KPMG in Saudi Arabia promotes Ismail Alani to Head of Public Sector

The Saudi branch of KPMG has appointed Ismail Alani as the new Head of its Public Sector practice.

Promoted internally, Alani has been with KPMG Al Fozan & Partners for the most part of ten years, joining originally in 2007 before a three year stint as a business planning & operations officer with Microsoft from 2011 – rejoining the Big Four firm in 2014 as a Director, Management Consulting. Alani shifted to the firm’s Public Sector practice the following year, making Partner in 2016. He first started out as a consultant with Accenture in 2002.

Now Alani will be responsible for heading up the local public sector practice for KPMG at a time when the Saudi Arabian consulting market is tipped to return to double-digit growth, and as the Saudi government is reportedly moving to consolidate its various advisory channels per ministry into highly lucrative singular consulting contracts. As it stands, the public sector accounts for nearly a third of the consulting spend in the region.

Alani has been tasked with driving the firm’s public sector strategy as it supports several government agencies with their economic and social transformation endeavours under the Kingdom's bold and wide-ranging Vision 2030 agenda, with everything from digitisation and cybersecurity to privatisation and the development of new government entities.

“Our main driver for prioritising our efforts and investments stems from our belief in the criticality of achieving Vision 2030 and our national commitment as a firm to support its objectives at this critical stage,” Alani said. “We plan to do so by building a long-term partnership with the Public Sector, and adopting what suits the Kingdom in terms of successful international experiences.”Abdullah Al Fozan, Chairman of KPMG Middle East & South Asia, said of Alani’s promotion; “The appointment of Eng. Ismail will help enrich our partnerships with the Public Sector, which we look forward to sustain and develop through his relevant experience around the region. Eng. Ismail has over 16 years of experience in management consulting and transformation programmes. He has contributed to the establishment and support of many projects – from conceptualisation and development to implementation and roll-out."

Al Fozan further noted that Alani’s promotion was in line with the firm’s focus in the Middle East on developing local talent for leadership roles, part of a broader regional effort and set of initiatives toward ‘nationalisation’ – that is, promoting the employment of nationals, especially in the private sector, known locally as ‘Saudisation’. “At KPMG, we have set our sights on supporting qualified national talent to lead the key sectors in the firm,” Al Fozan stated.

As an example, KPMG in the neighbouring Kingdom of Bahrain recently celebrated its 99th local staff-member achieving professional auditing and accounting certification with the support of the firm’s Jassim Fakhro Fund, while KPMG in Qatar has partnered with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy – the agency responsible for overseeing the 2022 FIFA World Cup – to develop home-grown capacity in the local event sector through training and certification.

KPMG Al Fozan & Partners itself has over 1,200 audit, tax and advisory professionals based across Riyadh, Jeddah and Al-Khobar, bringing a mix of both local and international expertise. Alani says: “What distinguishes KPMG in Saudi Arabia is our team mix of talented professionals and experienced functional consultants in the Saudi market. The team also includes global experts in most of the priority sectors.”

Recently, the firm announced the establishment of a dedicated Research and Economic unit in the capital Riyadh to be led by KPMG’s Chief Economist in Saudi Arabia Hussein Abusaaq, aimed at providing investors with in-depth sector-specific research analysis on the local economic climate. The Riyadh team has also initiated plans to relocate to a new office in the city’s Business Front project, looking to support ongoing growth, which for KPMG in the wider region was booked at 12.7 percent last year.