Welcome to the Abu Dhabi Economic Forum 2025, with ADDED

The 10x Jurisdiction: What You Need to Know About ADGM Real Estate

This session explores ADGM’s emergence as a fast-evolving real estate jurisdiction. Discover the frameworks, incentives, and market dynamics driving its rise as one of the region’s most efficient platforms for institutional real estate investment.

An Update on the Falcon Economy

This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of the Falcon Economy’s trajectory, assessing macroeconomic performance, investment trends, and policy reforms driving diversification. It highlights opportunities and challenges in fostering sustainable growth, strengthening global competitiveness, and advancing Abu Dhabi’s vision as a leading hub for innovation, finance, and economic resilience.

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Abu Dhabi: Metropolis of the Future

Explore the many facets shaping the urban vision driving the rapid emergence of Abu Dhabi on the global stage. From infrastructure, to culture, livability, and its strategy of placing artificial intelligence at the core of its economic transformation.

The Story of Our Journey in Abu Dhabi

In this market case study, hedge fund Brevan Howard shares its journey into Abu Dhabi. From early engagement with ADGM to key inflection points in its expansion, this session highlights the Emirate’s appeal as a long-term partner and growth market for global investors.

The Global Outlook, with the IMF

The IMF presents its latest view on the world economy, highlighting shifting growth prospects, policy challenges, and the risks that demand attention. This outlook sets the tone for understanding how global trends may influence markets in 2026.

Global Business at a Crossroads: Opportunities & Risks (in Partnership with F.A.B.)

As geopolitics, capital flows and new technologies redefine global commerce, this session brings together leading CEOs to explore opportunities, systemic risks and the strategies driving resilience and reinvention in today’s economy.

In Conversation with His Excellency Mohamed Al Shorafa

In this interview, the Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities & Transport discusses Abu Dhabi’s next-generation urban mobility strategy, integrating sustainable infrastructure with smart city and multi-modal transport systems. He will outline how the Emirate is leveraging public-private partnerships, digital innovation and green policy to optimise liveability, streamline municipal services and accelerate economic diversification.

Engineering the UAE's Role in Global Trade

With trade at the heart of the UAE's globally strategic position, this special address explores how diversification, digitalisation, and partnerships are redefining the nation's place in global supply chain and commerce.

Welcome to His Highness & National Anthem

ADFW Opening Address: Engineering the Capital Network

ADFW Opening Ceremony

The ADFW Agenda Guide

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

Welcome to the 2025 Global Markets Summit, with HSBC

A warm welcome to the 2025 ADFW Global Markets Summit from HSBC. Join us as we analyse trade, macro-economics, systemic market risks & opportunities for humanity.

Announcement: The 2025 Global Financial Centre Competitiveness Index

Unveiling the landmark New York University Global Financial Centre Competitiveness Index, a new initiative driving research and dialogue on global competitiveness, and outlining the realities of the world economic order.

How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle

One of the world’s most influential investors deciphers the long-term forces that push nations toward strength or decline. Expect a candid take on debt, currency power, and the recurring cycles that signal whether economies endure or unravel.

The Quick Take: Geopolitics in Real Time

Cut through the noise in this sharp geopolitical address on the forces reshaping global markets. From shifting power dynamics and economic rivalries to the policy decisions that could tip the balance, PGIM will outline the key risks - and opportunities - that matter most to investors right now.

Investing for Humanity: Welcome Address

This session spotlights how capital can solve human challenges, from food security to sustainable livelihoods revealing how data, innovation, and purpose-driven investment are changing lives far beyond the balance sheet.

The ADFW Boardroom 2025: The State of the Global Economy

A powerhouse panel takes on the realities of today’s global economy. From shifting growth patterns to systemic risks and market resilience, this session delivers clear perspectives on where opportunity lies and how the financial order is evolving.

Trade, Tech & Geo-Economics: Global Risks on the Rise

As technology, trade, and geopolitics collide, new risks are testing global markets. This session examines fault lines from supply chains to digital currencies, asking how investors and institutions can prepare for a world where disruption is the new constant.

Decoding Critical World Issues, with ADQ

From geopolitics to global trade, this session uncovers the forces driving economies and societies today. Expect fresh perspectives that connect markets to real-world challenges, offering clarity on how critical issues will influence investment, growth, and global cooperation.

The Power & Potential of the Global South

The Global South, a range of diverse and rapidly growing economies, is the defining growth location of the next 100 years. Showcasing new and decisive roles in finance and trade, this discussion spotlights the opportunities and challenges that will define the rise of the Global South as a force in the next phase of world economic order.

CNBC New Energy Finance

ADGM Academy Talent Showcase

UBS Investor Forum

Further Network Summit

The Greenwich Economic Forum, Middle East

CEO Global Growth Forum by ADQ Leap

Private Wealth Dialogues with ADIO

The Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025 Opening Night (Invite-Only)

The opening ceremony will feature an exclusive guest list of top global financial leaders and Abu Dhabi’s economic visionaries. Kicking off the third edition of ADFW, this prestigious event will set the tone for a week filled with important conversations that will lead the way for finance and investment in the region.

Welcome to ADGM. The Path To Forward.

The CEO of FSRA at ADGM sets the tone for Asset Abu Dhabi, highlighting how asset management, global capital flows and strategic innovation will shape the path to forward.

Connecting Capital with Opportunity, with ADCB

At the heart of global capital markets lies Abu Dhabi’s ability to connect investors, businesses and communities to long-term opportunity. This keynote reflects on the future of financial intermediation, from mobilising private capital and institutional flows to sustaining liquidity and market confidence, offering a lens on how financial institutions can anchor growth in a world of shifting cycles.

