Speaker Profile

Sadek Wahba

Founder, Chairman and Managing Partner—I Squared Capital

Dr. Sadek Wahba is Chairman and Managing Partner of I Squared Capital, an independent global infrastructure investment manager based in Miami, Florida. He was previously at Morgan Stanley where he was the CEO of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, a global platform for infrastructure investments.

A former economist at The World Bank, Sadek is an advocate for transformative approaches to infrastructure investment and a frequent commentator about the need for more investment in infrastructure to promote sustainable economic growth. He was part of the expert committee on the World Economic Forum's first report on global infrastructure investments and was named Global Infrastructure Personality of the Year twice, as well as Global Infrastructure Personality of the Decade, by Private Equity International (PEI). He appears regularly on national networks including Bloomberg and CNBC. In September 2022, President Biden appointed Sadek to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, which advises the White House on reducing the physical and cyber risks and improving the security and resilience of critical infrastructure in the U.S.

He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, an M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a B.A. in economics from the American University in Cairo. He is a published author on economic research and one of his publications was selected by MIT as one of their 50 most influential papers in the last 50 years. His recent book Build: Investing in America’s Infrastructure is published by Georgetown University Press.

Sadek is a Senior Fellow at the Development Research Institute of New York University, a Foundation Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and a trustee of the American University in Cairo. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also a member of the national cabinet of the Wilson Center, and chair of the steering committee of the Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition at the Wilson Center.

He resides in Miami, Florida where he is a member of the board of directors of the Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute and a trustee of the Everglades Foundation.

ABANA