05 — Team

Decades of cross-border deal-making.

Our team consists of award-winning professionals in investment banking, investment management, capital markets, data science, and mathematical finance, with senior leadership tenures across Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Dresdner, Deutsche Bank, Tokyo Mitsubishi, and other private equity firms and merchant banks alongside high-tech companies.

We have a track record of closing significant cross-border transactions and restructuring businesses to deliver rapid increases in value. We have closed and advised on transactions across Europe, the USA, the Middle East, and Africa in sectors including fin-tech, nano-tech, healthcare, eCommerce, telecom, financial institutions, oil & gas, aluminium, and real estate. The partners leverage strong relationships with institutional, corporate, and sovereign investors.

Institutional pedigree

Merrill LynchJP MorganDresdner Kleinwort WassersteinDeutsche BankBank of Tokyo MitsubishiMerchantBridgeMasraf Al RayanMerrill LynchJP MorganDresdner Kleinwort WassersteinDeutsche BankBank of Tokyo MitsubishiMerchantBridgeMasraf Al Rayan
Buddy Soubra

Founder Profile

Buddy Soubra

CEO & Founder

Previously Head of Special Opportunities at MerchantBridge, where he led projects including the $2 billion Asia Cell transaction, the £500 million Battersea Power Station acquisition, and a $1 billion aluminium smelter.

Head of Product Development at Masraf Al Rayan (Qatar), with projects including the $300 million Lusail Development and £1 billion Chelsea Barracks London.

Global Head of Commodity Finance at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, with projects ranging from oil-linked funding for GCC national oil companies to financing solutions for international oil and commodity companies.

Co-Head of Special Finance at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Head of Capital Markets Middle East at Merrill Lynch, leading Dubal's $1 billion synthetic aluminium put embedded in a $250 million loan (Deal of the Year) and the inaugural $400 million Eurobond for the Republic of Lebanon (Deal of the Year).

Currently a Professor of Finance at the Eccles Business School, University of Utah. Previously held the same post at Washington University in St. Louis, the Leonard N. Stern School of Business — NYU, and the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.

Holds a PhD in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU — awarded the Hermann E. Krooss Award for the Most Outstanding Dissertation.

Leadership

A bench built for cross-border deployment.

Leadership & Operations

Tyler Kiper

Tyler Kiper

Deputy CEO / Head of Finance

Tyler serves as the Deputy CEO and Head of Finance at Tigbourne Capital, heading the global fundraising initiative for Organic Oil Recovery projects with IOCs and NOCs. He is a finance professional and entrepreneur with deep experience, including equity research at J.P. Morgan, investment management at AllianceBernstein, and consulting work at RSM International. As an entrepreneur, Tyler worked at a startup where he helped raise Series-A funding from venture capitalists and played a pivotal role in overseeing the company's operations and driving strategic growth initiatives. Tyler holds an MS in Finance and a BS in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis.

Advisors

Magdalena Gatzinska

Magdalena Gatzinska

Senior Global Advisor

Magdalena Gatzinska, Vice Chairman, Europe, Middle East and Africa, UBS. Previously Magdalena was with commodities-focused hedge fund KLI Asset Management, where she worked in business development. Magdalena is a principal investment professional and entrepreneur with over 27 years of capital markets, VC & PE experience with global investment institutions — JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank in New York & London, and with the private investment firms LMD Capital & Catalyst Capital (C2A), which she co-founded and managed. On the investment management side, Magdalena managed LMD Capital — a multi-asset class private investment firm with offices in London & Dubai and assets under management and advisory of over $1B — sourcing, structuring and managing new direct investments, revitalising underperforming early-stage US technology investments, and advising corporates on refinancing and raising mission-critical debt & equity. As a technology entrepreneur, Magdalena is the co-founder of Bookanyservice, an AI-driven marketplace in the Middle East. Earlier in her career she ran an institutional Equity & Fund derivatives desk at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank in New York and London. She holds an MBA in Analytical Finance and Econometrics and a BA in Economics & Mathematics from the University of Chicago, speaks five languages, and currently lives in London.