Situational Awareness: The 5 Years Ahead

Some of the most senior figures in global investing share how they read signals, manage risk and position for advantage in an uncertain world. Expect candid insights on market cycles, technology shifts and the moves that could define the next five years.

The Evolving Art of Hedge Funds

Billion-dollar bets and precise risk management keep hedge funds at the sharp edge of finance. With industry AUM now past $4 trillion, what risks are worth taking, and how do the masters of the trade turn volatility into opportunity?

Innovation: The Ultimate Asset

In markets where ideas outrun capital, is innovation the currency of lasting power? Today’s visionaries are transforming ambitious concepts into bankable realities. The question remains: where will the next breakthrough rise, and who will rise with it?

Capital at a Crossroads: Unlocking Shifting Opportunities

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

What Endures When Markets Shift

A reflection from one of the world’s most influential investors, offering a perspective that looks beyond predictions to permanence. Against a backdrop of changing rates, shifting liquidity and artificial intelligence rewriting productivity itself, Steve Schwarzman shares how discipline, scale and innovation remain the quiet constants of enduring firms and resilient economies.

Capital, Conviction & Transformation: Investing for the Next Generation

Every society is built twice: first in imagination, then in concrete and capital. From rising cities to enduring communities, global investment leaders reveal how today’s choices are shaping the world the next generation will inherit.

Where Smart Money Moves Next

Markets never stand still, and neither does smart capital. This session dissects how institutional flows are adjusting to interest rates, sustainability priorities and geopolitical shifts. Where will tomorrow’s most decisive bets land, and who will seize them first?

5 Hypotheses on the Future

Witness five visionary perspectives on the forces that will shape economies, capital, and society in the decade ahead, challenging assumptions and sparking debate on where tomorrow’s opportunities and risks lie.

The Trader: In Conversation with Dmitry Balyasny

Step inside the mind of one of the world’s leading multi-strategy traders, and the mastermind behind a $30 billion AUM hedge fund titan. A candid look at how instinct, discipline and data shape the art of seizing opportunities before they surface on the global radar.

Strategies, Risks & Opportunities: The Outlook to 2026 Markets

As rates shift, innovation races ahead and geopolitics reset the stage, will 2026 be a bull’s charge or a bear’s retreat? Top market minds chart the risks to dodge and the opportunities waiting to unfold.

Surveying the Landscape of Real Estate

With global values topping $300 trillion, real estate is the canvas of ambition. In this discussion, visionaries explore how the skylines and neighbourhood hubs of today will stand as the landmarks of tomorrow.

The Physics of the Great Wealth Transfer

An estimated $84 trillion is set to change hands globally by 2045, redrawing the map of influence and opportunity. This discussion looks at the forces driving this historic shift, the barriers slowing it, and the impact it will have on global wealth.

Optimizing Allocation: Strategic Frameworks for Institutional Investors

Join institutional titans as they unveil the sophisticated strategies they employ to calibrate asset allocations for long-term resilience and growth. This session examines dynamic allocation models, partnership strategies and frameworks, liquidity-risk trade-offs, and diversification across alternative asset classes, offering practical frameworks for institutional allocators to enhance portfolio robustness and capture emerging opportunities.

Bridging Sovereign Capital: Unlocking Gulf-Asia Private Market Potential

Sovereign capital is rewriting the investment map between the Gulf and Asia, fuelling partnerships in technology, infrastructure and next-generation industries. Hear how major players are steering this powerful flow of capital and reshaping both region’s investment stories.

Liquidity, Leverage and the Changing Market Order

As liquidity tightens and leverage comes under scrutiny, this session examines how banks and market-makers are recalibrating balance sheets and capital structures to adapt to a more disciplined market order.

Private Capital as the New Public Market

As public listings dwindle, private capital rises as the arena of choice for growth and diversification. This session explores the expanding deal flow, the boom in secondaries, and how GP stakes are opening new gateways to liquidity and long-term value.

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Deals, Value and Growth Strategy: The Evolution of Private Equity

Global private equity assets surged to $10.8 trillion in 2024, marking an 11.6% year‑on‑year gain. As fundraising slows and dry powder ages, the future lies in creative value creation, disciplined deal cycles, and strategic exit timing.

The Valuable Art of Collecting

From masterpieces to marketplaces, art, rare watches, handbags and collectible cars are redefining the space where passion meets portfolio. Discover how scarcity, shifting tastes and a new wave of buyers are transforming these objects into enduring stores of wealth.

The Anatomy of a Great Deal

What turns a promising transaction into a market-defining success? Top dealmakers reveal how they source opportunities, structure terms, align stakeholders, and navigate risk to create deals that deliver lasting value and leave competitors wishing they’d moved first.

Digital Assets Graduation to the Institutional Mainstream

Digital assets are moving from the margins to the mainstream, reshaping capital flows, speed and institutional strategy. In this discussion, leaders explore how tokenization, regulation and adoption are redefining trust, liquidity and market architecture in the next era of global finance.

Innovations & Strategies in Private Credit

Private credit is stepping into the spotlight, attracting record allocations and fresh competition. Join leading voices in this session as they discuss where innovation is creating real advantage, how strategies are evolving, and which risks could shake confidence in this booming asset class.

Welcome to the 2025 International Family Office Congress

Welcome Remarks of the 3rd International Family Office Congress will set the stage for insightful, high-level discussions on wealth stewardship, innovation, and the future of multi-generational capital management.

Opening Address, with the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce & Industry

International Family Office Congress' Opening Address will underscore Abu Dhabi’s vision to foster family business resilience, cross-border collaboration and a stronger ecosystem for generational wealth creation. The address will highlight Abu Dhabi’s growing role as a global hub for family offices, setting the stage for a congress that bridges tradition with modern opportunities.

