McKinsey gets a big boost to its Middle East partner team
Global strategy consulting firm McKinsey & Company has over the past period added a group of new members to its Middle East partnership team. A round-up of the new partners.
Berk Ezici has been with McKinsey & Company in Dubai since 2014 after joining from a marketing management role at Vodafone in Turkey. Ezici focuses on large scale transformations, mergers & acquisitions, cost optimisation, digital transformation, and strategy and organisation, among other areas.
Emma Kandelaars joined McKinsey & Company in Dubai in 2014, prior to which she established and worked in microfinance in Uganda and Sudan. Kandelaars has worked across Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa while at McKinsey and is a keen natural world photographer.
Swati Tandon is an experienced consultant to the aviation and tourism sectors, guiding large scale transformations to drive growth and profitability. She has been with McKinsey for close to ten years, prior to which she worked as an investment professional and risk consultant in India.
Akul Dayal has been made a McKinsey partner after just over eight years at the firm, joining toward the end of 2014 after a number of trainee stints at organisations in the United States, India, South Africa and Japan. He holds an MBA from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Andreea Zugravu joined McKinsey at the end of last year after to close to a decade with fellow management consultancy Kearney, where as a partner she served in the firm’s Government & Economic Development Practice. She also spent a stint in Geneva on secondment to the World Economic Forum.
Suhail Rajpal makes partner after eight years at the firm, joining in 2014 on completion of his MBA with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Earlier on in his career, Rajpal spent three years between 2007 and 2010 at Big Four professional services firm Ernst & Young.
Pamela Merlino is a new recruit to the firm, joining as a partner after three years as a managing director with Accenture in Dubai. Prior to that, Merlino spent seven and a half years with Boston Consulting Group, originally joining the strategy firm in Milan before crossing to the UAE.
Ahmad Bakri is a consumer and retail expert, recently recruited to McKinsey’s partnership after serving for almost five years as a senior director of strategy at PepsiCo. Previously he spent six years at Booz & Company (now Strategy&), rising to principal, and cut his consulting teeth at Boston Consulting Group in Paris.
Mohammad Ayub is a leader in McKinsey’s global Energy & Materials practice, based out of Abu Dhabi. He joined the firm close to ten years ago after spending a period of time working in Germany, where he completed his business and economics masters with RWTH Aachen University.
Karim Aly is a consultant with more than 15 years of experience in consulting, having previously served Strategy&. Now a partner at McKinsey, he leads large-scale economic development programs across the region, with a focus on promoting economic growth, improving citizen well-being, and increasing private sector participation.