Wael Khoury
Most transformation programmes produce a report, then stall. Leadership, organisational design, governance, and execution get treated as separate projects, so change never sticks. The workforce absorbs the disruption and keeps its old habits.
Wael Khoury helps boards and HR leaders make organisational change stick, drawing on Big Four consulting at EY and Deloitte, then in-house HR leadership across the GCC.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Wael Khoury
- He has sat on both sides of transformation: advising as an EY and Deloitte consultant, then running HR inside Ooredoo and Al Mana. He can tell a leadership team where execution will break down, because he has owned the outcome.
- His delivery is built to outlast the engagement. At Dukhan Bank he built performance-management capability across more than 500 leaders. At Aspire Katara Hospitality his leadership programme reached more than 80 managers and drew 96% participant satisfaction.
- He convenes the room he speaks to. As founder of the GCC HR & Leadership Center, he stays connected to more than 1,000 senior HR and business leaders across the Gulf, so his examples come from the market his audience is operating in.
- He reads the GCC as an operating environment. Nationalisation policy and workforce capability sit inside his practice, and he has delivered transformation work across government, financial services, telecommunications, and hospitality.
Biography highlights
- Founder and Managing Director of Lopez Khoury & Associates, a Qatar Financial Centre-licensed human capital advisory firm founded in 2024.
- Former Big Four consultant with EY and Deloitte, and a contributor to the Deloitte Human Capital Trends report for the Middle East.
- Former in-house HR leader at Ooredoo and Al Mana, with work spanning the Middle East, Europe, and North America.
- Founder of the GCC HR & Leadership Center, a peer network of more than 1,000 senior HR and business leaders across the Gulf.
- Qatar Chapter Lead for Hacking HR and Doha Lead Ambassador for Transform.
- Advisor, speaker, and silver sponsor of HR Forum Qatar, where he chaired sessions at the 2024 edition and has delivered keynote and panel contributions.
- Delivers in English and Arabic across the GCC and internationally.
Biography
The strategy is usually sound. Transformation programmes stall in execution, because leadership and organisational structure never move in step. Wael Khoury built his practice around closing that gap.
He has watched this fail from the adviser’s chair and from inside the business. At EY and Deloitte he advised organisations across the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Then, running HR inside Ooredoo and Al Mana, he owned the outcomes he had once recommended. That dual vantage shapes how he talks to senior teams. He starts at the point where execution stalls.
In 2024 he founded Lopez Khoury & Associates, a Qatar Financial Centre-licensed firm working in HR strategy, organisational design, and leadership development. Its stated measure of success is what capability remains after the advisers leave. At Dukhan Bank the work was performance management, embedded across more than 500 leaders. At Aspire Katara Hospitality it was a leadership programme for more than 80 managers.
His reach now extends past client work. He founded the GCC HR & Leadership Center, a Gulf network of more than 1,000 senior HR and business leaders, and he leads Hacking HR’s Qatar chapter and Transform’s Doha chapter. Those roles keep him current on what Gulf organisations are preparing for: AI adoption, nationalisation, and workforce capability.
Key speaking topics
- Human capital transformation
- Organisational design and governance
- Change management and execution
- Leadership capability building
- HR’s role in business strategy
- AI and the future of work in HR
- High-performing cultures
- Workforce planning and nationalisation in the GCC
Ideal for
- CHROs and HR directors turning a support function into a driver of business strategy
- CEOs and boards midway through a restructure or operating-model change
- Government entities and family businesses in the GCC modernising HR and governance
- Gulf leadership and HR conferences needing a senior chair or keynote on transformation
Audience outcomes
- A clear account of why transformation efforts stall, and where their own is most exposed
- The difference between issuing recommendations and building capability that outlives the project
- A regional frame for change, grounded in GCC governance norms and nationalisation policy
- Language to align a leadership team around governance, decision rights, and execution before restructuring begins