2026 in Focus: Where Optimism Meets Uncertainty

What will spark the next wave of growth and market leadership, and what risks could hold it back? This keynote explores where momentum could build across asset classes and which pressures may challenge the outlook.

Wealth in Motion: Navigating the Great Wealth Transfer

As the historic wealth transfer accelerates, this transformative era is reshaping wealth creation and inheritance. This session will examine the challenges and opportunities global families face across generations, and continents, and highlight how global connectivity fosters collaboration, innovation, and avenues to build lasting legacies in a rapidly evolving world.

The Master Investor: In Conversation

Join us as we sit down with Jim Mellon, one of UK’s most well-known businessman, investor and philanthropist. Jim will share stories from his journey, views on where the big opportunities are coming from, and lessons on building value that lasts across generations.

Culture, Capital and Creativity: The Guggenheim Legacy

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

Driven by Desire: Turning Car Passion into Portfolio Value

This presentation will reveal how passion investments like the ultra rare 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SLR can deliver extraordinary portfolio value, selling for an astonishing $140 million, blending heritage, rarity, and investment upside.

Mapping Asset Allocation: Making Sense of Modern Portfolios

Modern family office portfolios are being redefined. Across regions, allocations now span public equities, fixed income, private equity, real estate, alternatives, and an increasing share toward digital assets. This session explores the strategies and regional tilts defining today’s family office investment environment.

In Spotlight: Abu Dhabi Family Business Stories

Get up close and personal with some of Abu Dhabi’s most influential family businesses. Hear directly from leaders about their journeys, the values that guide them, and how they balance tradition, growth, and passing the torch to the next generation. This session highlights lessons on resilience, governance, and building a lasting legacy.

Ray Dalio Principles of Investing ADGM Academy

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

The Risk Playbook: Investing in Volatile Markets

Global affairs, family relocations, market volatility and succession gaps. What are top family offices doing today to weather tomorrow?

The $100 Trillion Question: Are Families Ready for the Generational Shift?

Projections show that wealth transferred by 2048 will total $124 trillion. As trillions shift hands across generations, family offices must prepare for a new era of wealth, governance, and values. This session brings regional insights from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific on how families are managing this unprecedented transfer.

The New Age of Philanthropy

This session explores how philanthropy is evolving from traditional giving into strategic, purpose-driven capital. It will highlight UAE's leadership in global philanthropic initiatives and discuss how next-generation families are balancing wealth stewardship with measurable change across education, healthcare and sustainability.

Welcome to The ALTS Forum

Patient Capital in an Impatient World: Backing the Builders of Tomorrow

Venture capital has long been associated with speed. Rapid rounds, fast scaling, and quick exits. But the market is shifting, and long-term value creation is back in focus. This fireside explores the future of venture investing: what sustainable growth really looks like, how partnerships with founders are evolving, and why the next decade of venture may be defined less by velocity and more by resilience and responsibility.

The Data Era: Industry Transformations in a New Digital Era

The financial industry has long relied on instinct, networks and narrative but a new era is emerging, driven by data, algorithms and global intelligence. In this keynote, explore how data and AI have the potential to dramatically change the way we operate. As AI helps us unlock new patterns and the volume of data explodes, how should leaders ensure their organizations are prepared to ingest and utilize this information and create new opportunities?

The Next Wave: An Honest Conversation

Two influential voices in private markets explore how the nature of capital is changing. From multi-strategy, global firms to the rise of nimble entrepreneurial vehicles, investors are redefining their strategies amid shifting global flows, rising rates and new partnership models. What does the future of private capital look like and where will it be deployed next?

The Global Silicon Valley: What It Takes to Win Outside the US

What does it take to build global growth? This panel explores all from regulatory navigation to talent migration and local capital flow, delving into the unique challenges, strategies and opportunities of scaling tech ecosystems beyond Silicon Valley’s shadow. Revealing what it really takes to build globally competitive companies from the ground up.

The Power of the Crowd: How AI and Social Are Reshaping Retail Investing

AI tools, open marketplaces and public API's are empowering a global community to build and share their own investing tools. By combining the collective intelligence of millions of users with cutting-edge AI, social investing can become a true engine for innovation in retail finance. Find out more in this fireside chat, featuring real-life use cases.

New Asset Classes, Real Returns: Where Investment is Delivering

This panel explores emerging investment opportunities in venture capital, highlighting sectors and strategies that are generating real, sustainable returns. With cycles resetting and trust being rebuilt, the conversation will spotlight the signals that serious capital is watching - from infrastructure bets to the next breakout use case. Experts will discuss how to identify promising asset classes amid evolving market dynamics and investor expectations.

Private Equity’s Prime Time: Why the Macroeconomy is Fueling a New Golden Era

From inflation to interest rates, today’s macro shifts are rewriting the private equity playbook and creating one of the most attractive entry points in a generation. In this fireside, leading PE voices unpack how tighter capital, asset repricing, and shifting risk appetites are driving smarter deals, longer holds and more strategic exits. Is this the comeback of patient capital or the start of a new model altogether?

Sustainable Growth Beyond the Harvest: Rethinking Private Equity Success

Private equity is evolving beyond the traditional focus on harvesting returns to embrace sustained, long-term value creation. This panel brings together experienced leaders to discuss how patient capital, strategic partnerships, and operational excellence drive enduring growth. Explore approaches that balance financial performance with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, redefining what success means in today’s dynamic investment landscape.

