Afsaneh was a commercial/corporate banker for 25 years, the majority of which were spent managing SME, Multinational and Corporate business units at local and international (mostly Citibank N.A.) banks in U.A.E. and Europe. She then spent a few years consulting for corporates as well as financial institutions, while working on her LLM in Financial Crimes and Money Laundering.
Upon completion of her law degree, Afsaneh joined IFC (the private sector arm of the World Bank) as part of their Upstream initiatives in Emerging Markets, mainly focused on Financial Inclusion, SME & Trade Finance projects. As her contract with IFC ended in early 2024, she started several volunteering initiatives: as Local Lead in Dubai for Mentor Walks, a global organization offering women mentees a career conversation with an exceptional female leader/mentor. Also, she is the Ambassador for a Social Enterprise called Talleh Cultural Center, based in Jerusalem, dedicated to preserving cultural heritage and empowering women. Another very satisfying volunteering assignment is with Smart Life Foundation, where she remotely teaches Spoken English to young teenagers from underprivileged families based in India. While her educational background is in Finance, she studied and speaks several languages, including Arabic.