices, including a rising presence in the Middle East and diversified operations beyond the firm’s most well-known expertise in restructuring – including increasing forays into the realm of fintech, with Jaffar, who is a regular international guest speaker on the subject, recently appointed as an independent director of the Executive Board of Bahrain FinTech Bay – a tech innovation initiative supported by global strategy consultancy Roland Berger as a founding partner.
Commenting on the engagement, Jaffar said, “I am very pleased to have been appointed to the board of the Bahrain FinTech Bay. As the largest dedicated fintech hub in the MENA region, it is well placed to apply the financial innovation that is so important for corporates and consumers alike to transact efficiently and securely in a commercial world that is changing at a faster rate than ever before. There is a first class team in place at the Bahrain FinTech Bay and I am honored to join them.”