Debt Is the New Equity: Rethinking Growth Finance for a High-Rate World

As capital becomes more cautious and valuations reset, entrepreneurs and investors are increasingly turning to non-dilutive growth capital, from mezzanine and convertible structures to fintech-enabled credit and tokenised debt. This session explores the rebalancing of the capital stack: how private lenders, structured credit investors and alternative platforms are enabling scale without sacrificing control. In a world where equity is expensive, debt is strategic and the smartest capital isn't always the loudest.

The Investor-Partner Divide: Rethinking Support Beyond Funding

Founders no longer want 'just capital' they need investors who can open doors, navigate regulation and help them scale with discipline. In this candid conversation, explore how the venture–operator relationship has changed, where it often breaks down and what founders now expect from their investors if they’re going to win in tighter, more competitive markets.

Founders on the Frontline: Hard Lessons in Capital and Growth

Behind every headline success is a founder who’s navigated brutal pivots, tough cap tables and the sharp end of scale. This candid session brings together current CEOs, builders turned backers and entrepreneurs who’ve raised, exited and now invest themselves, to share what they got wrong, what they’d do differently and what founders today need to understand about the evolving rules of capital. From early-stage resilience to growth-stage reality checks, it’s a no-fluff conversation on leadership, liquidity and learning the hard way.

Welcome to the Infrastructure Summit 2025

A warm welcome to the inaugural edition of the Infrastructure Summit, setting the tone for a transformative dialogue. The EMCEE will introduce the vision and themes shaping Abu Dhabi’s next chapter as a global hub for sustainable, future-ready infrastructure.

Abu Dhabi’s Urban Masterplan

As Abu Dhabi evolves into one of the world’s most forward-looking cities, the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT) plays a central role in charting its physical and social landscape. In this fireside chat, the Acting Director General of the Urban Planning & Permits Center unveils how the roadmap for Abu Dhabi’s next chapter is being defined by liveability, innovation, and resilience.

Inside Mubadala's Infrastructure Strategy

Gain an insider’s perspective on Mubadala’s approach to building world-class infrastructure across energy, transport, and digital infrastructure. Explore how long-term thinking, global diversification, and global impact converge in one of the world’s most dynamic investment portfolios, while generating strong, sustainable returns for Abu Dhabi.

A Masterclass in Infrastructure Investment

This masterclass brings together two powerhouses shaping the global infrastructure landscape. Abu Dhabi Investment Council’s strategic lens on capital deployment with Sadek Wahba’s global outlook on infrastructure as an asset class. Find out why infrastructure remains one of the most compelling avenues for sustainable, long-term returns.

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Building for the AI Era

As AI reshapes industries, the demands on connectivity, data centers, energy systems and smart networks are evolving rapidly. This session will bring leading digital infrastructure investors and data center operators to discuss how strategic investments and next-generation technologies are enabling scalable, resilient, and future-ready infrastructure for the AI era.

Real Estate, Real Returns

From residential and commercial yields to cross-border market trends and urban planning policies, multiple factors are shaping the global property sector. Join this panel to explore what’s driving investor concerns, uncover emerging opportunities, and understand the key forces influencing real estate markets worldwide.

Welcome & Introductory Remarks

Welcome remarks by AIMA open the inaugural Private Credit Summit at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, uniting the world’s leading asset managers, investors, and policymakers to shape the future of private credit

Financing the Economy: 2025 Research Launch

Official launch of Financing the Economy 2025 – exclusive insights from the latest edition of this industry bellwether research series on the growth of the global private credit industry.

In Conversation – Private Credit Financial Stability and Economic Resilience

A focused dialogue between industry leaders and regulators on the findings from Financing the Economy 2025, exploring their implications for financial stability and economic resilience at a pivotal moment for global markets.

CIO Panel: Private Credit vs. Everything – Allocation Priorities in 2026

A candid look at CIO priorities for 2026, weighing the value of private credit against Investment Grade and High Yield markets, lessons from 2025 on performance dispersion and defaults and how redemptions and re-ups are shaping allocation decisions.

Financing the Next Generation of Infrastructure

Leaders explore how capital is being mobilised for the next wave of energy, digital and transport infrastructure, appetite for thematic and regional mandates alongside the catalytic role of sovereign funds, DFIs and blended finance in this market.

Asset-Based Lending (ABL) – How Far Can Private Credit Stretch in this Market?

Exploring the emergence of ABL as a growth engine for private credit. This session will cover deal sourcing, relative value for investors, and where opportunities in asset-backed private credit remain untapped.

Private Credit Megatrends

This panel explores the structural forces redefining private credit: including rising public and private debt burdens, the retailisation of private markets, and the transformative influence of AI on both the economy and the financial sector.

The Evolving Line Between Syndicated and Direct Lending

As syndicated and direct lending increasingly converge, market participants face new dynamics in liquidity, transparency, and pricing. This shift is also redefining underwriting discipline, regulatory scrutiny, and long-term investor allocation strategies across private credit markets.

UBS Investor Forum

Global Financial Regulators Summit

IMF Closed-Door Roundtable on the Transformation of the Global Financial Landscape

Treasury & CFO Forum with NeuGroup

Global Hedge Fund Leaders Roundtable

The ADFW Speakers Dinner

VVIP Dinner

The Tech-onomic Forecast: Top 5 Digital Shifts You Can’t Ignore

Stay ahead of the curve with a deep dive into the five digital transformation trends set to redefine the economic landscape. From AI-driven automation to the rise of decentralized finance, this session reveals the game-changing shifts every business leader needs to understand to thrive in tomorrow’s economy.

Crypto’s Moment of Truth: Boom, Bridge or Build?

