Serkan Elden

Serkan A. Elden has 25 years of experience in global markets as a Strategic Advisor, an Investment Manager, a Public Speaker and a Corporate Executive. He is reputed for his pioneering and advocating role in establishing “Good Governance as a value-driver of Institutions” in emerging markets. 12 years with the US$ 750 billion assets-under-management business AIG Investments, last as a Managing Director of the global alternative investments business, he was on the Management Committee for emerging markets, including Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, the Caspian Region and Africa. As AIG’s CEO & President for the private equity business & fundraising in Eurasia & the Middle East, he built a pioneering reputation with a successful track-record, particularly for the expertise he accumulated on Eurasia at large and the Caspian Region since the mid-90’s. Between 2009 and 2013, he became one of the global equity partners of the US$88 billion third-party asset management business of AIG in its spin-out (as Pinebridge Investments) to Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group (Hong Kong).
Over years, he brought many U.S. and European investors to the emerging markets of Eurasia and managed dozens of investments in global markets, including the portfolios funded and owned by AIG, EBRD, U.S., European, Kazakh and Tatar Governments and various institutional investors and corporations, including the AIG Silk Road Fund, various AIG Global Emerging Markets Funds, the American Enterprise Fund in Central Asia, Kazakh Republic Trading Co in Turkey and the Tatneft Trading JV in Europe and the leading US$1.5 billion-Eurasian mobile telecom portfolio (including Kcell, Azercell, Geocell and Moldcell). He brought many of his investments to global capital markets, such as the global emerging markets focused oil and gas company, Burren Energy plc (London) and the sports marketing business of UEFA-cup winner club, Galatasaray Sportif (Istanbul). He continues to take active roles in various capacities on the boards, in advisory councils and activities of and teaches seminars for a variety of international institutions and platforms (such as Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, the Caspian Corridor, Oxford University (UK), the Ditchley Foundation (UK), U.S. Dep. of Commerce, EBRD, American Chamber of Commerce, China Institute, Hacettepe University (Ankara), Robert College (Istanbul), Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Private Equity International, Euromoney, Oman Economic Forum, General Investment Authority (S. Arabia) and Johns Hopkins University (US) to name a few).
Elden currently leads Capitalinka Investments (www.capitalinka.com), a U.S.-based global investment management & strategic advisory firm, assisting international investors & corporations, family offices, education institutions & foundations, governments & multilateral organizations, in establishing and executing growth strategies and investments. As strategic advisors, independent trustees & board members and investment managers, Elden and his team work with these institutions in building and sustaining governance in their business portfolios, building and executing global strategies for endowment and investment management, establishing and managing joint ventures, reaching out to capital markets, designing and executing growth-to-exit strategies. He and his colleagues at Capitalinka also lead a portfolio of businesses, including Investimenta, an education & destination marketing strategy business, Energylinka, an emerging global energy merchant banking & strategic advisory business and Afrikalinka, an Africa-focused strategic advisory business.
A Rotary International Peace Award winner with his Peace Letter to Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986 and a holder of 2015 Kazakhstan Medal of Honor for contributions to Economic and Financial Markets development of the country for 20 years, he recently published “From Baghdad to Boardrooms”, the family memoirs of Ezra Khedouri Zilkha about the first privately owned banking system in the Ottoman Middle East created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was honored by the Ditchley Foundation (Oxford) as a “Central Asia Panel Member” and by the American-Turkish Society (New York) as a Young Society Leader, where he now chairs the global board of YSL-Next… Elden also distributes his global affairs, investment environment related opinions and notes under Investimenta Notes. Holding an MBA from the University of North Carolina and a BSc in Electronics Engineering from Hacettepe University, Elden speaks English and Turkish (native) fluently while he has a command and understanding of various Eurasian languages and dialects, including Russian. Elden calls himself a “global citizen with a mailbox in Connecticut” with ancestor roots to the Caspian region, for which he and his wife, Nesko, are proud to have created a Caspian Sea in the family, with their son named after the Caspian (Hazar) and their daughter named after the Sea (Deniz).
Elden’s full background is available at: www.linkedin.com/in/serkanelden