Dr Iraj Abedian is Chairman of Pan-African Capital and Highly Respected Economist.

In 2005, he founded Pan-African Capital Holdings (Pty) Ltd, as a private equity investment holding company. In addition to growing the company’s investment portfolio, Iraj was centrally involved in the conceptualisation and capital raising for a KZN Infrastructure Growth Fund (R1,5 billion), and the establishment of South Africa’s first environmental clean tech Fund (US$ 94 million fund), as well as the design and establishment of a housing finance fund called Housing Investment Partners (HiP). Within the Pan-African Capital group, he has helped establish two private equity funds, totaling R550 million.

Abedian serves on the board of a number of Pan-African Capital Holding investee companies such as African Marine Solutions Group (Pty) Ltd, ANB Investments (Pty) Ltd, Automated Outsourcing Services (Pty) Ltd and Pan-African Managed Care (Pty) Ltd. In addition, he serves on the Advisory Board of the Office of the Auditor General of the SA Government. He maintains an active interest in public policy discourse in the country.

Abedian holds a PhD in economics from Simon Fraser University, Canada. He was professor of economics at University of Cape Town (UCT) before joining Standard Bank as Group Chief Economist and Exco member in 2000. He was extensively involved in economic and financial policy as well as institutional restructuring of South Africa’s public policy during the 1994-2000 period. During September to December 1999, Dr Abedian was based at the IMF, Washington D.C., working on issues related to fiscal vulnerability assessment.

Abedian was Chairman of Fortress REIT and was on the Board of Capital Property Fund and Munich Re of Africa among others.