The wild ride of crypto has minted fortunes and shaken reputations but can it ever shake off the turbulence? This unfiltered fireside tackles the hard questions: is real utility finally emerging, or are we still chasing speculative ghosts? Who wins the battle for trust: exchanges, institutions or regulators? Expect sharp views, strong disagreements, and a clear-eyed look at whether crypto survives, or thrives, in its next chapter.

The Great Convergence: The Infrastructure Race for Tomorrow’s Markets

As financial markets undergo radical transformation, the lines between traditional infrastructure and next-generation platforms are blurring. This conversation explores the convergence of old and new, from settlement rails to tokenization protocols and what it takes to build trust, scale and resilience into the financial architecture of tomorrow. With global capital, regulation, and innovation pulling in different directions, who will shape the foundations of the next era?

Unlocking the Next Chapter in Global Money Flow

As billions move across borders daily, the rails and rules underpinning those flows are evolving fast. In this session, leaders from institutional infrastructure, retail platforms and global remittance networks unpack how payments innovation is transforming access, efficiency and inclusion across both emerging and developed markets. From building trust across fragmented jurisdictions to scaling digital-first models at speed, this is a grounded, real-world look at the breakthroughs reshaping how money moves and where the next leap will come from.

The Internet Financial System: A New Architecture for the Global Economy

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

Modernising the Machine: Inside the Transformation of Traditional Banking

What does transformation really look like inside a traditional financial institution? In this candid discussion, learn how banks are rewiring operations, digitising at scale and preparing for a future shaped by AI, tokenisation and rising client expectations. Beyond buzzwords, they’ll explore what’s working, what’s breaking and how institutions with legacy weight are turning it into competitive advantage in a market that demands constant reinvention.

Vision, Volatility, and Velocity: What Fintech CEOs Are Betting On Next

From reimagining credit to redefining digital banking, today’s fintech leaders are navigating a market that demands speed, trust and bold moves. In this high-level discussion, growth focused CEOs unpack what’s on their radar: regulation, profitability, AI, customer trust and what they’d do differently if starting again. Candid, future-focused and unapologetically ambitious, this is a conversation about what it really takes to lead in fintech’s next chapter.

The Unicorn Formula: Funding Winners Before the World Notices

What does it really take to back a billion-dollar company before the crowd catches on? In this candid fireside, hear from several of the most active early-stage investors on the planet as they share the signals they trust, the bets that paid off and what’s changed in the hunt for outliers. From instinct to data, pricing to patience, this is the unfiltered playbook behind building a unicorn portfolio.

Beyond OTPs: Building Trust in a Device-First, Authentication Future

Financial institutions worldwide are moving away from SMS and email OTPs. Why? They are easily stolen through phishing, SIM swaps and malware, and they frustrate customers with friction and delays. To truly safeguard digital banking, institutions must embed device fingerprints, behavioral biometrics and advanced analytics. Whether mandated by regulation or adopted proactively, the case is the same: authentication must be device-bound, behaviour-aware and analytics-driven. This session explores how to prepare for what comes next.

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Signals of Change: Where Innovation is Finding Momentum

A new layer of infrastructure is quietly reshaping how value, data and intelligence flow through the digital economy. This session brings together architects of tomorrow’s systems to explore what’s being rebuilt from the ground up, and why the region’s accelerated adoption is setting the tone for what comes next.

Digital Desire: How Tokenizing Luxury Can Lead to New Ownership Models

Luxury is no longer limited to physical goods, instead it's algorithmic, tokenized and increasingly hyper-personalized. From fractional real estate to fashion NFTs and AI-curated brand experiences, this fireside explores how emerging tech is redefining exclusivity and ownership. With one foot in the tangible world and the other in digital ecosystems, today’s innovators are using AI and tokenization not just to sell, but to elevate status, shape identity and create scarcity in infinite digital spaces.

(Re)Insurance (Re)Imagined: Navigating Climate Risk, AI and Market Volatility

This high-level conversation explores how the reinsurance sector is evolving in response to mounting climate risks, AI-powered modeling innovations and fluctuating capital markets. Industry leaders discuss strategies for building resilience, leveraging technology to enhance risk assessment and adapting to a rapidly changing financial landscape to safeguard the future of global insurance.

Invisible Payments, Visible Growth: Under the Hood of Today's Power Plays

From challenger banks to cloud-native scaleups, the financial stack behind global innovation is undergoing a quiet revolution. This panel brings together four bold operators rewriting the rules, from startup banking built for tomorrow’s tech giants, to payments platforms going global from east to west and infrastructure players taking on the hyperscalers. Together, they’ll explore what it takes to fuel the next wave of growth, asking who’s really holding the keys to the future of fintech?

The Global CMO: Growth, Governance and Getting It Right in New Markets

For CMOs at global financial platforms, entering new markets isn’t just a launch plan, it’s a regulatory, cultural and reputational minefield. This conversation brings together marketing leaders to explore the tightrope between ambition and accountability. How do you localise without diluting? Where does marketing intersect with legal and compliance? And what does it take to earn trust in regions where your brand is unknown, or perhaps misunderstood?

Stablecoins in the Balance: Navigating Trust and Scale

Stablecoins are edging closer to the core of global finance but questions of trust and scale remain unresolved. This session brings together key players from both traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure to explore what it takes to operationalise stablecoins in a regulated environment. From settlement speed to regulatory clarity, the conversation focuses on the roadblocks that remain and the partnerships emerging to overcome them.

From Islands to Infrastructure: Borderless Financial Services

Fragmented systems, national platforms and closed-loop architectures have long defined the financial world, but that’s changing fast. As regulators, fintechs and infrastructure builders converge, the push for interoperability, real-time access, and shared standards is reshaping how money moves. This session brings together leaders to explore what it takes to build a truly connected financial future and who sets the rules when money moves across systems, sectors and borders.

