Restaurant & Hospitality
Strategic Advisory
For founders and leaders facing growth, change, and international expansion. Based in Dubai, working across the GCC and international markets.
Discuss your situationWhat We Do
Advisory at Critical Points of Change
We work with hospitality businesses when decisions matter most — at moments of market entry, performance reset, or accelerated growth. Based in Dubai, operating across the GCC and international markets, including those identified by the World Travel & Tourism Council as among the fastest-growing globally.
GCC Market Entry
International restaurant and F&B brands entering Dubai and the wider GCC for the first time, working through market selection, positioning, operating models and early-stage risk.
Performance Reset
Middle Eastern hospitality businesses seeking to improve performance, reset direction, or address operational challenges before they constrain growth.
Concept Development
Founders and investors developing new restaurant concepts, from early-stage feasibility through to positioning, commercial logic and launch readiness.
Growth & Replication
Businesses preparing for expansion — from building scalable structures and decision frameworks through to replication, franchising, governance and brand consistency.
Good ideas fail without the ability to deliver them. Strategy is developed with execution in mind, so that recommendations translate into measurable outcomes, not theoretical plans.
The GCC Opportunity
Saudi Arabia is building a hospitality sector almost from scratch under Vision 2030. Dubai continues to add capacity year on year. Qatar, Oman and Bahrain are each developing serious tourism strategies of their own. McKinsey’s 2024 research found that food-to-go sales across the Middle East grew at 19 per cent annually over the previous decade, with Saudi Arabia at 36 per cent — nearly four times the pace of traditional grocery. For UK and European restaurant brands, this region is increasingly hard to ignore, but entering it without local understanding is expensive. We help operators make sense of these markets before they commit capital, not after.
How We Add Value
Advisory Support Where Decisions Matter Most
We work closely with founders, CEOs, investors and leadership teams, acting as a strategic consulting partner across decision-making and execution.
Market Clarity
Making sense of complex or unfamiliar markets — particularly Dubai and GCC entry strategy for restaurant and hospitality brands.
Commercial Rigour
Stress-testing ideas before capital is committed, through feasibility studies, business planning and financial modelling.
Concept & Positioning
Translating brand ambition into executable operating models, from concept positioning through to guest experience strategy.
Performance Improvement
Identifying where performance is leaking — and how to fix it — through operational review and targeted intervention.
Where specialist input is needed, I bring in trusted expertise across commercial performance, revenue management, technology, and brand — keeping strategy and execution aligned.
Complicated Markets to Read
Licensing rules change. Consumer expectations differ from city to city. International brands arrive assuming what worked in London or New York will translate directly, and it rarely does. The GCC rewards operators who do their homework and punishes those who don’t. Most of our work starts at the point where a business has ambition and capital but needs someone who has actually operated in these markets to pressure-test the plan.
How It Works
From First Conversation to Clear Direction
Every engagement begins with understanding the situation clearly. There are no templated solutions — each piece of work is shaped around the specific decision at hand.
Initial Conversation
An exploratory discussion to understand your situation, objectives and the decisions you are facing. No obligation, no pitch.
Strategic Assessment
A structured review of the opportunity or challenge, resulting in a clear scope of work and advisory approach tailored to your context.
Advisory Delivery
Direct, senior-level engagement throughout — leading the work, coordinating specialist input where required, and delivering recommendations that can be acted on.
Built on Operating Experience
My perspective has been shaped by senior leadership roles within businesses including Hakkasan, Yauatcha, GAIA, Dean & Deluca, and Selfridges — operating across premium, luxury and experiential hospitality in the UK, US and Middle East.
Who Works With Us
Restaurant founders weighing their first opening outside the UK. Hotel groups assessing whether a new market justifies the investment. Multi-unit operators who know something isn’t working but can’t see it from the inside. Ownership groups who need someone independent in the room during a complex project. The common thread is a decision with real consequences and a preference for honest, senior-level input over a slide deck.
Ready to Talk?
For founders and leaders facing a strategic decision, an initial conversation is often the most effective place to start.
Discuss your situation