Dr. Soran Sadiq is a prominent financial, academic and entrepreneur who has been working for more than fifteen years to develop financial awareness and financial inclusion throughout the Kurdistan Region. Born in Sulaimani and educated in the UK, he has built a career that links complex academic knowledge and practical experience in finance, financial awareness and investment, giving him a rare insight into both the theoretical and practical aspects of financial development in Iraq. Dr. Sadiq is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at the American University of Iraq - Sulaimani, where he has been teaching since Early in his academic career, he taught at the University of Human Development and the Republic University of Science and Technology. He holds a Bachelor of Accounting and Finance, and a Master of Finance from the University of Portsmouth, UK, graduating in 2008. His PhD thesis researched how financial inclusion, financial awareness and microfinance can be used as tools to prevent poverty. He is also an Academic Member of the ACCA Affiliate. Alongside his academic work, Dr. Sadeq is an active entrepreneur. In 2019, he founded Microfinance to encourage regularized monthly deposits, which facilitated more than 400 loans to households and small businesses, and in 2024, he successfully sold the company. Based on this experience, in 2025 he founded Mastermind Business, an investment company that provides Sharia-compliant financial services for business, automotive and real estate, with financial advisory services and structured investment opportunities aimed at achieving high returns with minimal risk for small investors. Dr. Sadiq has also worked as a financial and business consultant for more than a decade, advising more than 500 companies of various sizes throughout the Kurdistan Region in the areas of financial management, investment and accounting. It regularly organizes workshops on financial awareness for NGOs and community groups throughout the region. As editor of Dialogname’s business and finance section, Dr. Sadiq’s main goal is to help spread financial awareness more widely, to arm readers with the information they need to better understand and manage their personal and business finances.