The MENA Fintech Awards

The MENA Fintech Awards celebrate the region’s most innovative and impactful fintech companies, entrepreneurs, and leaders. Recognizing excellence across categories like payments, digital banking and new technologies, the awards highlight the breakthroughs driving financial inclusion and technological transformation across the Middle East and North Africa.

Welcome to RESOLVE - Abu Dhabi International Dispute Resolution Forum

Please stay tuned for more details about this session soon.

Opening Remarks by ADGM Courts

Coffee & Networking

Inside the Minds of Power Players

Drawing from decades at the forefront of global business disputes, our expert will offer rare insight into the pressures facing today’s corporate leadership. From billion-dollar class actions to cross-border regulatory battles, the talk will offer sharp insights into how elite legal minds anticipate risk, assert control and turn disputes into strategic opportunities for their clients.

Risk & Regulation: A CEO’s Playbook

What are the unresolved threats that top CEOs are quietly preparing for? This session brings together senior business minds to explore the high-consequence disputes facing today’s corporate leaders - from ESG litigation and shareholder activism to cyber breaches, geopolitical backlash, sudden enforcement sweeps and more. How are leadership teams aligning their legal strategy with boardroom priorities? What does effective pre-litigation risk management really look like when reputation and regulation collide?

Are You Ready for The Cyborgs?

Dr. Nancy W. Gleason will explore how individuals and institutions can remain future-ready in times of disruption. Drawing from her work on education, policy, workforce development and emerging neuroscience including brain-computer interfaces, she will examine how systems can foster critical thinking, adaptability and inclusion. This talk highlights the courage required to rethink legacy models in law, leadership and learning. It invites attendees to reflect on what true preparedness means for the unpredictable decades ahead.

Lunch & Networking

Smart Contracts, Hard Questions

In this thought-provoking Master Talk, our leading arbitration expert will distill the complex legal questions shaping crypto’s future. The session will highlight challenges around smart contract enforceability, decentralised governance, and cross-border digital regulation. With insights from arbitration and emerging frameworks, this talk will equip dispute resolution professionals with confidence to engage with a sector evolving faster than the laws designed to govern it.

Code, Currency, and Courts: Unravelling a Cross-Border Crypto Dispute

This session dissects a real-world cross-border crypto dispute, tracing a tokenised asset across jurisdictions and unpacking the legal fallout when the transaction unravels. As DeFi and digital assets transcend borders, courts face tough questions: Which law applies? Who has jurisdiction? Can crypto be frozen? Can judgments be enforced on-chain? Conflicting regulations further complicate enforcement. A dynamic panel of counsel, regulators, and industry insiders will walk through a multi-jurisdictional case, exposing procedural hurdles, clashing legal frameworks, and the urgent need for legal clarity in an unbounded digital economy.

The Algorithm on Trial

In this Master Talk, our expert will spotlight the legal questions emerging as AI becomes a central actor in finance, contracts, and corporate governance. From the accountability of autonomous systems to the evidentiary weight of machine-generated outcomes, this session will examine how courts and tribunals will be reckoning with new forms of causation, bias, and authorship. With fast-evolving technologies outpacing current frameworks, this talk considers how the legal profession can reclaim authority and ethical clarity in the age of intelligent systems.

AI Reckonings: Risk, Rights & Resolution

As generative AI reshapes how business operates, it’s also accelerating threats. Cyberattacks have surged with phishing alone spiking over 1200% in one year. This panel will examine the mounting dispute resolution challenges triggered by AI, from liability in algorithmic decisions to accountability in AI-enabled breaches. With global regulators struggling to keep pace, what role must the legal community play in shaping safeguards, enforcement tools, and ethical frameworks before the next crisis strikes?

Welcome to AI & Fintech Abu Dhabi

Conviction & Code: Utilising Foundational Frameworks to Build New Economic Ecosystems

As artificial intelligence moves from experimental to essential, its impact on global economic systems is being shaped by more than just innovation, it’s being guided by conviction, control and long-term vision. In this session, investment leaders, AI pioneers and governance architects explore how trusted infrastructure, ethical frameworks, and strategic alignment are driving the next era of financial and technological growth. From national strategies to corporate execution, this is where foundational decisions are made.

Blockchain Abu Dhabi Opening Address

Bullish for Builders: Is 2026 the Year the Foundations Hold?

This isn’t just another crypto panel. It’s a pulse check from insiders who have built empires, weathered cycles and called the market before it moved. With decades of combined foresight across blockchain, trading and innovation, this conversation brings together some of the most influential and at times controversial voices in digital assets. From market resilience to next-gen adoption, they will unpack what’s real, what’s noise and why the bets they are placing now could shape everything in 2026.

The Long Game: Rebuilding Trust in Global Finance with Decentralized Infrastructure

As volatility, fragmentation and regulatory overcorrection redefine the post-crisis landscape, this keynote unpacks how decentralized infrastructure is quietly becoming the backbone of tomorrow’s financial system. From settlement and custody to sovereign stablecoins and programmable assets, trust is no longer built by institution, but by design.

Public Chains, Public Gains: Blockchain for a Better Society

From protecting medical records to streamlining public finance, blockchain is gaining ground as a transformative tool for governments. In this session, we explore how decentralised infrastructure is being used to improve access, transparency, and trust across sectors, from healthcare to identity to social services. As civic applications move beyond theory into practice, we ask: can blockchain unlock more inclusive, citizen-centric systems? And what will it take for these innovations to scale safely, securely, and for public good?

