If you’re building wealth, don’t just focus on making money. –Hasnae Taleb
At the beginning of my career, the first time I got paid, I went straight to the bank, opened a personal account in my name and deposited everything. I thought I was doing everything right.
I told my mentor, someone from one of the most established families in the U.S., and he looked at me and said something I’ll never forget:
“You’ve just made yourself a target.”
I didn’t understand it at the time. But the way he explained it completely changed how I saw money ever since.
The moment your money sits entirely in your personal name, with no structure around it, it’s fully exposed. Visible. Reachable. If anything goes wrong; business, legal, or personal, that money becomes the easiest thing to access, freeze or claim. And that’s the part nobody teaches you.
Over the years, being around high-net-worth families, I realized they don’t just focus on making money. They focus on how money is held. They rarely keep everything in their personal name. They build layers around it; structures, entities and trusts. Not to hide money but to protect it, organize it and control it properly.
Moral of the story: If you’re building wealth, don’t just focus on making money. Start thinking about how it’s structured. Because the difference between people who make money and people who keep it… is protection.
About
Hasnae Taleb is a capital strategist, investor, and financial executive operating at the intersection of public markets, private capital, and cross-border investment strategy between the U.S. and the Middle East. Her work focuses on how institutional power, capital, and influence are built, scaled, and sustained across global markets. She began her career in the U.S. with Morgan Stanley, specializing in equity research and trading strategy, before joining Nasdaq, where she built expertise in market microstructure, liquidity, and institutional and algorithmic capital. This early exposure shaped her long-term perspective on how capital moves beneath headlines, and why credibility, clarity, and control consistently outweigh visibility. Hasnae later served as Chief Investment Officer at Ento Capital, a DFSA-regulated asset management firm based in the Dubai International Financial Centre. In that role, she was responsible for the firm’s investment strategy and was part of a leadership team with a track record exceeding US$4.2 billion in AUM across multi-asset portfolios and cross-border institutional mandates. She is currently the Managing Partner of Mintiply Capital, a boutique investment banking and corporate finance advisory firm headquartered in Dubai, UAE. At Mintiply Capital, she advises founders, boards, and institutional stakeholders on M&A, private capital advisory, capital structuring, regulatory strategy, and exit planning. Under her leadership, the firm is positioned as a strategic capital partner to sophisticated investors and operators navigating moments where financial, regulatory, and reputational decisions materially shape long-term outcomes across EMEA, the Americas, and select global markets. In parallel, she serves as the GCC Partner for Fuel Venture Capital, focusing on regional strategy, cross-border capital alignment, and portfolio support and sits on the investment committee of the Mintiply Capital-Fuel SPV, a US$45 million vehicle dedicated to deploying capital across the GCC. Across public and private markets, Hasnae is widely recognized for her perspectives on macro strategy, institutional capital flows, and the evolving financial relationship between the U.S. and the MENA region. Her background combines Wall Street trading discipline with executive leadership in the GCC, offering a multidimensional view on risk, power, and global market transformation. In 2025, she rang the opening bell at the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange as part of an initiative recognizing women shaping the future of global capital markets.
M.Z.I. Dalton Zahir | TravellerTimes Desk
