800 AIOKA
Balbinder (Bally) Singh has worked in the marketing, entertainment and more recently tech industries for over fifteen years and has held C-Suite positions in both the electronics and technology sector.
Throughout this time, Bally has also personally founded a number of successful companies. Bally founded a marketing agency that was quickly grown to scale and sold to a larger competitor. His current business Hoko Agency is currently in the midst of a significant fundraising round to facilitate a planned expansion to a number new global markets from a UAE base. The aim is to bring additional employment and commercial revenue to the UAE headquarters. This current business is a culmination of his work across a number of sectors including brand partnerships, marketing, events, rights growth, sponsorship sales and IP creation and their implementation.
Over his working life, Bally has completed projects with and consulted for many global blue chip companies including Microsoft, The Marriott Group, Hilton Group, Alfa Romeo F1 Team, Mercedes, Money-gram and OKX.
Bally has also worked as bridge between the worlds of government, finance and other sectors with noted advisory and consultancy work for ADGM (Abu Dhabi Global Markets), The Office of of Sheikh Mohammad Al Thanos, the DCT (Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism) and Gem Digital, a leading investment fund.
The close relationships Bally has made over his working life within the music and entertainment industries has allowed him to facilitate direct introductions and discussions between the highest levels of ownership for companies and entities he engaged by.
For over 18 years Ana Santos Matas has straddled the lines between fashion, business, and philanthropy in all of their forms.
Ana began her first step into the world of fashion and business while studying in Ireland for her Master’s Degree when she joined the Irish expansion of Zara.
Upon the completion of her degree and having completed 3 years working for Zara, Ana returned to her native country Spain. Ana was then headhunted by a talent scout for the Wilhelmina agency, one of the world’s most prestigious modeling agencies.
For the next 9 years, Ana traveled the globe, working short to long-term periods in Paris, Cape Town, Dubai and also other smaller international assignments. She completed work across the entire gamut of modeling, featuring in print for some of the most well-known magazines, advertising campaigns for blue chip jewelry, hotel brands and runway work for a number of the best-known fashion houses.
Between her modeling assignments, Ana was asked to consult by a number of marketing agencies on brand creation and direction in her native country Spain. The led to her introduction to who would become her partner in both life and work Balbinder Singh. Together they created the Hoko Marketing Agency, to bring the existing events company under one roof. With Ana’s key skills in brand creation, she created both new events IP for Hoko and additionally created and directed client brands.
During this period, the company was tasked with the design of a new restaurant IP. When the clients’ funding fell through, Ana took ownership of the creation of this new brand, and Rosa’s Cafe was born. Although having never worked in the restaurant space, Ana’s brand creation, acumen, and knowledge of style created what has now been recognized by the press as the worlds most successful “Fashion Cafe” with over a million customers in the last 5 years and an income of over $4 million dollars of revenue. The brand has only gone from strength to strength and is currently in the process of expanding to new locations within both in Spain and Dubai.
Around this time, it was recognized that an overwhelming percentage of the work Hoko was handling was now derived from the Middle East and the decision was taken to move the headquarters of the company to Dubai and along with it, Ana and her family.
While always interested in Philanthropy, whilst living in Dubai Ana has been able to support more in areas she recognized personally were in need. Both in a professional manner, with Hoko partnering with both the Global Gala and the Abu Dhabi Dream Ball in hosting some of their largest UAE-based events of the last few years but also supporting a number of smaller charities such as the Harmony House.
Max has over 25 years’ experience in the sport and entertainment industries having worked in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. Before Max set up his own agency he had worked for global award-winning agencies for over a decade such as World Sport Group and Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
With Max’s business acumen, he expanded and commercialized the Aioka Race Weekend events into new international markets and as industry leader in hospitality and entertainment. He has been instrumental in building the Intellectual Property of Aioka within the agency as well as other IP’s within the group.
With his commercial expertise, Max has concluded multi-million dollar deals with Emirates Airlines, Marriott Group, Pernod Ricard, Moet Hennessy, McLaren, Red Bull, Samsung, OKX, Tag Heuer and Heineken to name a few. With an impressive record executing for the biggest companies in the world.
Max is experienced in developing and establishing sponsorship strategies and leveraging their investments into sport and entertainment across all mediums and a wide range of knowledge around broadcast having completed deals with BeIN Sports, OSN, Dubai Sports, Star Sports and MBC over his career.
