Abu Dhabi Global Market (“ADGM”), the international financial centre in Abu Dhabi, today announced that Jan Bladen has successfully completed his mandate. Mr Bladen, who had been serving ADGM as Programme Lead and Executive Advisor, will remain with ADGM until the end of March 2015 to ensure a smooth transition to ADGM’s executive management team.

Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Chairman of ADGM, said: “From the outset, the Lead Programme and Executive Advisor position was designed to be a swift mandate to provide advice and oversight during the initial phases of ADGM’s development. I would like to thank Jan for his contributions over the past 12 months as we laid the foundations of ADGM, hired seasoned senior executives and built our core team, which number more than 40 today.”

Jan Bladen said: “2014 has been a cornerstone in the establishment of ADGM. Under the leadership of our Chairman HE Ahmed Al Sayegh and ADGM’s Board of Directors, the Executive Team has now laid strong foundations upon which to build a successful international financial centre. We have defined our initial strategy and business plan, identified our first wave target markets, mapped out the group’s structures and operating models and recruited senior people into key positions. I now feel confident that ADGM has sufficient momentum and impetus to flourish and that the time is right to begin the transition to the long-term leadership team at ADGM. I would like to extend my personal thanks to the Chairman and Board of Directors for their support and to all our executives for their dedication and exemplary efforts.”

In the past few months, ADGM announced a number of key appointments including, Richard Teng as CEO of the ADGM Financial Services Regulator who will be starting in March and who will be overseeing the development of ADGM’s regulatory framework, Dhaher Bin Dhaher Al Muhairi as CEO of its Registration Bureau and Sir Hector Sants as Chief Advisor to ADGM. Meanwhile, ADGM issued its draft legislation relating to Companies, Insolvency, Employment, Operating Regulations, Property and Strata Regulations for open market consultation and will be publishing further draft legislation in the coming months for public comment before ADGM receives its first financial services applications later this year.