Annual Arabian Business forum to feature trio of consultants

The Arabian Business SUCCESS 2020 forum is set to take place in the coming days, with local Alvarez & Marsal managing director Neil Hayward among a roster of high-profile speakers, appearing alongside Mo Farzadi of PwC and Duval Union’s Nick Vinckier.

To be held at the Waldorf Astoria Palm Jumeirah on October 28th – and moderated by BBC journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil – the Arabian Business SUCCESS 2020 forum will bring together a number of industry experts to tackle some of the most burning questions for regional business leaders, covering issues among others surrounding the current economic climate and emergent digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

Featuring among the speakers’ list are a pair of leading business restructuring experts, Alvarez & Marsal Middle East managing director Neil Hayward and his former PwC colleague Mo Farzadi, a partner with the firm who heads up PwC Middle East’s business restructuring services practice. Nick Vinckier, MENA managing director for boutique digital transformation and growth advisory Duval Union Consulting, will also appear on the bill.

Neil Hayward

Before joining noted turnaround advisory Alvarez & Marsal in 2017, Hayward spent more than a decade with PwC, which included business recovery leadership roles with the firm in London and New York. From 2011, Hayward helped to establish PwC’s restructuring team in the Middle East, spending a period on secondment to the Dubai government advising on Nakheel’s successful restructuring, and was made a partner at the firm the following year.

Mo Farzadi

Current PwC Middle East partner and business restructuring services head, Mo Farzadi, has been with the Big Four firm for more than 16 years, the last eight or so of those spent in the Emirates after transferring from the UK. Farzadi has extensive experience in financial reviews, debt refinancing/restructuring and deals-based advisory services, and was last year appointed one of the joint provisional liquidators following the collapse of Abraaj Holdings.

Nick Vinckier

On the generally cheerier side of the consulting coin, Nick Vinckier is the MENA managing partner of Belgium-origin management consultancy Duval Union Consulting, which specialising in growth and digital transformation strategy. A frequent public speaker with an entrepreneurial background (common among Duval’s consultants), Vinckier helped to establish the consultancy in the region at the beginning of last year following a hook-up with the Chalhoub Group.

Keynote speakers for the 16th annual Arabian Business forum include Martin Adams, one of the world’s foremost experts in artificial intelligence, and Badr Jafar, president of the Middle East’s largest privately-owned petroleum company Crescent Petroleum. Also among the guest speakers is Michael Burchell, the CEO of workplace research and certification consultancy Great Place to Work Middle East, who was previously with McKinsey in the US.