Ahmed Badawi is the founder and Managing Director of Barkal Gold Associates. He was born, raised, and educated in the UK, and is a British national.
Ahmed Badawi provided in-country consultancy services for over a decade to the Republic of Sudan, focused on crisis communications, strategic counsel, and public diplomacy outreach relating to Sudan-US relations; high-level private diplomacy support (including speech writing, presentations, and outreach to US public officials); and media relations.
His consultancy services for the Sudanese government included arranging briefings and ‘Q&As’ for Sudanese officials at Washington think-tanks, attended by the State Department, NGOs, and others with influence over American policy to Sudan.
Ahmed Badawi has, himself, spoken at high level fora about topical Sudan issues, including at the National Press Club, in Washington, DC, and the EastWest Institute at Brussels. He has also been published extensively in English-language articles about Sudan – including in The Guardian and publications of the Royal Africa Society UK, and he has been interviewed often about Sudan in the international media as well, including for the BBC, Forbes Magazine, and The Daily Telegraph.
Ahmed has impressive experience as a spokesperson for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment and technical assistance arm of the World Bank Group, at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. At IFC, Ahmed Badawi oversaw proactive reputational risk management and crisis communications for IFC fixed and equity investments in Middle Eastern and Sub-Sahara African countries.
Before joining IFC, Mr. Badawi worked as an Account Director at Raitt Orr & Associates, the London-based Africa-related government and public affairs agency. At Raitt Orr, he was notably responsible for providing strategic counsel and public diplomacy support to the Government of Kenya, which included speechwriting for ex-Kenya President Daniel arap Moi.
Ahmed also oversaw Raitt Orr’s public affairs management in the UK of the London representative office of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). This entailed, amongst other duties, researching and drafting a paper on foreign direct investment in Africa, which JBIC, in turn, presented at the annual Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 2003.
Ahmed Badawi has a dual skills-set: he is a seasoned communications specialist but has extensive blue-chip experience in sovereign risk analysis, too. He was an Associate Director at Fitchratings, where he assessed the creditworthiness of Middle Eastern and African governments, and he worked as senior country risk analyst in London for the American blue-chip firm, Dun & Bradstreet, too.
He also has Sudan country risk analyst experience with the Economist Intelligence Unit. Ahmed Badawi has also served as a consultant to both Weber Shandwick GJW, and Kroll. Ahmed Badawi has a Master of Arts (Area Studies – Near and Middle East) from the University of London and holds a BA Hons in Economics and Politics from the University of East Anglia, too.
A veteran of the gold trade sector in Sudan, Mahadi Babikir sits in the cockpit of our Sudan gold offering and operations, staying permanently on the ground in-country to oversee and ensure we provide smooth and bump-free transactions to all our global customers of Sudan’s exceptionally high quality gold dore bars.
He also manages proactive outreach with communities in gold producing areas and is our liaison with the Sudanese public authorities.
Mahadi Babikir hails from one of the most prominent families in Sudan; his deceased father was a highly decorated captain of the Sudan Armed Forces and the personal equerry to the late Queen Elizabeth II during her last visit to Sudan. Mahadi obtained an MBA from the University of Sudan.
CEO - Africa Supplier Management and Integrity, Logistics and Security, Finance
Dr Amir Elsharif
Dr Elsharif manages the full suite of gold dore bars supplier, security and logistics, banking, and insurance services for all non-Sudan Africa gold transactions facilitated by Barkal Gold Associates. A trained doctor and graduate of King's College, University of London, Dr. Amir Elsharif passed up a career in medicine and, instead, spent over a decade as a senior manager at the Italian energy giant, ENI, where he was responsible for HSE management across ENI's operations in the Gulf countries, where he also maintains residency (as well as in Istanbul.)
A qualified risk specialist, Dr Amir Elsharif has extensive global commodity trading expertise, including in the gold, hydrocarbons, sugar, and agricultural commodities sector. He hails from an exceptional mercantalist family background in Sudan, which has its roots in Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
Dr Elsharif is at the nexus of Barkal Gold's trading and operational strategy across Africa and, like Ahmed Badawi, visits Africa frequently to inventorise, reshape, and pre-screen its network of gold dore bar suppliers in a number of jurisdictions across Africa.