Mr Hazem Ben-Gacem

Hazem Ben-Gacem is the Founder and Chief Executive of BlueFive Capital, a newly-formed global investment manager based in Abu Dhabi. BlueFive Capital focuses on infrastructure, energy (including new energy and new materials as well as oil and gas), and private equity opportunities across the Global South, in particular the GCC, China, Southeast and Central Asia, and Latin America.

Hazem is a veteran of the investment industry, with more than 30 years of experience across industries and geographies. He was previously the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Investcorp, the largest non-sovereign asset manager in the Middle East, and successfully led private equity investments across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China. He chaired several of the firm’s private equity investment committees, as well as overseeing all of Investcorp’s activities in the Middle East, its global investment activities in the infrastructure and technology sectors, and all private equity activities across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Japan. He also led the firm’s global investor relations platforms across both its private wealth platform and its institutional investor relations. Amongst others, Hazem sat on the Investcorp Group’s Executive, Operating and Risk Management Committees, and was the Vice Chairman of Investcorp’s ADX-listed permanent capital vehicle, Investcorp Capital.

Prior to his Co-CEO appointment in 2018, Hazem led Investcorp’s European private equity and global technology private equity teams. Before joining Investcorp in 1994, Hazem was a member of Credit Suisse First Boston’s M&A team in New York.

Hazem holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. Until 2022, he was a serving member on the Tunisian National Shooting team (50-meter discipline), achieving a bronze medal in the 2017 African Shooting Championships.

Hazem is a member of the Executive Board of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, the Advisory Board of the University of Oxford’s Middle East Centre, and the Dean’s Council of the Harvard Medical School. In 2017 he founded the Harvard Office in Tunisia, the first formal presence for Harvard University in the Arab world.