Operational and financial intelligence
for institutional-scale MENA operations.
44 years in oil and gas. 38 internationally. Direct operational and financial accountability across sovereign energy assets, national drilling programmes, and cross-border logistics — from ADNOC and ADWOC to conflict-zone continuity in Iraq and Libya. This is not consulting at arm’s length. I have been inside the operations.
Speak with Michael Cooper →The organisations and mandates that built this track record.
This is not a list of engagements with mid-market clients. The mandates below represent direct operational and financial accountability inside the MENA region’s most complex institutional environments — sovereign energy companies, pan-Arab drilling programmes, national ministry contracts, and operations that continued through active conflict when most international operators had left.
Senior Operations Manager, Pan-Arab Drilling & Workover Company
ADWOC is the only Pan-Arab drilling and workover company in the MENA region, collectively owned by all OAPEC member nations. I led negotiation of drilling and service contracts — pricing, equipment scope, safety standards, commercial terms — across Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE. Ten sovereign member states. Every contract was a direct engagement with national ministries and state energy companies.
Operational and Financial Accountability During Active Conflict
I directed the management and movement of multi-million-dollar asset portfolios during active conflicts in Iraq and Libya. Full operational and financial accountability — on the ground, not from a regional office. At the point where most international firms had evacuated, I was inside the operation making decisions about continuity, asset protection, and what the numbers actually meant under those conditions. That experience is not replicable in a classroom.
Drilling Operations, Melville Island & Cameron Island
Before the MENA engagements, I managed drilling operations on Melville and Cameron Islands — among the most remote operating environments on Earth. High-pressure conventional gas wells. Rig mobilisations between islands by Hercules aircraft. Full infrastructure limitation. The operational discipline built in those environments is the same discipline I apply to every MENA engagement: assume nothing, verify everything, understand what the data is not showing you.
Contract Origination with National Ministries
I originated and facilitated cross-border contracts by sourcing and representing drilling contractors and service providers from Canada, Turkey, and Poland — negotiating directly with major oil companies and national ministries to secure entry into frontier and emerging markets including Syria before the conflict. The relationships were built over years. The credibility was earned in the field, not in a boardroom.
I have been in this region since before the current generation of international advisory firms arrived. I was not here studying the market — I was running operations inside it, with full accountability for what happened and what the numbers showed at the end of the quarter.
The MENA engagements I led were not advisory mandates. They were operational roles — contracts negotiated directly with sovereign ministries, assets managed during active conflict, drilling programmes run across pan-Arab ownership structures where every decision had both operational and political dimensions. I understood the financial exposure because I was responsible for it.
What that background gives you in a diagnostic engagement is specific: I have personally experienced the gap between what a MENA operation’s reporting shows and what is actually happening in the field. In institutional-scale operations — national oil companies, government-linked logistics, sovereign-backed energy assets — that gap can be very large, and it is almost always where the most recoverable value sits.
The clearest example I can give you is the rail engagement. A major regional operation. Car location system functioning correctly. Load schedule system functioning correctly. The two had never been compared against each other. When we put them side by side, the recoverable utilisation loss was ten million dollars a year. The data had been there for years. The answer was in what was missing — not in what was present.
When I come into an operation, that is the question I am asking from the first day. The diagnostic is where most engagements begin — fixed fee, defined scope, specific deliverables, a clear answer on what the data shows. But it is not where they end. Depending on what we find, the work can extend into full project management, operational restructuring, supply chain simulation, fractional CFO oversight, and where the mandate calls for it, supporting businesses moving operations into MENA or expanding within it. I have done all of those things. The diagnostic tells us what the right next step is.
Most of the relationships I have in this region go back more than a decade. That continuity matters — not as a credential but as a practical reality. The organisations I work with know that when I come back, I already understand their operation. We do not start from zero each time. And behind me is the full AJM team: Arthur Madden on financial structure and data, Michael Yeung on transactions and succession, and the analytical infrastructure to carry a mandate from diagnosis through to delivery. I am the person in the room. They are the reason the work holds up.
The full scope of engagement — from diagnostic to delivery.
The Data Diagnostic is where most mandates begin. It is not where they end. All AJM services are available to MENA-based operations and to businesses entering or expanding in the region. Michael Cooper leads every MENA engagement — and behind him is the full AJM team: Arthur Madden on financial structure and CFO-level oversight, Michael Yeung on transactions and succession, and analytical infrastructure built to carry work from diagnosis through to delivery.
Data Diagnostic
Fixed fee. Defined scope. We examine your operational and financial data, identify the gap between reported performance and actual performance, and tell you what is recoverable. You know what you are getting before we begin.
Learn more →Supply Chain Simulation
We model your supply chain under real operating conditions — including the constraints specific to MENA infrastructure, cross-border logistics, and multi-jurisdictional procurement. The output is a quantified picture of where cost is leaking and what optimisation is worth.
Learn more →Fractional CFO
Senior financial oversight without the cost of a full-time CFO. We translate operational performance into financial reporting that boards and institutional investors can act on — including the gap between what your systems show and what is actually happening in the field.
