BrazilBCG appoints four to managing director & partner in MENA team
Boston Consulting Group’s latest round of global promotions has seen four MENA-based members added to the firm’s regional managing director & partner rank.
The Middle East and North African offices of strategy giant Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have kicked off the year with the promotion of four leaders to its top managing director and partner level – Gianluca Barca, Antoine Samaha and Mohamed Mahmoudi in the United Arab Emirates, and Seddik El Fihri in the firm’s Casablanca outlet in Morocco.
The quartet were among nearly five dozen such promotions across the firm’s EMESA (Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa) region.
“It’s a pleasure to announce our new managing directors & partners in the EMESA,” stated regional head Matthias Tauber, who was appointed to the role late last ahead of Pablo Martinez becoming Middle East head in June. “I’m very proud of this diverse, strong, and passionate team. They’ve done a tremendous job in the past years and I am looking forward to all the upcoming, exciting projects with them.”
Gianluca Barca has been with BCG for a total of seven years across two stints, first joining in Milan in 2013 after a decade with Ariston before crossing to the firm’s Dubai office three years later. He then spent a year and a half away as the head of corporate development for construction firm Hilti out of Liechtenstein, before rejoining BCG in the Middle East where he primarily focuses on public sector clients in Saudi Arabia.
One of the founding members of BCG’s Principal Investors & Private Equity (PIPE) practice in the Middle East, Antoine Samaha first joined the firm in 2012 following a software engineering stint with IBM in Toronto. After a twelve-month period away from the firm, during which time he worked in investment banking with Merrill Lynch in London, Samaha returned to BCG in 2015, before making partner mid last year.
A fellow member of BCG’s PIPE practice based out of Morocco, El Fihri heads up the firm’s Transaction Center for Africa, where he supports investors and companies with their strategic partnership and M&A agendas. He has been with BCG for more than a decade, before which he served as a strategy and development director for the Kuwait Investment Authority. He kicked off his career with PwC in Paris.
Mohamed Mahmoudi has been with BCG for over a decade, originally joining the strategy firm in 2012 and spending time between Casablanca and Paris before settling in the Dubai office from 2014. He had previously cut his teeth in a variety of roles in Paris, including as an assistant exotic trader with Societe Generale’s corporate and investment banking wing and as an R&D engineer with environmental services firm CertiNergy.
Doha Office
Meanwhile, aside from individual senior promotions, the entire Middle East branch of BCG ended last year on a high with the launch of a fresh new office space in Doha, located adjacent to the capital's mixed-use development The Pearl-Qatar with panoramic views to the sea.
Boston Consulting Group first established its presence in Qatar in 2017, but has been rapidly growing with an expected doubling of its headcount over 2022.
