When Hisham Ezz Al-Arab was reappointed as CEO of Commercial International Bank (CIB) Egypt in November 2024, it marked the next step of a 20-plus year leadership journey. His earlier tenure from 2002 to 2020 had turned CIB from a modest wholesale lender into a full-service institution widely regarded as the country’s most progressive and profitable private-sector bank. But that first chapter in 2002 began with a twist of fate.
“I never planned to come back,” he says from his plush office in Cairo, recalling his unexpected return to Egypt after years working in London.
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