As an accomplished commercial leader in the sports and entertainment industry and Hoko has won Awards for various initiatives which he created and delivered over his career.
Max launched his first agency DPM Event Management in 2009 in London and over the first 5 years added offices in Miami and Dubai where we were working on accounts with Diageo, MoneyGram, Coca-Cola and Castrol across varying sports. It was from here where Max entered the world of F1 and in 2017 collaborated with Hoko Agency on varying projects. In 2019, both agencies then decided to merge into one agency.
Abdulrahman Almoayed is a Director at Almoayed Investments B.S.C(c), a multidisciplinary family-owned investment group, active in a variety of private and public sector enterprises. The success of Almoayed Investments is based on the principle of the proactive pursuit of opportunity and whole-hearted dedication to seeing projects through to fruition. It stands as
a generational bridge, built on grouping the entrepreneurial ventures of its directors to form a diverse and sizable portfolio of enterprises.
From a young age, Abdulrahman learned that success does not come without its fair share of difficulties, challenges, failures and, ultimately, learning experiences. Abdulrahman’s background in IT led to his first foray into business within the realm of IT software services which, gave him a deep respect and passion for the value of teamwork, communication and problem solving. Fast forward a few years, and these foundations have been intensified with a real passion for discovery. In business and in life, Abdulrahman favours the pursuit of originality, of new experiences, and improvement of known ones. This is for him a source of daily inspiration. Beyond discovery, the satisfaction of communicating and bringing life to
business concepts is at the heart of Abdulrahman’s achievements. This approach to business has transpired into the profitable establishment and development of numerous international brands in his home country, the Kingdom of Bahrain, including Ducati, Apple, Barry’s, Vespa, Piaggio, Illy Caffe, Harley-Davidson and EMCO a subcontracting company,
amongst others. Today, his business interests span many more areas including the establishment of home-grown brands in the F&B sector, IT products and services, distribution and transport, and real estate services.
Abdulrahman is still driven by the notion of fulfilling his potential on a personal and professional level, believing that every day presents new opportunities and prospects for
business development and also self-improvement. To that end, he is currently working on exploring the borders between charity and entrepreneurship.
Abdulrahman holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and an MBA from Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. He also used to serve as the EO Bahrain Chapter President for 2011/2012, after which he worked his way up to Regional Director for EMEA and has completed his tenure as a Board Member in the YPO Bahrain Chapter followed by a Regional Board Role in YPO Middle East and North Africa.
Abdulrahman is currently a primary member with YPO Dubai Downtown and a secondary member in YPO Bahrain. He lives with his wife Dana and his two sons, Rashid and Fahad, in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Amit Nayak is a prominent senior asset management specialist with extensive experience in property development, management, private equity, and family office operations within the hospitality industry. He has served in critical leadership roles at Dubai Holding and WASL in the UAE, managing substantial global property portfolios and leading numerous development initiatives.
Amit’s qualifications include a Post Graduate degree in Business Administration from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and in Hotel Management from the Institute of Hotel Management, Mumbai. His academic pursuits are further enhanced by executive education in real estate and asset management from Harvard University and Cornell University.
Amit actively participates on several industry boards, including the MENA Cornell University Alumni Association , the Hotel Asset Managers Association MEA chapter & the UAE Restaurant Group, demonstrating his dedication to advancing the sector. His roles as a mentor and advisor underscore his commitment to fostering industry growth.
With a strategic vision and proven leadership abilities, Amit significantly contributes to driving operational excellence and fostering innovation in the hospitality and real estate sectors.
Kamran took early retirement from VISA Inc in 2017 and has since involved himself in philanthropic activities. He has had a long and varied career with leading multinational firms across Europe Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East and has lived and worked in various countries around the world.
His last position when he took early retirement was Visa Inc. Regional President for CEMEA (Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa). Based in Dubai, UAE. Kamran was overall responsible for VISA’s business in 84 countries and was on the Operating Committee at the Corporate Level. CEMEA was one of five regions of VISA worldwide.
Prior to his 15 years with VISA Inc, Kamran worked with the ANZ Banking Group at their headquarter in Melbourne Australia. His last position with them was in 2003 when he was Managing Director of the Retail Business in Asia and the Credit Card Business in Australia.
Before joining the ANZ Banking Group in 2000, Kamran worked for Citigroup for 17 years in various roles in Corporate and Investment banking, and credit cards across Asia and the Middle East.
A citizen of Australia, Kamran is now based in the UAE and travels extensively for leisure and philanthropic work.
