Dina Powell McCormick receives ABANA award for MENA work

Investment banker Dina Powell McCormick received the annual ABANA Achievement Award on Thursday night, recognizing her work in fostering cooperation between financial professionals in the U.S. and in the Middle East and North Africa.

McCormick, a former White House advisor to President Donald Trump who is Vice Chairman, President and Head of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, was presented with the award at a dinner reception at the Waldorf Astoria in New York by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund.

Before joining BDT & MSD, McCormick, 52, was Deputy National Security Advisor during Trump’s first term and Deputy Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy in George W. Bush’s administration.Besides her government service, McCormick worked as a banker at Goldman Sachs, eventually becoming a partner and member of the management committee. She was born in Cairo and is married to U.S. Senator Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican.

The award dinner, which was held at the Waldorf Astoria, was co-chaired by an array of top Wall Street figures, including BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Jane Fraser of Citi, Nir Bar Dea of Bridgewater Associates, Harvey Schwartz of the Carlyle Group, Jenny Johnson of Franklin Templeton, Byron Trott and Gregg Lemkau of BDT & MSD Partners, Gary Cohn of Apollo Global Management, and Chuck Davis of Stone Point Capital.

ABANA, initially named the Arab Bankers Association of North America, is a networking organization for leaders of the financial services industry who work in fields such as private banking, asset management, real estate, private equity and venture capital.

Among recent winners of the ABANA Achievement Award are Mubarak, who received it last year, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund; Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone; Farouk Bastaki, Managing Director of the Kuwait Investment Authority; and David Rubenstein, Chairman of Carlyle Group.