Simon Hardie
Turkey
Simon has more than a decade of experience working in financial services and emerging markets communications and intelligence for some of the world’s leading publishers including Euromoney and The Economist.
He started as a reporter and later director for global provider of emerging markets economic supplements which involved researching and interviewing leading industrialists and heads of state in countries as diverse as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria and Turkey.
He later joined Euromoney Institutional Investor in London where he was responsible for developing the company’s series of large-scale capital markets conferences for the Gulf and Middle East – a role that included the creation of the first capital markets and institutional investor summit for the government of Saudi Arabia.
Simon left Euromoney to join VRL Publishing, a boutique specialist information services provider for the leasing and asset finance industry where his remit was to re-launch the company’s portfolio of products prior to an investment round which saw the business acquire the Lafferty Group’s retail financial services conferences, publishing and research assets.
Simon joined the board of publicly quoted VRL Knowledge Bank where he was responsible for the company’s asset and professional services information and global financial services conferences businesses’ operating in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Simon is currently managing director of Eurasia Insights, a specialist research and communications house that he founded to serve the need for intelligence on the emerging consumer financial services industries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Based in London and Istanbul, the company’s unique reports have focused on current trends in electronic payments across the region; the growth and creation of payments and mobile financial services in Turkey and Poland, as well as the first dedicated report on the burgeoning wealth management industry in Ukraine.