Lee Lazarus

Lee Lazarus

Senior Advisor, North America

Lee has handled more than $1 billion of merger & acquisition transactions throughout his career in M&A consulting, private equity, and as a corporate attorney. Currently a Managing Director of Perkin Industries, a private equity firm focusing on growth-stage investments in healthcare, real estate, gaming and digital & new media. Previously he was Chief Operating Officer of Grandparents.com, Inc., a publicly traded company providing insurance and financial services to 76 million seniors in the US. Lee was also a corporate attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP, managing complex M&A transactions for Charterhouse, Veronis Suhler, The Related Companies, Hyperion and Integrated Resources across sports, hospitality, media, healthcare, technology and real estate. He earned a B.S. from Emory University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and is a Member of the Board of Directors of Retirees For Justice.

Nabil Tohala

Nabil Tohala

Senior Adviser — Middle East & Africa

An expert in the Oil and Gas sector with over 50 years of experience across various disciplines in the industry. Nabil's experience includes serving in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil for over 15 years, delivering strategic infrastructure projects in the oil sector and managing large-scale projects for Multinational Oil Companies. Nabil is now an entrepreneur in the Oil and Gas sector where he is Managing Director and Founder of NDT International (NDTI), affiliated with TIC, Inc. NDTI provides Asset Integrity Corrosion Control and Advanced Non-destructive Testing in Iraq. In addition, Nabil is an advisor to several major International Oil and Gas Companies in Iraq. Nabil holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Manchester University.

Saida Niyazova

Saida Niyazova

Senior Adviser — Eurasia

Saida has over 20 years of experience with international and Kazakh institutions related to the oil and gas sector. Between 2018 and 2022 Saida was the Managing Director and Editor of Kazakhstan Journal for Oil & Gas Industry, where she gained significant local knowledge of the oil and gas business in Kazakhstan. From 2012–2018 Saida was Sales and Business Development Manager — Asia for Golden Eagle Services of Kazakhstan and De Meeuw of the Netherlands, both leading manufacturers of prefabricated accommodations for remote onshore oilfields and offshore oil platforms. As Co-founder she headed the Central Asia Services Group, a major Kazakh oil and gas service provider, from 2001 to 2012. From 1997 to 2000 Saida worked at the European Union Technical Assistance Project as Project Coordinator in the Oil and Gas sector in Kazakhstan. Since 2022 Saida is Head of Diamonds Inventory at Green Rocks Diamonds, New York. Saida has a BA degree from Kazakh State Women University, Almaty.

Mohd Zaidan Khalid

Mohd Zaidan Khalid

Senior Adviser — Asia

Mohd Zaidan Khalid is a highly experienced Well Completion professional with over three decades of expertise in the oil and gas industry, holding a Diploma in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Technology Malaysia and a Master's in Safety, Health and Environment from University Selangor. His career is distinguished by leadership in setting technical direction, establishing best practices, and driving innovation in well completion and drilling operations. Prior to his current role, Zaidan served as Executive Vice President at MOGS, responsible for setting the overall company direction and leading business development and talent strategy. Before this he was the Custodian for Well Completion at PETRONAS HQ, where he set the technical direction for the discipline, established technical governance, standardised best practices, and led technology roadmaps and innovation. His earlier role as Principal Well Completion involved driving group-wide regulatory compliance, standardisation of technology systems, and the implementation of best practices. Zaidan's extensive field experience includes serving as Senior Completion Engineer for the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company in Sudan and for the Erb West Project Team, specialising in planning and executing complex multilateral well completions. His earlier engineering and supervisory roles with PETRONAS Carigali Sdn. Bhd. in Sarawak and Baram Delta Operations provided a deep operational foundation in completion design, gravel packing, and daily drilling supervision. He began his career in hands-on operational roles as a Mud Engineer and Wellsite Petroleum Engineer.

