Thomas, Abdulkader S.

President & CEO, Shape Financial Corporation; Vienna, Virginia Abdulkader S. Thomas is President and CEO of Shape Financial Corp. Prior to this, he was a Principal of Strategic Guidance and a Director of The Samad Group, Inc., a leading Islamic banking and finance consultancy. Thomas has twenty years of diversified financial services experience, working in Bahrain, New York, London, and Los Angeles. His areas of activity have included trade finance, real estate finance, securities, and Islamic finance at Citibank, Credit Lyonnais, Sumitomo Bank, and The United Bank of Kuwait. He has been responsible for securing the first U.S. regulatory approvals of Islamic instruments (ijara wa iqtina/lease-to-own and murabaha/installment credit sale). Thomas secured the first FDIC approval for an Islamic profit sharing deposit and also for the first shari‘a -compliant REIT. Additionally, he coordinates www.ajif.org for The American Journal of Islamic Finance (AJIF). AJIF is a source of research about the application of Islamic banking and finance, particularly in regulated OECD markets. Thomas holds a B.A. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago and an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.