About
Meraki Business Consultancy Ltd is licensed in the Abu Dhabi Free Zone and works with established companies across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, providing fractional CFO capability. The work is led personally by its founder.
Most owner managed companies do not need a full time CFO. They need a full time CFO's judgement, applied at the right moments, by someone who has carried the responsibility before.
Meraki was founded to make that level of capability available to companies large enough to need it and sensible enough not to want it on the payroll. Mandates are held by the principal directly and are not passed to an associate once the engagement letter is signed.
Engagements are held as a retained officer of the business rather than as an outside adviser. That means sitting in the management meeting, owning the reporting calendar, fronting the conversation with the bank, and being accountable for the numbers presented to shareholders.
The firm works exclusively in the United Arab Emirates, principally with companies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That focus is deliberate. Free zone and mainland distinctions, banking practice and audit expectations all carry local detail that a generalist working across ten markets does not hold.
Background
The fractional work began in 2007. Before that came thirteen years inside operating companies, starting in audit and management consultancy in India, then contracting finance in Qatar, then internal audit in a diversified trading group in Dubai, and finally the finance function of a multi-company group in Abu Dhabi.
The thirteen years that followed were spent as an interim and fractional CFO across businesses with little in common. Capital intensive infrastructure: a satellite teleport, a telecom tower company, last mile connectivity over LTE and metro fibre. Investment structures: a real estate fund management company, vehicles holding assets in four countries, trusts holding the assets of a single family. Owner managed trading and services: building materials, cleaning and manpower supply at scale, interior fit out.
Two disciplines came out of that range. Capital intensive infrastructure teaches that a forecast has to hold over a long horizon, and that a covenant has to be modelled before it is breached. Owner managed trading and services teaches that the gap between an accounting profit and the cash actually available is never academic.
Meraki was established in 2020.
The written work runs alongside it: a doctorate in business administration, a book, and published research in three areas.
Book
Published in 2026, in hardback and paperback. It sets out the case this practice is built on: that reporting which only describes a period already closed is not financial control, and that what an owner cannot see is where the cost sits.
Available on AmazonResearch papers
How we work
01
Deliverables and decision rights are written down and agreed before an engagement letter is signed. Fees are fixed and agreed in writing, never billed by the hour.
02
Findings, recommendations and risks are documented. A recommendation that exists only in a meeting is not a recommendation.
03
The objective is a finance function that runs without us. Processes are documented and the existing team is trained to own them.
04
Risks are flagged plainly and early, including the ones the shareholder would rather not hear. That is what the retainer is for.
Independence
A fractional CFO holds a position that a salaried executive cannot. There is no career path inside the client to protect, no internal politics to manage, and no incentive to soften a finding. The engagement is renewed on the strength of the work alone.
Meraki holds a small number of mandates at any one time. Each one receives the principal's direct attention, and new mandates are accepted only where that remains true.
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