Privacy at Scale: Evolving Digital Assets for the Future Economy

As regulation tightens and adoption widens from on-chains to stablecoins, it's important to build resilience across compliance, privacy and infrastructure. Join industry leaders to explore how to scale securely, serve millions and remain adaptable in a fast-moving market. Can privacy and compliance coexist? What does platform resilience really mean and which players are truly ready for what comes next?

Collateral Infrastructure: Building the Rails for Tokenized Leverage

From tokenized funds to next-gen lending protocols, unlocking crypto collateral is becoming a key frontier for institutional adoption. This panel brings together leaders to explore how tokenized assets, DeFi infrastructure, and regulated trading venues are reshaping capital efficiency. What guardrails are needed? What’s stopping institutions from tapping into this value? And how close are we to real interoperability between crypto-native and traditional collateral systems?

High Speed Horizons: Speed and Scalability Converge

The next evolution in global finance is Internet Capital Markets — a single global marketplace for every tradeable asset, operating at the same scale the internet does for information. Hear from one of the industries most prominent figures about the way blockchain technology is transforming the future of finance, the real-world use cases live today, the technical breakthroughs making them possible, and his vision for a future where markets are open, instant, and accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Solving Trust and Liquidity Challenges in Digital Asset Markets

With an increased digital assets market, liquidity and trust remain key drivers of institutional confidence and market scalability. This session explores how transparency, security measures and evolving infrastructure come together to create resilient, efficient markets. Experts will discuss how these foundations enable sustainable growth and foster wider adoption of digital finance.

From Access to Allocation: How Institutions Are Scaling Digital Asset Portfolios

As institutional exposure to digital assets deepens the challenge is no longer just access, it's allocation. This session brings together leaders from asset management, crypto-native funds and infrastructure to explore how multi-fund strategies are evolving to meet the needs of institutional investors. From managing volatility and regulatory complexity to scaling across fund structures and custody models, the conversation will unpack how institutions are building diversified, defensible crypto portfolios for the long term.

Programmable Yield: Building the Next Market for Tokenised Debt

Debt markets are being reimagined on-chain. From tokenised treasuries to programmable fixed-income products, the infrastructure is emerging to create a new category of digital assets: scalable, transparent, and globally accessible debt instruments. As legacy systems converge with blockchain rails, the question is no longer when – but how fast institutions will adopt this new model.

Risk4.0: A Welcome from ADGM

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Securing the Future: Building Cyber Resilience in Financial Hubs

Join the ADGM Academy to discuss the evolving cyber threat landscape facing global financial hubs. This fireside explores how collaboration between government bodies, regulatory academies, and industry leaders is shaping strategies to enhance cyber resilience, protect critical infrastructure and cultivate skilled talent ready to tackle tomorrow’s security challenges.

Tariffs in Context: Understanding the Economic Signals Behind Global Trade Frictions

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Criminal Code: Mapping the Cybercrime Economy

Cybercrime is now the backbone of a trillion-dollar illicit economy. From cyber-enabled money laundering to large-scale scams, criminals are exploiting digital tools to operate at industrial scale. Cyber-enabled money laundering now accounts for a significant portion of the staggering $2 trillion laundered globally and over $1 trillion is stolen by scammers each year. This session explores how cyber and financial crime are converging and what governments, industry, and international bodies must do to fight back.

Quantum Has Landed: What Would You Build First?

The age of quantum isn't coming, it's here. Encryption? Breakable. Simulations? Limitless. Infrastructure? Scrambling to catch up. In this future-facing panel, we ask a provocative question: if quantum capabilities were fully unlocked today, what would you build first? Join quantum pioneers as they explore what’s possible now, what financial systems must unlearn and what kind of world we're coding into existence, before someone else does it first.

Cross-Border Confidence: Payments, Permissions and Global Compliance

As financial institutions scale across borders, the ability to navigate fragmented regulatory environments, manage third-party data risks and embed trust into operational infrastructure is now mission-critical. This session brings together infrastructure providers, compliance specialists and digital payment pioneers to explore how financial ecosystems can remain agile and resilient, even as scrutiny intensifies. From API-led payments and secure data frameworks to regulatory readiness and governance innovation, discover the behind-the-scenes building blocks enabling global trust at scale.

The Human Element: Managing Risk Beyond Technology

Despite billions spent on cybersecurity, a record rise in fraud and cybercrime continues and the weakest link isn’t code, it’s people. From misdirected payments to manipulated employees, human error remains the top driver of breaches across finance. This session explores how firms are rethinking risk strategies to account for the human factor like training, culture, accountability, especially in sectors and organisations most vulnerable to attack. Because when every click counts, resilience starts with behaviour.

The Future of Trust: Identity Verification to Entity Centric Risk

Fraud prevention has outgrown transactional and based defenses. The next frontier is entity-centric risk, understanding the full digital footprint behind every user.In this session, we’ll explore how new detection and verification technologies connect device, behavioral, and cross-platform signals to define what truly constitutes an identity and their corresponding entity risk. This proactive approach not only stops fraud earlier but enables banks and fintechs to grow safely and confidently, because real growth begins with trust.

Five Real Risks We Face Tomorrow

Behind today’s headlines are systemic risks that most of the market continues to underestimate, or ignore entirely. In this sharp, forward-looking address, a leading mind on financial systems and regulatory design outlines five structural threats that demand urgent attention from both policymakers and private actors. With a track record of influencing global regulation, advising governments and drafting policy frameworks, he reveals the hidden vulnerabilities that could define tomorrow’s market landscape and what must be done now to mitigate them.

Digital Infrastructure 2030: Convergence of AI, Web3, and Real-World Systems

By 2030, the boundaries between artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, and real-world systems will blur. AI will not only act as a tool but as an active participant–trading, creating, and governing within digital infrastructures. Web3 promises trustless coordination, yet what happens when algorithms, not humans, are the primary agents on these networks? This session will will challenge leaders to imagine futures where identity, creativity, responsibility, and value are redefined by the convergence of AI and Web3. Together, we will explore what digital infrastructure humanity should build to safeguard dignity and resilience while embracing unprecedented opportunities.

