Michel Shamil Orloff

CEO 

Orloff was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He holds a Master’s Degree in economics from St-Gall School of Economics, Law, Business & Public Administration in Switzerland. He speaks fluent French, German, English and Russian, and has a basic knowledge of Italian and Spanish.

A Swiss banker by trade, orignally with Credit Suisse, he then went on to work in private equity in 1990.  He joined INVESCO as an executive director and was in charge of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He then joined Caryle, working directly under David Rubenstein.  He was involved in private equity transactions buying companies, turning them around and selling them through either trade sales or IPOs.

In 2005, he created Black Earth Farming Limited, a company, which acquired 330’000 hectares of agricultural land in the central black earth provinces of Russia and put them back into production after being fallow for years after the breakdown of the USSR. In December 2007, he successfully listed the company on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and exited his position a year later.

Orloff specialises in investments in the Middle East and has a particular interest in food security, private credit, real estate, UAE strategic development, and vaccine security.  He is an expert in geopolitical risk. He advises companies in M&A, risk mitigation and strategic analysis with a special edge in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Email: orloff@sandrockcapital.com