Head of Advisory

About the Role
The primary objective of this role is to establish the company as a trusted high-growth partner in the insurance sector across the region. This includes developing commercially relevant propositions, securing and expanding client relationships, and consistently delivering measurable outcomes for boards, executive teams, regulators, and investors.

Responsibilities

A. Business Strategy, P&L and Growth

• Define and execute the Advisory business strategy, annual business plan, and three-year growth roadmap in alignment with the Group’s priorities.
• Own the practice P&L, including revenue, gross margin, utilization, headcount, operating costs, working capital, and collections.
• Build a focused portfolio of repeatable, high-value offerings and determine areas for leadership, partnership, or external expertise.
• Translate market opportunities into a disciplined pipeline, account plans, and achievable sales and delivery forecasts.
• Prepare regular performance reports and recommendations for the Group CEO and Executive Committee.

B. Business Development and Client Origination

• Originate and convert new assignments through personal market credibility, executive relationships, referrals, partnerships, and targeted campaigns.
• Develop trusted relationships with board members, CEOs, C-suite executives, regulators, investors, and other senior stakeholders across the GCC.
• Lead client discovery, opportunity qualification, proposal development, commercial structuring, pricing, negotiation, and contracting.
• Grow key accounts through structured relationship plans, cross-selling, and identification of follow-on opportunities.
• Maintain clear pipeline discipline, including probability-weighted forecasting, next actions, ownership, and conversion analysis.

C. Client Leadership and Delivery Excellence

• Act as executive sponsor for strategic engagements and remain accountable for outcomes, quality, client confidence, and commercial performance.
• Convert complex client issues into clear hypotheses, work plans, governance arrangements, decision papers, and implementable recommendations.
• Establish rigorous engagement controls covering scope, milestones, budget, resourcing, risks, dependencies, change requests, and billing.
• Ensure that deliverables meet leading consulting standards and are practical, evidence-based, and tailored to the GCC insurance environment.
• Intervene early where engagements are at risk, resolve escalations professionally, and capture lessons learned.

D. Service Portfolio and Intellectual Capital

• Develop and lead offerings across areas such as insurance strategy and growth, operating-model performance transformation, claims improvement, regulatory advisory, governance and risk, digital transformation, M&A support, and feasibility planning.
• Create methodologies, diagnostic tools, proposal assets, case studies, and quality standards that improve differentiation and efficiency.
• Produce relevant thought leadership and represent the company at industry forums, webinars, and media opportunities.
• Maintain current knowledge of insurance market developments, regulatory changes, emerging technologies, and competitor activity across the region.

E. People, Capability and Culture

• Design the target organization and resource model for the practice, balancing senior leadership, core delivery capability, and specialist expertise.
• Recruit, coach, and retain a high-performing team with clear objectives, development plans, succession coverage, and performance accountability.
• Build scalable delivery capacity, including effective use of offshore resources when appropriate while protecting quality and client confidentiality.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-integrity culture that combines commercial ambition with professional judgment and accountability.
• Ensure appropriate utilization, workload management, knowledge sharing, and continuing professional development.

F. Governance, Risk and Group Collaboration

• Apply robust engagement acceptance, conflict, independence, confidentiality, data-protection, subcontractor, and quality-review controls.
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulatory requirements, Group policies, and contractual obligations in each market.
• Collaborate closely with other divisions to create integrated solutions without compromising advisory objectivity.
• Manage a reliable network of subject-matter experts, alliance partners, and subcontractors, with accountability for quality and economics.

Priority Advisory Domains

• Strategy & Growth: Corporate and business-unit strategy, market entry, distribution, product and portfolio strategy, customer value propositions.
• Transformation: Target operating models, process redesign, cost and performance improvement, change management support.
• Claims & Technical: Claims transformation, leakage and recovery, loss-ratio improvement, underwriting operations.
• Transactions: Commercial and operational due diligence, M&A support, post-merger integration, restructuring.
• Regulatory & Governance: Licensing, regulatory remediation, governance, compliance advisory.
• Digital & Analytics: Digital strategy, automation, data analytics, AI use cases, InsurTech partnerships.

Performance Expectations
Performance will be assessed through a balanced scorecard covering:

• Commercial Performance: Revenue, gross margin, collections, utilization.
• Market Development: Pipeline quality, proposal conversion, new accounts, account expansion.
• Client Impact: Client satisfaction, repeat business, measurable outcomes.
• Delivery Quality: Milestone performance, quality reviews, scope control.
• Business Building: Launched offerings, reusable intellectual capital, market visibility.
• People Leadership: Hiring, retention, capability development.

First 12-Month Priorities

• Complete a fact-based review of the existing Advisory portfolio, delivery model, and economics.
• Present and secure approval for a three-year practice plan, annual budget, and talent plan.
• Build a qualified opportunity pipeline and establish consistent account management practices.
• Strengthen governance and quality controls across active engagements.
• Successfully mobilize priority assignments that create referenceable outcomes.
• Recruit necessary leadership and delivery capabilities, including offshore support where appropriate.

Qualifications and Experience
Education

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline; a master’s degree or MBA is preferred.
• Relevant professional credentials (e.g., ACII, FCII, CPCU, CFA, CPA) are advantageous.

Professional Experience

• Typically 15+ years of relevant experience, including substantial advisory or consulting experience; at least five years in senior leadership roles.
• Experience at Director, Executive Director, or equivalent in a Big Four firm or recognized consultancy is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated depth in insurance sectors (general, life, health, takaful, reinsurance) with a broad understanding of the insurance value chain.
• Strong knowledge of GCC insurance markets and regulatory environments, with a credible regional network.
• Proven record of originating and managing advisory engagements successfully.
• Experience leading complex engagements from diagnosis through implementation.

Leadership Capabilities

• Entrepreneurial practice builder with strong commercial judgment.
• Credible executive presence with the ability to advise and influence senior management constructively.
• Excellent analytical, storytelling, and presentation skills.
• Hands-on leadership: comfortable in both originating work and reviewing deliverables.
• High standards of integrity and professional judgment.
• Collaborative and culturally aware; resilient and adaptable.

Additional Information

• Fluent business English is essential; Arabic is advantageous.
• Willingness to be based in Bahrain and travel regularly across the GCC is required.