Institutional Bridges: Institutional Adoption and the Evolution of Digital Asset Regulation

Institutional adoption of digital assets is no longer a question of if but how. Regulators, central banks, and financial institutions are under pressure to balance innovation with stability while new forms of money–stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenized deposits–are vying to become the backbone of the next global settlement layer. This session will explore the institutional bridges needed to move from experimentation to real-world scale: regulatory frameworks that encourage responsible growth, infrastructure that can integrate with legacy systems, and cultural shifts within finance that embrace decentralization without losing trust. Participants will discuss how regulatory innovation can unlock the next phase of adoption and what shape the future financial architecture will take.

The AI Evolution: From Potential to Practicality with Bloomberg

AI is changing the financial industry — and the world around us — at an accelerating pace. This roundtable will explore how AI is becoming a foundational technology in building more connected, efficient, and resilient financial systems, from capital flows and risk management to optimisation and market intelligence. Focusing on the challenges of enterprise AI adoption and insights on some of its most promising applications across finance.

UBS Corporate Access Day

Executive Dinner

Welcome to the 8th Edition of Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum

Join the CEO of the ADGM Authorities extend a warm welcome to the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum. The 8th edition has cemented the forum as a pivotal gathering in the world of climate finance. As ADGM pursues its vision of becoming the leader in Green Finance, we take a moment to reflect on some of the initiatives and actions already underway to turn this vision into reality.

Sustainable Byte: Low Impact AI Infrastructure

As we enter the AI era and digital demand surges, so do its energy and resource needs. This panel explores how data centres, computing power, and AI ecosystems can be designed for minimal environmental impact, balancing sustainability and innovation in the digital age.

The Global Climate Finance Architect's Board, with GCFC

A high-level boardroom session convened by the Global Climate Finance Centre, designed as a public “board meeting” with CEOs, policymakers, and global advisors. This debate will explore practical pathways to position the UAE as a global climate finance hub and unlock capital for transition projects.

Abu Dhabi: The Capital of Green Capital

A dynamic look at Abu Dhabi’s rise as a global hub for climate finance and investment resilience. This session explores how forward-thinking policies, strategic investments, future-proofing and flagship projects are creating high-impact ecosystems shaping the future.

Achieving a Double Bottom Line

Few areas of finance capture the balance between purpose and performance as strongly as impact investing. From advancing global health to unlocking breakthroughs in deeptech, impact capital is reshaping how industries deliver measurable social good and generate tangible benefits for communities alongside sustainable financial returns. This fireside discussion will explore investment trends, innovation frontiers, and how purposeful capital can build more inclusive, resilient, and future-ready societies.

Champions of the Falcon Economy

This special segment will showcase the investment thesis and growth strategies of several listed industrial champions as they shape Abu Dhabi’s economic future.

Decoding the Banker's Sustainability Mandate

It's been a challenging year for banks navigating sustainability efforts. While some have scaled back their ambitions, many global and regional banks continue integrating ESG criteria, adopting green financing frameworks, and setting ambitious net-zero targets. This session explores how banks are adapting to these pressures while advancing the global transition to a sustainable economy.

Pledges to Projects: Scaling Energy Transition

This session unpacks how global climate pledges are driving capital toward electrification and renewable infrastructure globally. Join pioneering firms transform climate ambition scaling low-carbon fuel supply chains, advanced battery materials delivering high energy density, and clean energy operations that integrate sustainability across the value chain.

Reviving the Mammoth: The Investment Case of De‑Extinction

Join Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal Biosciences, for a visionary conversation on de‑extinction as a sustainability strategy. Learn how woolly mammoth proxies might restore Arctic grasslands, reverse permafrost melt, and contribute to nature-based solutions for global carbon capture.

2nd EU-GCC Finance & Investment for Green Transition Forum

GtFT - Google Finance & Technology Summit

NYU Stern 2025 Graduation Ceremony

2nd EU-GCC Finance & Investment for Green Transition Forum; Technical Session

ADGM Partners Recognition Ceremony

Abu Dhabi High-Level Roundtable on Climate Investment

The Opening Perspective: Framing the Future of Finance

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The Power of Balance

In a world recalibrating its values, balance is emerging as the true measure of progress. This opening keynote reflects on how inclusion, integrity and shared leadership can strengthen institutions and inspire sustainable growth across economies. When diversity is embraced with intent, the future of finance becomes wiser, fairer and more enduring.

Special Recognition Ceremony

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Fireside Conversations: Voices of Influence

Hear from some of the most forward thinking voices today on in-depth firesides which showcase strategy and foresight across topics such as AI, e-commerce, smart cities and more.

Sustainable Capital and Innovation in Green Finance

Sustainability is now smart economics, and the MENA region is proving it. This panel highlights how investors and institutions are coupling climate change awareness with responsible investment through green finance, blended capital, and innovative financial tools that power the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Rethinking Investment: How Financial Literacy Can Drive More Equitable Societies

When women and girls gain access to financial education and investment opportunities, entire economies benefit. This session examines how financial inclusion amplifies women’s ability to support their families, invest in businesses, and participate fully in economic life, generating multiplier effects that advance both social and national development.

Leaders in Motion: Women Driving Financial Innovation

Women at the forefront of banking, digital assets, investment, and property are not standing still, they’re setting the pace and shifting the centre of influence. This session spotlights the female leaders actively reshaping financial innovation across global markets.

Closing Remarks

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