Mehdi El Idrissi

A practice built around consequential leadership decisions is only as credible as the judgment behind it. At Alides, every mandate in Qatar is led personally by a partner who has sat in the seat — as chief financial officer, as chief executive, and at the head of a national institution.

Mehdi El Idrissi began his career in 2002 within the Kettani family group, as administrative and financial director. He contributed to the creation of Ekman Converting, a joint venture with the Swedish group Ekman & Co AB, before leading the structuring of the Kettani group — a €50m enterprise of some 500 people — as chief financial officer, overseeing ten subsidiaries across cellulose processing and real estate, in Morocco and across West Africa.

In 2007 he joined the CGEM, the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises, as Secretary General, and was appointed Director-General in 2008. In that role he helped shape national strategic direction and contributed to several state-level industrial strategies, including the National Plan for Industrial Emergence. For these contributions, he was decorated by His Majesty the King of Morocco as Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite.

Between 2010 and 2015, he advised influential leaders across the MENA region as a senior advisor in the aerospace and logistics sectors. Since 2015, within ECI Group, he has placed that experience at the service of enterprises, family groups and investment funds across Morocco, Sub-Saharan Africa and the wider MENA region.

An advisor who has been a chief financial officer, a chief executive and a director-general assesses leaders as a peer who has held the seat — not as an observer of it.

Why this matters to a board

The decisions Alides is engaged on — the appointment of a chief executive, the composition of a board, the succession of a founder — are decisions Mehdi has lived from the inside. He has built leadership teams, reported to boards, structured governance, and carried the weight of a national mandate. That perspective is not incidental to the counsel; it is the counsel.

It is also why the model is deliberately partner-led. In Qatar, each mandate is conducted personally, without delegation to a junior team — so that the judgment a client engages is the judgment that delivers.

Mehdi's profile can be verified on the ECI Group network: eci-group.org/the-team/mehdi-elidrissi.