KB Advisory
Strategic, financial and operational counsel for leaders at consequential transitions.
Global deal origination, focus Europe–GCC.
Who we work with
Financial Backers
Family offices, funds, lenders and sponsors seeking disciplined deal flow, governance oversight, and positioning ahead of capital deployment or exit.
Companies & Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs, operating groups and companies seeking capital, governance structure, or a structured path into new markets, including cross-border expansion into the Gulf.
Where we work
We are typically engaged when one or more of the following applies.
Positioning
Growth outpaces governance. Capital is mispriced. Performance erodes. Systems fail to support the next stage. Reputation falls behind ambition. In each case, enterprise value is at risk, whether the cause is expansion or strain. KBA works at the intersection of financial judgment, governance architecture, risk discipline and reputation: disciplines most advisory firms keep separate.
Ambition without structure is exposure. Structure without ambition is stagnation. KBA builds both.
Core practice areas
Five disciplines, combined as the situation requires.
01
Commercial Due Diligence
Companies and financial backers alike: a coherence review across product, margin, go-to-market and geography, from commercial logic through to financial consequence, ahead of any capital, governance or restructuring decision.
02
Governance, Board & Organizational Strategy
Companies: institutional structure, reporting visibility and decision-making systems for growth that has outpaced them. Financial backers: portfolio-level governance oversight, succession planning and reporting across multiple holdings.
03
Financial Engineering, Capital & Transactions
Companies: margin recovery, fundraising readiness, and a structured path into new markets, the Europe–GCC corridor as primary focus. Financial backers: disciplined deal sourcing, capital deployment readiness ahead of LP scrutiny, and access to that same corridor.
04
Risk, Control & Cross-Border Complexity
Restructuring and transformation support (operational, financial or organizational) and legal advisory for cross-border investment, wherever a venture or portfolio spans jurisdictions.
05
Reputation, Branding & Image
Companies: brand and communication matched to growth and ambition. Financial backers: positioning matched to standing with LPs, co-investors and the market. Advised on reputation at institutional and individual scale, where scrutiny leaves no margin for error.
How we work
Each engagement is senior-led and confidential. KBA operates through focused mandates, advisory retainers or transformation governance roles. No generic teams. Judgment, speed and discretion, where they matter.
About
Karima Benali
Managing Partner, KBA
Karima Benali is Managing Partner of KBA. Her career spans bank and insurance advisory at BDO, statutory audit and due diligence at PwC for private companies and family holdings, and cross-border integration and internal audit at Club Méditerranée during the Fosun acquisition, reporting directly to the Chairman and the audit committee, and preparing the group's post-merger Shanghai business unit.
She founded KBA in 2015. Her mandates cover Amundi and Generali, financial restructuring and vendor due diligence for the Villages Nature joint venture with Disney and Center Parcs, a board seat on the launch and strategy phase of Governance Consulting Group in New Delhi, family offices across France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the GCC, and reputation work at both ends of the spectrum: from institutional risk at Club Méditerranée to personal reputation for a three-time Olympic champion during the Paris Olympic Games 2024. Her work has taken her across four continents. She works in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.
She holds the DEC, a French national credential at doctoral level, with a thesis on governance best practices for public-interest organizations, held in legal deposit at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. She writes on artificial intelligence, monetary anthropology, the architecture of private and global markets, and organizational learning & management. Her interest in understanding human beings, from natural sciences, psychological, cognitive and behavioral sciences, to art and creation, runs through all of it. She shares Andy Warhol's belief that “good business is the best art.”
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