Blue Owl Capital Inc. has announced that Haitham Abdulkarim has been appointed to oversee the company's institutional business in the Middle East. In his new role, Abdulkarim's initial focus will be on scaling Blue Owl's Abu Dhabi and Dubai offices, the former which will serve as the company's office in the region. The move comes as part of the company's efforts to enhance and deepen its coverage of key regional family offices, pension, and sovereign wealth funds.

Abdulkarim was previously head of UAE at BlackRock, where he led client strategy and engagement. Before that, he was responsible for promoting BlackRock's private markets offering to investors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Before BlackRock, Abdulkarim was head of Investor Relations at Waha Capital in Abu Dhabi and previously led investor relations at Samena Capital.