Shahar Zainuddin is a banker, corporate finance practitioner and advocate for systemic economic reform. His work examines the relationship between monetary and financial systems, the real economy and planetary boundaries. He is managing partner of Adamas Advisory, a strategy and corporate finance firm working across governance, impact finance and the transition to regenerative economic systems.
Zainuddin brings more than three decades of experience in investment banking, development finance and corporate restructuring, including serving as group CEO of Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad, Malaysia’s principal development finance institution.
His work increasingly questions the underlying architecture of finance: how money is created, how capital is allocated, what societies regard as value, and how financial and economic systems driven by debt and consumption are exceeding the ecological limits of the natural world.
A further strand of his work concerns East-West integration and the decolonisation of prevailing approaches to economics, development and knowledge. He is interested in how insights from Asian philosophical and intellectual traditions can complement Western thinking, creating a richer foundation for addressing systemic challenges.
