BrazilMcKinsey contingent to speak at next month's GITEX in Dubai
A contingent of McKinsey experts will be among the guest speakers at this year’s eagerly anticipated GITEX event in Dubai.
Running from the 6th to 10th of October at the Dubai World Trade Centre, this year’s 39th GITEX Technology Week will see tens of thousands of enthusiastic attendees gather in the Emirate for exhibitions, demonstrations, panel sessions and keynotes from some the world’s leading business and technology experts – among them, McKinsey & Company quartet Martin Wrulich, Mahir Nayfeh, Dirk Schmautzer and Abdellah Iftahy.
Elevated to the firm’s partnership ranks at the end of last year, the latter – Abdellah Iftahy – has been with McKinsey since 2013 (via Corporate Value Associates in France), and serves as the management consultancy’s Consumer & Retail practice lead in the Middle East – advising sector clients on strategic, commercial, operational, and organisational issues with particular expertise in leveraging digital and advanced analytics for tech-enabled transformations.
Dirk Schmautzer, meanwhile – also a partner in McKinsey’s Dubai office – has been with the firm for over sixteen years, and leads McKinsey’s local Education Practice along with co-heading its Global Economic Development Practice. A PhD in finance and economics, Schmautzer was previously a fellow of in-house think-tank the McKinsey Global Institute, where he led major research on economic development and government reform.
Joining Iftahy and Schmautzer from McKinsey’s Middle East partnership team is ICT consulting veteran Mahir Nayfeh, a former Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President who crossed to McKinsey in 2017. A PhD in electrical engineering, Nayfeh has more than two decades of IT and telecommunications leadership experience under his belt, with cyber security, data analytics, large IT infrastructure, and enterprise applications among his areas of expertise.
A partner in McKinsey’s Vienna office – and like Nayfeh, a doctorate in electric engineering – Martin Wrulich will also appear at this year’s GITEX in the panel debate; ‘Are we at risk of the next cyber-Pearl-Harbor?’ Wrulich has been with McKinsey for close to the past decade, and within the firm’s TMT practice serves as the global leader and co-leader respectively for ‘Next Generation Technology Strategy’ and ‘Radical Operating Model Restructuring’.
Elsewhere from the consulting realm, PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Lead Anand Rao will also be at GITEX, alongside Accenture Digital CEO Mike Sutcliffe, a three-decade veteran of the firm who was instrumental in the launch of its digital wing in 2013 – in what is now an $18 billion business with 65,000-plus employees worldwide. Meanwhile, Accenture will again this year provide support as the event’s Exclusive Digital Transformation Partner.
“This event is an important occasion for leaders and industry specialists to gather crucial information about the upcoming trends and keep up with digital movements that are happening both locally and globally,” Accenture Middle East regional managing director Alexis Lecanuet said on extending the firm’s partnership last year. “Being the digital transformation partner, we are proud to share this opportunity with both GITEX and the Dubai World Trade Center.”
