The Technology, Media, and Telecom (TMT) practice of Middle East consultancy Strategy& has been given a leadership boost for the new year with two additional partners; Karim Sarkis, who joined the firm at the beginning of 2018 (after an earlier career stint at Strategy& predecessor Booz & Company), and Lancelot Sursock, who returns to Strategy& after spending over a decade with Booz to 2015.
Karim Sarkis
Sarkis heads up Strategy&’s Media and Entertainment business in the Middle East, with expertise in culture, entertainment, and media sector strategy. A software engineering masters holder from Imperial College London, he boasts over 25 years of consulting and media industry experience, originally joining Andersen Consulting in 1992 for three years before spending a further four at Arthur D. Little.
From there, Sarkis served as a senior associate in the GCC and UK for Booz & Company, with a focus on strategic consulting in the telecom sector, before going on to join the Lebanese Broadcasting Association as Deputy Head of Channels and later as the Executive Director – Broadcast Group for Abu Dhabi Media. In 2012, Sarkis co-founded Sync Media, and joined Strategy& as a senior executive advisor at the start of 2018.
Among noted recent assignments for Strategy&, Sarkis is credited with assisting a GCC ministry of culture in various projects including film infrastructure strategy and public library strategy; participating in defining the media sector strategy for Saudi Arabia in respect to Vision 2030 objectives; and determining content types, packages, and pricing for an OTT offering across KSA, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
Lancelot Sursock
Sursock meanwhile brings over 15 years of regional TMT-focused consulting experience to the table at Strategy& – almost eleven and a half of those spent at Booz & Company/Strategy& to 2015 before his recent return. In between, Sursock spent just over three and a half years at strategy competitor A.T. Kearney, while prior to Booz & Co he kicked off his career as a financial analyst at Banque de France.
Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics from American University of Beirut, Sursock has since added a master’s in finance from ESSEC and an INSEAD MBA, and will at Strategy& focus on “the CFO agenda powered by digital and the steering of profitability and returns” – two areas of expertise. During his career, Sursock has led a number of wide-scale engagements, including multi-billion cost transformations.