Mark Benn

Mark Benn is a South African–trained chartered accountant who has spent his career as a finance leader across private-equity and investment firms in Europe and the Middle East. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Deloitte (South African CA per aggregator/LinkedIn records, with a Bachelor of Commerce background from the University of Cape Town), and held senior executive roles in Europe before moving into asset management. Prior to Safanad he was CEO of Lydian Capital Advisors, a private investment firm that managed roughly US$3 billion of predominantly healthcare assets across Europe and the US.

Benn joined Safanad — a private-equity firm co-headquartered in New York and Dubai and founded by Kamal Bahamdan — at its inception in 2008, and served as its Chief Financial Officer for over a decade (about 13 years). In that role he was central to the firm's strategy formulation, capital raising, balance-sheet management, and the build-out of its asset-management infrastructure across platforms in healthcare, education, real estate and digital infrastructure. During his tenure Safanad built and later exited HC-One, which became the UK's largest care-home provider.

In November 2022 he moved to Waha Capital PJSC, an Abu Dhabi–listed diversified investment holding company, and was formally appointed Chief Financial Officer in January 2023. Waha's chairman, Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, cited the "wealth of financial expertise" Benn brought to the group.

Most recently, Benn is a co-founder and CFO of Dovehouse Capital, described in the press as "Abu Dhabi's first home-grown hedge fund." Registered as an incorporated cell company at Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the firm was founded by Danish entrepreneurs Claus Gotthard and Martin Rasmussen, with Benn and former First Abu Dhabi Bank marketing director Hind Akel among the co-founders. The fund targets multi-billion-dollar AUM within three years, and reported ~$80–150m in early commitments primarily from Emirati family offices, with operations beginning in 2026.

• Primary role is finance leadership, not deal-sourcing angel investing. Benn's value-add is as a CFO/co-founder building and running the financial and operational infrastructure of investment firms — capital raising, balance-sheet management, and asset-management operations.
• Institutional sectors: healthcare (his throughline — Lydian's ~$3bn healthcare book and Safanad's HC-One care-home platform), plus education, real estate, financial services and digital infrastructure at Safanad.
• Dovehouse strategy (the firm he now co-runs): ~60% high-conviction long-only equities (screened via the Piotroski F-score), ~20% S&P 500 futures with machine-learning support, and ~20% tactical/short positions. The founders reported ~74% returns on their own unleveraged equity strategy before launch.
• Geography: deep GCC/UAE relationships (Emirati family offices and wealth managers as target LPs), layered on prior European and US experience.