Chady Zein re-joins Strategy& as a Senior Advisor

Eight years after leaving the strategy consulting firm, Chady Zein has re-joined Strategy& as a Senior Executive Advisor. 

Chady Zein joined Strategy& in 2006, after completing his MBA at INSEAD. He spent six years with the firm, then operating as Booz Allen Hamilton and later Booz & Company following the split of Booz Allen into a US public sector arm and international private sector arm. 

During his six-year tenure at the consulting firm, he worked on dozens of engagements on topics including strategy, corporate finance, operating model design and transformation for regional family businesses, family offices, private equity and venture capital firms, sovereign investment and development companies, as well as corporates in the banking, retail, real estate, oil & gas and infrastructure sectors.

Fast forward to October 2020, and “it’s great to be back with the family” said Zein in a post on LinkedIn, adding “I’m looking forward to marrying the foresight and analytical arsenal of consulting with the pragmatism and realities of entrepreneurship and active investments and the extended possibilities of digital.” 

A Senior Executive Advisor to the firm’s Private Equity and Sovereign Investment Funds practice in the Middle East, Zein will leverage his experience at the other side of the table as a leader (he most recently was managing partner of fintech TechnOrion), investor (he serves as an angel investor to several firms) and entrepreneur (he is cofounder of Swittle) to add depth to Strategy&’s offering.

Strategy&’s Private Equity and Sovereign Investment Funds advises private and public sector clients with developing investment strategies, portfolio structures, value creation, business cases for deals, and transaction execution. The unit is led by among others partners Joe Saddi, Ramy Sfeir and Marc-Albert Hamalian. 

Having broken the news on LinkedIn, a number of colleagues and relations have taken to the business networking platform to welcome Zein, including Strategy& Middle East partner James Thomas, who has been with the firm since 2007 and knows Zein from his first spell (“Welcome home Chady, good to have you back”) and Steffen Hoppe, a partner in the firm’s German wing (“Great to have you with the firm again”). 

Alongside his MBA, Chady holds a master’s degree in electrical and systems engineering from Cornell University, and a bachelor’s degree in computer and communication engineering from the American University of Beirut. 

Globally, Strategy& is led by the German Joachim Rotering, while George Sarraf stands at the helm of the Middle East business. 

Earlier this year, Strategy& Middle East welcomed back another alumni in the form of Dima Sayess, who leads the firm’s Ideation Centre think-tank.