Learn more →Operational Project Delivery
We manage the implementation — not just the recommendation. From logistics restructuring to procurement system redesign to cross-border operational setup, we carry the mandate through to delivery with full accountability for what the project achieves.
Discuss your project →Moving Business into MENA
For businesses entering or expanding in the MENA region — supply chain setup, operational structure, financial controls, local procurement, and the regulatory and relationship landscape that determines whether market entry succeeds or stalls. Michael has done this from both sides of the table.
Start the conversation →Succession Planning & Transaction Readiness
For family conglomerates and institutional owners preparing for transition, sale, or restructuring — financial clean-up, value gap identification, and transaction preparation with buy-side experience on the advisory team. We know what acquirers look for because we have been on that side of the table.
Learn more →What large MENA operations require that most advisors cannot provide.
These are not observations from the outside. They are patterns I encountered — and had to solve — as an operator inside the region’s most complex institutional environments over four decades.
MENA operations hold data differently — and most diagnostic frameworks cannot read it
I have worked inside operations with sophisticated data held in systems that a Western diagnostic framework will misread without operational context built over years in the region. The data is there. Knowing where it is and how it was recorded is not a technical skill — it is earned through operational time in the field.
The financial decision in MENA institutions is rarely made at CFO level
In sovereign entities, government-linked companies, and large family conglomerates, the financial decision is ratified above the CFO — often significantly above. I have seen advisory mandates spend a year building a relationship with the finance function, then discover the actual decision had already been made at a different level entirely. I know where the decisions are made because I have sat in those rooms.
Recommendations built for stable environments are often wrong in this one
I have run operations where the infrastructure was unreliable, the customs regime changed without notice, and the logistics network was being improvised under conflict conditions. A recommendation optimised for a stable operating environment is not just suboptimal here — in critical situations it produces the wrong answer. The adjustment is not a footnote. It changes the recommendation.
Credibility here is established through operational history, not credentials
People inside MENA institutions know immediately whether you have worked here or whether you have opened a regional office. That distinction is made in the first conversation — from the specificity of what you can reference, not from what is on a slide. I do not present credentials. I reference the specific operations, the specific decisions, the specific results. That is a different conversation entirely.
Continuity management under extreme operating conditions
Most international advisory firms have a conflict-zone policy that amounts to evacuation. I have operated in the other direction — managing multi-million-dollar asset portfolios and maintaining operational continuity in Iraq and Libya during active conflict periods. Understanding what an operation’s financial exposure looks like under those conditions requires having been responsible for it.
Every engagement begins with what the data actually shows — not what the client reports
In MENA institutional operations, the gap between stated performance and actual performance can be very large. I have seen this at national company level, at sovereign entity level, and at family conglomerate level. The diagnostic comes first. I will not tell you what your operation needs until I have seen what your data actually says. In my experience, those two things are frequently not the same.
Specific findings from MENA operational diagnostics.
Not projections. Not benchmarks. Numbers from actual engagements — recoverable losses identified, value gaps quantified, operational exposures mapped.
Direct operational presence across 8 MENA markets.
Not regional coverage. Field operations, ministry-level relationships, and supply chain accountability — in-country, in-person, over decades. The institutional knowledge in each market is specific to what I personally managed there.
ADWOC operations across the UAE. GCC-wide field operations and logistics management. Port and logistics network engagement across Dubai and Abu Dhabi corridors.
Direct contract negotiation with Saudi ministries. Supply chain and operational management in the Kingdom’s sovereign energy and resources sector. Ministry-level relationship across procurement and drilling mandates.
Field operations and PDO supply chain engagement. Oman’s energy infrastructure and sovereign drilling programme across the country’s development period.
Iraq and Kurdistan Region field operations and ministry-level engagement. Operational and financial continuity management during active conflict — assets managed on the ground when most international operators had evacuated.
On-the-ground operational management during conflict. Multi-million-dollar asset protection and continuity in one of the region’s most constrained operating environments. Full financial accountability maintained throughout.
North Africa and Red Sea corridor operations. Energy sector supply chain and logistics management. ADWOC pan-Arab mandate coverage across Egyptian sovereign energy engagements.
Levant corridor logistics and Jordan’s position as regional hub connecting Gulf, Levant, and North Africa cross-border supply chains. Ministry engagement and cross-border contract origination.
Gulf region operations and supply chain management across Kuwait’s sovereign energy and infrastructure development programmes. ADWOC member-state engagement and contract administration.
If your operation is in the region,
speak with me directly.
The organisations we work with have been running these assets for decades. We are not here to explain MENA to them. We are here to find what their own data is not surfacing.
Whether you are looking to diagnose an existing operation, restructure a supply chain, establish financial oversight, manage a project through to delivery, or move a business into the region — the first conversation is the same. I will tell you directly whether I think we can help and what that would look like. No proposal before the conversation has earned one.
Speak with Michael Cooper →