Musa Abdul-Basser

Musa has dedicated his career to serving clients as a compliance professional, capital markets attorney, Islamic finance practitioner and executive manager. He has deep experience in the compliance/risk and legal fields, with overall oversight of functions as a chief compliance officer and chief legal officer. He has spearheaded sophisticated private and public securities offerings in the EU, U.K. and U.S. and has more than a decade of experience with structuring, advising and executing innovative Islamic finance transactions and products.

Immediately prior to joining Calfee in 2025, Musa served as Chief Legal Officer and Global General Counsel at Wahed Inc. and as Chief Legal & Compliance Officer at Wahed Invest LLC (New York, New York), a multinational FinTech company that creates innovative, web-based and digital applications technology for affordable investments focused on ethical investing. As Global General Counsel, Musa helped expand regulated subsidiaries into multinational markets, including the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan. He negotiated, drafted and advised on complex joint venture, acquisition and business transactions and managed the global legal and compliance teams. He also advised on all capital markets, regulatory and private equity efforts and had responsibility for corporate governance and advised on strategy and legal risk mitigation.

Musa also previously served as Senior Vice President, Legal Operations with the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation in Malaysia; Vice President, Legal Affairs & Shariah Compliance, The Datestone Group LLC in New York; Senior Associate, International Corporate Department with Curtis Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP in New York; Associate, Corporate Finance Department with Chadbourne & Parke LLP in New York; and as an Associate, Structured Finance Department with Thacher Proffitt & Wood LLP in New York.

Education

J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2002

Certificate in Islamic Finance – International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF), 2016

B.A., Government (International Relations), Wesleyan University, 1999

Experience

Musa's experience includes the following representative transactions completed during his tenure at former firms:

• Legal team responsible for developing and offering world’s first highly rated liquidity instrument for Islamic banks
• Legal team leader and officer for first Islamic finance U.S. ETF list on the NASDAQ