Business Advisory Board and Startup consultants in Dubai, UAE

We believe in leveraging relationships to ensure business success and we continuously invest in building lasting, mutual relations. We rely on our advisory board for a wide variety of support, mentorship and industry expertise. The advisory board consists of prominent individuals that have a successful track record and reputation as investors, entrepreneurs and experts locally, and in the region.

jamil brair

Up until May 2011, Mr. Brair was responsible for managing SHUAA Partners Fund I and Frontier Opportunities Fund I, two of SHUAA Partners’ private equity funds. Mr. Brair was engaged in all stages of the private equity investment cycle from acquisitions to divestures, including leading due diligence and directing the screening process for investment opportunities. Mr. Brair was also a member of the SHUAA Partners investment committee. Prior to joining SHUAA Partners in 2004, Mr. Brair was an Assistant Vice-President in the Private Equity Department of The National Investor, where he assisted in the structuring and establishment of an Islamic real estate fund and also lead the execution of its first investment. Prior to The National Investor, Mr. Brair began his career in audit at Arthur Andersen in 1995 in Montreal, Canada where he most recently was a Manager in the Corporate Finance department in charge of leading due diligence and business valuation mandates for private equity and M&A transactions. Mr. Brair holds a Graduate Diploma in Public Accounting and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University. He earned the designation of Chartered Business Valuator in addition to the Chartered Accountant title.

Jamil regularly lends his deal screening, deal structuring and investment management expertise to tandem.

dany farha

After graduating from UCL in 1992 with a BSc in Stats, Computing, Operations & Economics, Dany joined the capital markets training program at Lehman Brothers and went on to work in a variety of assignments in the Fixed Income Division. Three years later, Dany returned to his home town of Dubai where he helped found and run a series of successful companies – Intercat is one of the largest catering companies in the UAE serving over 59,000 meals/day, employing nearly 1,500 people and expanding throughout the GCC. Butlers has become the UAE’s largest commercial laundry, with a capacity of 100 tons/day and serving the top hotels in the country. Bayt.com is the Middle East’s largest jobsite, with over 5 million CV’s, 8,000 jobs posted, 9 regional offices and 30,000 customers throughout the region.

Dany frequently lends his business model, deal screening and operational expertise to tandem.

chadi f. hourani

Chadi F. Hourani is an attorney and principal with Hourani & Associates, a boutique law firm with offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Chadi represents a balance of large and well-reputed Saudi families, private equity houses, investment banks and global conglomerates in relation to their corporate, M&A, capital markets, securities and real estate activities. Prior to joining Hourani & Associates, Chadi practiced as a corporate and securities attorney with the international law firms of Dewey & LeBoeuf and Akin Gump. Chadi was also instrumental in establishing and seeding Marj Investments, an early stage family investment firm based in Dubai. Marj’s investments are primarily focused on the Middle East and particularly on innovative and unique ideas and start-ups. Chadi earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Masters in Law (LL.M.) in Securities and Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law School and is admitted to the New York State Bar.

Chadi regularly lends his legal and deal structuring expertise to tandem.

omar farha

Omar is the Founder and President of Kyudu (http://www.kyudu.com), an online business networking and collaboration platform. Prior to starting Kyudu, Omar spent 5 years in the consulting industry. He began his career at the Corporate Executive Board, a publicly listed consulting company based in Washington D.C., where he started off advising multinational corporations on I.T. Infrastructure-related issues, before moving onto Compensation and Human Resources. Omar then joined the Hanover Research Council, a start-up consulting firm that provides broad strategic guidance to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from all over the United States. Having spent 3 years at Hanover, Omar decided to try his luck with his own venture and launched Kyudu in 2008. He is currently pursuing an MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business in parallel with his work at Kyudu. Omar holds a BEng in Industrial Engineering and a BA in Economics from Northwestern University.