Eran Viner

Eran Viner

Senior Global Advisor

CEO of Viner Burch Global. Eran is an entrepreneur with over 30 years' experience in business, having created and grown multiple companies to success. A pioneer in K-12 online eLearning systems and one of the first engineers to introduce server-based networks to the private business sector.

Kjetil Cleveland

Kjetil Cleveland

Chief Technology Advisor — Production

Kjetil has over 30 years of international experience across onshore and offshore petroleum engineering disciplines, technology development, business development, well planning and construction, contracts, commercial evaluations, and asset management. He has held key cross-functional assignments with ConocoPhillips, BP, Cepsa, Wintershall Dea, OKEA, Equinor, and Aker BP, covering the full lifecycle of wells from target conception to plug and abandonment — including subsurface, production, completion, intervention, and drilling. His career also spans exploration and infrastructure-led exploration strategies, process and facilities, major projects, R&D, IT, and technology innovation, while building an extensive global industry network. Passionate about well stimulation, pressure transient analysis, and EOR technologies, he is recognised for meticulous attention to detail, creative problem-solving, and the ability to deliver innovation. Kjetil holds an M.Sc. in Reservoir Engineering from the University of Stavanger.

Jordan Lytle

Jordan Lytle

Senior Advisor — A&D and Land Acquisitions

Jordan brings 19+ years in oil & gas and a track record spanning $23B+ in transactions. As Vice President of Land Acquisitions at Trafford Exploration, he directed $17B+ in acquisition operations across 26 U.S. basins and optimized drilling programs across 150,000+ wells, including marquee deals such as a $1.9B STACK acquisition, a $1.68B Permian Basin acquisition (44,200 acres), and a $1.275B Anadarko Basin transaction. Most recently, as Strategic Director of Acquisitions, Southern Division at Western Land Services, he operationalized $1.9B+ in acquisitions across six Southern basins. As a Certified Professional Landman with an MBA in Strategy, Jordan pairs deep A&D and due-diligence expertise with a sharp eye for value. This is exactly the discipline Tigbourne Capital Ltd brings to enhanced oil recovery.

Career highlights

  1. 1990s

    Head of Capital Markets, Middle East

    Merrill Lynch

    Dubal $1B synthetic aluminium · $400M Lebanon Eurobond — both Deal of the Year

  2. Late 1990s

    Co-Head of Special Finance

    Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein

    Cross-border structured finance

  3. 2000s

    Global Head of Commodity Finance

    Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi

    GCC NOC oil-linked funding

  4. 2000s

    Head of Product Development

    Masraf Al Rayan, Qatar

    $300M Lusail · £1B Chelsea Barracks

  5. 2010s

    Head of Special Opportunities

    MerchantBridge

    $2B Asia Cell · £500M Battersea · $1B aluminium smelter

  6. Present

    CEO & Founder

    Tigbourne Capital

    Professor of Finance, Eccles Business School, University of Utah

Collective Intelligence

A network of expertise.

Every node a person. Every pulse a deal closed, a market mapped, a thesis tested. Hover or focus any orb to read what they've built into Tigbourne.

TigbourneBuddyTylerConnorNicklausBesnikMadelineIsaacAtharvaPierreMatthiasRebeccaLillianKjetilMagdalenaLeeNabilSaidaZaidanEran

Founder

Dr. Buddy Soubra

  • Dubal $1B synthetic aluminium — Deal of the Year
  • $400M inaugural Lebanon Eurobond — Deal of the Year
  • $2B Asia Cell transaction
  • £500M Battersea Power Station acquisition
  • $1B aluminium smelter financing
  • $300M Lusail · £1B Chelsea Barracks
  • Professor of Finance — Eccles, NYU Stern, WashU, Maryland
  • PhD, NYU Stern — Hermann E. Krooss Award

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