Mohamed Ali Jebira (SKEMA 2002): a brilliant career in consulting, between Tunis and Kinshasa

Mohamed, could you introduce yourself and tell us about your academic background?

Of Tunisian-Italian nationality, I grew up in Tunisia where I did all my schooling at the Lycée Français Pierre Mendès France in Tunis. After graduating from high school, I moved to France to continue my studies at the University of Social Sciences in Toulouse, where I obtained a degree in Economics. I then decided to take the entrance exams for business school, and in 2000 I joined SKEMA Business School, or CERAM as it was known back then, on the Sophia Antipolis campus.

In my second year, I specialised in Audit and Consulting, one of the first specialisations of its kind in France at the time.

Why did you choose SKEMA Business School?

At the time, around the year 2000, I was at university and wanted to round off my academic career with a business school qualification, which would offer more opportunities. So I decided to take the competitive entrance exams and visited several schools across France.

Initially, my goal was to specialise in market finance, and SKEMA Business School was the first school to offer this type of specialisation. Plus, the campus was equipped with a trading room, which really impressed me. I also chose the school because of its location on the French Riviera, which was an excellent opportunity to maintain a great quality of life while studying.

But in the end, before I could specialise, a new major was created, in Audit and Consulting. The person in charge of the programme was a partner at Deloitte. She spoke so enthusiastically about the profession that it inspired me to choose this specialisation instead. Years later, I had the opportunity to re-connect with her and tell her that I had become a partner at Deloitte too!

What were the highlights of your time at SKEMA Business School?

There are a lot of them! From the moment I arrived, what really impressed me was the mindset at the school - it was very different from university. At SKEMA, we were encouraged to work in teams and to get involved in concrete, real-world projects. One of my most vivid memories is of orientation week, where I met students of many different nationalities. We had to do case studies on major players in the business world, and my team and I got to work on Kodak. It was very much a group exercise, culminating in a presentation to senior executives from major companies like Microsoft and Cisco.

It was really impressive to be immersed in this innovative world, so focused on people and the collective!

The Students’ Union organised a lot of events and social activities that punctuated our daily lives as students and helped us to feel like a tight unit.

The courses were also really interesting and the teachers came from the professional world, which was very enriching.

I spent some of the best years of my life at SKEMA Business School: the experience shaped me a lot. I also built some great friendships that I still maintain today.

Tell us about your transition to the professional world after your studies?

After graduating, I did an internship as a management controller at Valeo in Paris. This experience helped me to understand the workings of a large company and confirmed my interest in consulting. In 2003, I returned to Tunisia and joined the consulting department of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where I worked on strategic projects that gave me a solid foundation for the rest of my career. Two years later, I joined Altime, a consultancy specialising in information systems planning. Altime was the first consultancy in Tunisia to specialise in this field, working mainly in the banking sector. This experience was crucial for me, as it allowed me to work on major projects and develop skills specific to the financial sector.

In 2013, after years of development, Altime Tunisia joined the Deloitte network, a global leader in professional services.

Today, I'm an Advisory Partner at Deloitte French-speaking Africa, with a particular focus on Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I split my time between Tunis and Kinshasa.

We support all types of clients, both public and private, in areas such as strategy, operations, information systems, human capital, or risk and compliance management.

Our growth over ten years has been extraordinary. We have gone from 50 employees for Advisory activities in French-speaking Africa to over 400 today, and we are constantly expanding.

Our offices are part of a network: that of Deloitte French-speaking Africa, the first of its kind in this part of the world. We are the only firm to offer a complete synergy in the region.

Could you tell us about your role and your duties at Deloitte?

My role is mainly focused on business development. As a partner, I have several responsibilities: Financial Services Industry (FSI) Leader for all of French-speaking Africa, FSI Advisory Leader for Deloitte Tunisia, and Advisory Leader (all sectors combined) for Deloitte DRC. I lead teams working on major transformation projects, in particular for regulators, banks, insurance companies, as well as financers and public and private institutions, including governments.

I specialise in project management, strategy definition, information systems strategy and implementation, human capital, governance and organisational transformation, change management, operational efficiency, business effectiveness, risk and compliance management...

I coordinate our activities and use my network to support my teams on a daily basis. We work on a wide range of high-impact projects: transforming the major financial players, helping small and medium-sized businesses to access finance, overhauling supervisory and regulatory systems, helping young people to become entrepreneurs...

It's a stimulating but very demanding job; the days are varied and there's a constant need to innovate. Today’s key issues, such as CSR, data and digital technology, are different from those of 20 years ago, but they are now essential.

I work with multicultural teams. I work a lot in synergy with the offices of the French-speaking Africa cluster, but also with the other offices in Deloitte’s international network.

My job also involves a lot of travel: I spend about 30% of my time in Kinshasa and the rest in Tunis, and I also have to make other trips inside and outside Africa (around twenty a year). 

What is challenging about intercultural management?

I have the advantage of being very familiar with the countries I work in and the teams I supervise, having organised several seminars for Deloitte French-speaking Africa in the past. So I know my colleagues and associates very well, and vice versa, which means I’m working on familiar ground.

In terms of management, I have over twenty years of experience, and people know me for that. My management style is quite flexible, based on proximity. I'm very close to my staff and give them a lot of autonomy while also keeping an eye on their work. I'm a big believer in giving people responsibility: you have to be able to trust them. My role is then to supervise, redirect if necessary, and drive projects that are of relevance to the market.

Our business is based on human capital. It is essential to have hands-on management, to regularly monitor the work of our employees and to provide effective supervision. This also means helping the teams to progress in terms of skills and levels of responsibility. I always stress the importance of collective progress: it's wrong to think that our own progress limits the progress of others. On the contrary, we must all grow together so that each of us can develop individually.

What advice would you give to young SKEMA graduates who want to pursue an international career?

I think it's important to have a great desire to learn and also to believe in yourself. No one is born a consultant or an expert in their field. You have to be willing to take the time to learn.

Career development does not happen overnight. Changing jobs all the time is not the way to build a real career. You have to build a personality, a story. It's the people who take the time to grow who become more valuable in the eyes of their colleagues and the market. 

In the service business, it's crucial to develop human qualities. You can't succeed with a confrontational approach. You need to build support around you, engage interest and find ways to progress as a group. If the group progresses, then each individual will progress and find their place. It's also important to know how to position yourself and seize opportunities as they arise. But it's not enough to wait for them; you also have to work hard.

In my job, I work and travel a lot, which takes time and energy, but it's essential. There's no secret to it, you just have to give it your all!

Interview by lepetitjournal.com for SKEMA Alumni