Laurel Powers-Freeling

Laurel Powers-Freeling, Chairman/Presidente – Laurel is currently the Group CEO of Dubai First International, a financial services investing across Emerging Markets on behalf of the sovereign of Dubai. A British citizen whose early career was with McKinsey & Company (management consultants), over the past twenty years Laurel has been a managing or executive director of several UK FTSE 100 companies, including the Prudential Corporation, Lloyds TSB plc, Marks & Spencer plc, and American Express Europe, as well as serving as a non-executive director of the Bank of England. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in New York City and a Master’s degree the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Laurel has a long-standing interest in music, especially those focusing on historic performance. In addition to Piccola Accademia di Montisi, Laurel is a Governor of the Royal Academy of Music and is on the Board of The English Concert, one of Britain’s leading historical performance ensembles, founded by Trevor Pinnock.