Standard Chartered Bank has appointed Sheikha Hanadi Nasser Bin Khaled Al Thani as special advisor to the bank and a member of the bank’s Gulf Advisory Council, based in Doha.

Sheikha Hanadi is the founder and chairperson of Amwal, chief executive of AL Waab City Real Estate development project and deputy CEO of Nasser Bin Khaled AL Thani & Sons Group. She founded Qatar Ladies Investment Company (the now re-branded Amwal), said to be the first investment company to receive a licence from the Qatar Central Bank to conduct wealth management, asset management and investment banking in the country.

In her role on the GAC, Sheikha Hanadi will support V Shankar, CEO of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Americas, and Christos Papadopoulos, regional CEO, Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

The GAC is a strategic advisory forum on the business, economic and political environment in the Middle East.

In other recent news, Standard Chartered said it will add 2,000 staff globally by the end of this year and will open ten offices in China by the end of 2011, taking its total there to over 80. Meanwhile, wealth management income rose to $657 million in the six months to 30 June this year from $535 million a year ago. The wealth management section of StanChart comes under its consumer banking division, which made in total an operating income of $3.3 billion in the half-year period, up from $2 billion.