Ghiyath was one of the first groups of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) experts working for Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) headquarters in Kuwait, the first and oldest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

To energize the discussion about SWFs in academia, he cooperated with Professor Jeffrey Harris in organizing an annual international conference at American University which started in 2014 and continued to be offered annually. A detailed proceedings are published at the end of each conference. It is the first at an academic institution of higher learning in the U.S.

He is a co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Sovereign Wealth Funds, which was Edited by: H. Kent Baker, Jeffrey H. Harris, Ghiyath F. Nakshbendi, and published in 2024.

He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in finance and International Business. Ghiyath was a pioneer in introducing and teaching Islamic finance courses and structured the first Graduate Certificate in Islamic Finance in the U.S.A. at American University.

He has extensive international business experience. His early career in academia (tenured professor-Montgomery College, Adjunct Professor-George Mason U and visiting Professor-King Saud U.(Saudi Arabia), was followed by more than 25 years of senior positions working in developmental financing, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), and commercial real estate.

Dr. Nakshbendi has worked in business in 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the U.K., France, Switzerland and the U.S. He is the MENA region subject matter expert (SME).

He is active in U.S. and international organizations and has frequent international and domestic speaking engagements, including two speaking tours with the U.S. State Department.

Ghiyath is Fulbright scholar, Non-Resident Fellow at Sovereign Investment Lab, Baffi Center on International Markets, Money, and Regulation, Università Bocconi, Milan, Italy. He is an International Business & Investment Affairs Fellow at the National Council on US-Arab Relation, (NCUSAR). Washington, D.C.

He earned his Bachelor of Commercial Sciences (B.Com.) from the University of Aleppo, and his MBA from Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University and was awarded his PhD from American University’s School of Business (later, Kogod School of Business).