Bassam Salem
Chief Executive Officer, Obuhi
Bassam Salem has always been an entrepreneur at heart when he ran large private banking businesses or in the way he is growing Obuhi, a social marketplace that connects freelance talent to those that seek them.
Bassam holds an MBA from Sorbonne and began his banking career with the Bank of Boston in 1981. Over the course of next 37 years, his career grew rapidly taking him to several leadership positions in large banks like Citi and EFG Bank where he was a founding partner. In 2018, Bassam retired as CEO of Citibank’s Private Bank business in Asia in to launch the next phase of his life, which was fuelled by a desire to work in the “new economy”.
Obuhi is a social platform that supports of the needs of the freelance or contingent workforce by connecting them to assignments, enabling communities, supporting their financial needs or helping them upgrading their skills.
Obuhi’s origins are firmly entrenched in the gig economy and it is to sharpen his skills that Bassam attended a course on Digital Strategy at Harvard Business School recently. Bassam believes his lasting contribution in the banking industry has been to find talent, train them and let them add value. It is this spirit that he carries over and is putting together a team of talented individuals who share his passion and vision and are working to grow Obuhi into one of the largest platforms of its kind globally.
