Advisory firm · Middle East

From Strategy to Impact.
In the age of AI.

Mosanya Advisory helps boards, CEOs and leadership teams in the Middle East transform their organisations in the age of AI.We assess the disruptions, shape the ambition, define the strategy and the operating model, and ensure the change holds through managed adoption.Strategy, execution and adoption in one integrated approach.

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Ugo Mosanya
Ugo Mosanya

Managing Partner

01Challenge.A generation-defining disruption, met with the usual reflexes: AI treated as a technology project, strategies barely retouched, disconnected pilots. 02Approach.Three components, framing, execution and adoption, applied across three practices: strategy & transformation, business development, venture building. 03Engagements.From a half-day board briefing to a multi-quarter transformation role, always anchored at executive level.
Challenge

A generation-defining disruption, met with the usual reflexes.

Organisations are dealing with many changes at once: shifting markets, new competitors, fast-moving technology, and rising expectations from owners, regulators and governments. Among these changes, AI stands apart. It is a genuine game-changer and a generation-defining disruption, one that alters what a business can offer, how it operates, what it costs to run, and what its people need to be capable of.

As with every major disruption, organisations are attempting to adjust their ambition, strategy and operations in response. The difficulty is that this is often done superficially.

The risk is to treat AI as a technology project, without taking the measure of how deep the transformation needs to be. In practice, the symptoms are a strategy barely retouched, and many disconnected pilots that produce neither real learning nor impact. Adoption, which decides whether anything holds, is left to training and communication at the end.

The result is familiar: much activity around AI, and little that changes the trajectory of the business.

Approach

Methodology.

Our engagements cover three key interrelated components, which overlap more than they follow one another. A transformation programme revisits its framing as execution shows what is feasible; adoption management is considered from the first day rather than once the build is complete; a new venture cycles through all three several times before it settles. An engagement can cover the whole arc or concentrate on one component, depending on where the organisation stands.

01 · Frame
Strategic Framing
Set the ambition and the direction, grounded in what AI changes for the business.
02 · Execute
Disciplined Execution
Translate the strategy into the operating model, capabilities and technology, and deliver them.
03 · Adopt
Managed Adoption
Bring people and teams along so that the change takes hold and lasts.

Practices.

Mosanya Advisory is organised around three practices. Each covers the transformative work that creates an organisation's future value and shapes the business it will be running for the next five years. Each has become more demanding, and more valuable, in the age of AI.

Strategy and Transformation practice
01

Strategy & Transformation

Setting the ambition and the direction, choosing where to compete and how, and translating that choice into the operating model, capabilities and investments required, then leading the transformation to lasting adoption. AI raises the stakes, since strategies become outdated faster and the transformations that AI requires reach further into the organisation, into its processes, its skills and its decision-making.

Typical engagements: AI strategy formulation, strategic planning and cascading, transformation programme design, operating-model redesign, capability build-out, change management and adoption, programme governance, and execution support.

Business Development practice
02

Business Development

Growing the business beyond its current configuration, through new business models, value propositions, markets, segments, channels, partnerships and alliances. With AI, one organisation is not the only one changing: the whole value chain is changing at the same time, customers, partners, channels, competitors and regulators included. The value chain has to be reshaped deliberately rather than adjusted piece by piece.

Typical engagements: business modelling, value-proposition design, market-entry and go-to-market design, channel strategy, enterprise and government partnerships, alliance and joint-venture structuring, and commercial due diligence.

Venture Building practice
03

Venture Building

Taking a new business from idea to success through a disciplined approach: customer discovery, problem and solution validation, minimum viable product (MVP), search for repeatable and scalable business models, organisation build-out and scaling. The venture may be founder-led, corporate-backed, a spin-out or a joint venture, and is particularly challenging when launched within an established business. AI has lowered the cost of building and raised the cost of waiting.

Typical engagements: business modelling, venture design, incubation and launch, fundraising and investor readiness, founding-team and critical-talent search, value creation for portfolio companies, and R&D-to-commercial bridges.

Engagements

From pre-defined to fully bespoke.

Engagements range from a half-day briefing to a multi-quarter transformation mandate, with multinationals, family-owned groups, governments and sovereign-owned enterprises across the Middle East. Always anchored at executive level (board, C-suite, steering committee) and designed to cascade down through the operating layers that make AI land.

Executive AI Briefing
A session for the board or C-suite, customised to your sector and AI maturity.
Half day to 3 days
AI Opportunity Scan
A structured review of where AI can create value across your business, from what you offer to how you operate, with the priorities to pursue first.
2 to 8 weeks
AI Strategy Sprint
Formulating or sharpening the AI strategy alongside an internal team, with sequencing and resourcing.
2 to 12 weeks
AI Adoption Roadmap
Converting AI strategy into a sequenced deployment plan with named owners, milestones, and success metrics.
4 to 16 weeks
AI Strategy & Transformation
Advisory alongside the programme leadership of a broader AI-driven transformation, with a seat on its steering committee.
3 to 12 months
Partnership & Alliance Building
Identifying, structuring and launching partnerships, alliances and joint ventures with enterprises, governments and technology players.
3 to 9 months
Venture Building Programme
Designing, incubating and launching a new venture, whether corporate-backed, a spin-out or a joint venture, through to investor readiness.
3 to 12 months
Board and Steering Committee Advisory
Ongoing role on the relevant governance body, with a regular cadence and on-call availability.
12 months and beyond

Sustained engagements can be delivered in an advisor, fractional executive or interim executive role.

Before any format is proposed, we take the time to understand your situation: the real needs behind the request, the challenges as your organisation experiences them, and what a good outcome would look like. The right entry point follows from that conversation, not the other way round.

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Team
Ugo Mosanya
Ugo Mosanya
Managing Partner

Electrical engineer and computer scientist by training, specialised in AI and computer vision, and co-founder of a venture-backed AI startup in San Francisco and Belgium. Then consultant at McKinsey & Company in the Strategy & Corporate Finance practice: M&A, large-scale transformation programmes and operational excellence for multinationals, family-owned conglomerates and public-sector organisations across Europe, MENA and Asia.

Fifteen years in C-suite roles at LG Electronics and Royal Philips across the Middle East and Africa: regional strategy, business-model and go-to-market reinvention, new business building, and advisory work on national AI programmes. Today Managing Partner of Mosanya Advisory and Founder & Managing Partner of Nexan Ventures, and adviser to boards and leadership teams on strategy, transformation and adoption in the age of AI. Based in Dubai.

Full biography at ugo-mosanya.com →
Network of Advisors

Around the core practice stands a curated network of senior advisers, operators and specialists across a wide range of sectors, functions and geographies. They bring their expertise into an engagement whenever it is needed.

Functions
  • Strategy
  • Finance
  • IT & Digital
  • AI & Data
  • HR & Talent
  • Supply Chain & Operations
  • Marketing & Sales
  • Legal & Compliance
Industries
  • Healthcare
  • Financial Services
  • Logistics
  • Energy & Industrials
  • Technology
  • Retail & Consumer
  • Public Sector
  • Family Groups
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