Tony Diar Bakerli was born and raised in Damascus, Syria where his father was a pioneering television director and producer and his mother was an influential television writer and director. Tony Received a Bachelor of Mathematical Science and his Master’s Degree in Global Finance and Business Commerce from the University of Lebanon, Beirut.
Tony began his business career working for a privately held company in Europe where he was first stationed in the Far East region and later Africa. He served as a Finance Manager for an energy (oil & gas) brokerage company. His responsibilities included contract execution and delivery. Tony came to the United States in 1993 where he served in several different capacities working for Hyatt Corporation, Stefanie’s Group and Rezko Enterprise.
In 2002, he became General Manager for Sodexho Alliance. Sodexho’s mission was to create healthy and productive environments for businesses, government agencies, hospitals, schools, retirement communities and other venues. Tony managed a team of multiple industry professionals and was tasked with managing services and solutions for large college and university campuses. Tony prides himself on creating a nationwide echo throughout the entire service contract sector by designing and implementing an award-winning concept, Nucuisine, for Northwestern University.
Tony was promoted at Sodexho in 2005 to District Manager where his responsibilities expanded to lead sales, development, and operations of all cross products and services in the east coast market. His territory represented $85 million annually in revenue for Sodexho with a managed portfolio of asset-based contracts and services of $850 million.
Following Sodexho Tony joined Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, the nation’s leading residential lender, where he managed portfolio initiatives and developed strategies to optimize customer experiences for mortgage and home equity products. He further defined opportunities and developed business cases, success criteria, business requirements, and project scorecards. He later joined Wells Fargo Advisors where he helped client’s meettheir financial needs by developing investment plans based on their long-term goals and risk tolerance. His focus was to design balanced portfolios which addressed client’s specific financial goals.
Tony became Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of T2 Global Advisors in October of 2017. His concentration is to provide a multitude of suitable and sophisticated financial solutions for businesses, business owners, and family wealth. During Tony’s career, he has accumulated centers of influence which have become the focal point of T2 Global Advisors.
Tony has lived in the Chicago area for the past 27 years, where his passion for sailing and sailboat racing throughout his life has allowed him to participate in many privileged and unique sailboat racing events such as Chicago to Mackinac (the world’s largest freshwater race). Tony has had the opportunity to participate in this event for 16 consecutive years. Tony is also very passionate for fitness and training, which has allowed him to participate and compete in multiple Triathlon & Ironman events each year. Also, Tony’s passion to mountaineering throughout his life has given him the privilege to step afoot on Mount Everest in 2018 and had reached 24,000 feet. Lastly, Tony is committed to community development and supporting local Chicago charities.