The journey from the sunlit streets of Muscat to the steel-and-glass canyons of Manhattan is not an obvious one. Yet for Riaz M Hakkim, that passage has unfolded with a quiet inevitability, shaped as much by curiosity and discipline as by geography.

Growing up in Oman’s capital, Riaz was part of a generation that learned early to look outward. Muscat, long a trading port and cultural crossroads, offered a vantage point that was both rooted and global. It is a sensibility he still carries with him today, now working at the centre of the world’s financial system in New York City.

Riaz recently joined Bank of New York as a Senior Director, a role that places him at the intersection of strategy, markets and clients. His work focuses on helping investment platforms grow and reach institutional and wealth management investors translating complex financial solutions into products and narratives that resonate in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

It is a continuation of a career built across some of the world’s most influential financial institutions. Before this, Riaz worked at BlackRock, contributing to initiatives that spanned investment management, platform strategy and data-driven marketing. His career has been defined less by a single specialisation than by an ability to move fluently across functions understanding how capital, technology and storytelling converge in modern finance.

That interdisciplinary approach was evident from the start. Riaz began his professional life in the United States at IBM, where exposure to large-scale systems and enterprise thinking laid the groundwork for his later move into asset and investment management. It was there that he developed an appreciation for how data, platforms and people shape decision-making at scale a theme that would recur throughout his career.

His academic path reflects a similar breadth. After completing his schooling at Indian School Al Ghubra in Muscat, Riaz went on to earn an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur, one of India’s most demanding academic environments. He later added an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where the emphasis on leadership, ethics and global markets helped sharpen his strategic lens.

Despite his professional life unfolding thousands of kilometres away, Oman remains a constant reference point. Riaz speaks often of how growing up in Muscat in a multicultural, outward-looking society shaped his worldview. The experience of navigating different cultures early on, he says, made global transitions feel less like ruptures and more like extensions.

That sense of continuity is also personal. He is the son of Dr. VMA Hakkim and Raziya Hakkim, founders of CARE24 Rehabilitation Center in Ghala, a venture rooted in service and community care. His sister, Dr. Benazir Ashiq, a healthcare professional based in the UAE, owns and operates a network of medical centres in Abu Dhabi — a parallel story of entrepreneurship and impact in another sector altogether.

In many ways, Riaz’s story is emblematic of a wider Omani diaspora: globally mobile, professionally ambitious, yet firmly anchored to home. His career in New York’s financial ecosystem is not a departure from Muscat, but an extension of it proof that formative years spent on the edges of the world’s major markets can, in time, lead straight to their centre.

And even amid the relentless pace of global finance, the imprint of Muscat endures a reminder that where you begin often shapes how far, and how thoughtfully, you go.