Omar Awad — Executive Advisor | Harvard Kennedy School MPA

Harvard Kennedy School

Academic Credentials

Trained at
Harvard

Omar holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, concentrating on systems thinking, organizational transformation, and public operations. He also served as Chief Coach of Coaches in Harvard's negotiation-training program.

During his time at HKS, Omar focused his research on institutional resilience within civic and faith-based organizations — drawing on firsthand experience scaling a 12,000-member institution. His coursework emphasized the intersections of policy design, public-private partnerships, and adaptive governance under uncertainty, with a capstone project examining operational turnaround strategies in mission-driven institutions.

At Harvard Business School, he deepened his understanding of organizational life cycles, board governance, and mission-driven capital allocation — applying competitive strategy frameworks to social-sector institutions. His studies with Prof. Michael E. Porter directly shaped the trisector methodology now at the core of Amal & Company's advisory practice.

Beyond the classroom, Omar participated in the Harvard Innovation Labs, mentoring early-stage ventures on strategy, scale, and operations — bringing real-world institutional experience to founders navigating organizational complexity for the first time.

Harvard Kennedy School Harvard Business School

Harvard Kennedy School · MPA

Systems Thinking, Organizational Transformation & Public Operations

Harvard Business School

Trisector Strategy Development · Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management · Performance Measurement for Nonprofit Organizations

Studied under

Prof. Michael E. Porter Brian Mandel Mark Fagan

15+ Years Experience

About Omar

A Career Built on
Cross-Sector Impact

Omar Awad is an operations strategist, executive advisor, and systems thinker whose career spans Fortune 500 engineering leadership, nonprofit institutional development, government strategy, and boutique management consulting.

Before founding Amal & Company, Omar built a reputation as a trusted executor of high-stakes transformations — leading through financial crises, organizational restructurings, and multi-stakeholder negotiations in environments where failure was never an option. His track record spans regulatory compliance overhauls at Fortune 500 scale, civic institution turnarounds with nine-figure asset bases, and government budget processes spanning billions in public expenditure.

His trisector fluency — moving seamlessly between corporate boardrooms, government briefing rooms, and community institutions — gives him a rare vantage point that few advisors can offer. Clients describe him as someone who doesn't just diagnose problems, but builds the systems that prevent them from recurring. He is equally at home presenting to a nonprofit board of directors as he is reviewing engineering compliance protocols with a Fortune 500 operations team.

Held cross-functional leadership roles at Becton Dickinson, driving large-scale operational initiatives and compliance integration across global supply chains.

Served as CEO of one of the largest Muslim community centers in the US, scaling it from community-led roots to a regionally recognized institution with 12,000+ members.

Co-founded Amal & Company, now serving clients across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, with a focus on scalable systems and mission-driven growth.

Visit Amal & Company →

Corporate Strategy Workshop

Executive Speaking

Systems Design Session

Career Experience

High-Stakes Leadership
Across Every Sector

Becton Dickinson · Fortune 500

Global Product Transfer Lead

Led a $250 million global manufacturing transfer, overseeing the relocation of closed-system chemotherapy delivery device production from Spain to Brazil — ensuring seamless engineering protocols and compliance integration.

Coordinated engineering, quality, regulatory affairs, and supply chain teams across three continents, navigating simultaneous FDA (US) and ANVISA (Brazil) compliance requirements for a Class III medical device. The transfer was executed with zero manufacturing downtime — protecting global oncology patient supply chains while securing full regulatory clearance on schedule.

Applied Six Sigma DMAIC frameworks to validate every production process, authored master transfer protocols later adopted as division-wide standards, and led structured change management for a cross-cultural team of 80+ engineers and technicians across Spain and Brazil.

$250M Initiative

City of Boston · Government

City of Boston · Government Strategy

Strategic Government Advisor

Contributed to Boston's $4.8 billion FY26 operating budget, including a $110M Housing Accelerator appropriation. Supported city-wide budget and procurement transformation across departments.

Embedded within the Office of Budget Management, Omar analyzed departmental spending patterns, modeled multi-year fiscal scenarios, and produced briefing materials presented to senior city officials. His analysis directly informed the $110M Housing Accelerator appropriation — one of the largest single housing investments in Boston's FY26 operating budget.

Led a cross-departmental procurement review spanning 8 city agencies, identifying process redundancies and recommending vendor consolidation strategies projected to reduce contracting cycle times by 30%. Deliverables included an operational efficiency framework adopted for citywide implementation.

$4.8B Budget

ICPC · Nonprofit

ICPC · Nonprofit Leadership

CEO & President, 2014–2020

Scaled the Islamic Center of Passaic County to 12,000+ members, 45 staff, and $20M+ in assets. Oversaw a $1M–$3M operating budget with full departmental restructuring and cross-functional KPI alignment.

Omar's journey with ICPC began years before the CEO role — he first joined as a volunteer Young Adults Director, where he built and ran professional-development, mentorship, and integration programs for emerging Muslim professionals. That grassroots foundation directly informed how he would later approach institutional transformation at scale.

Led a $6M capital campaign to fund a permanent facility — reaching 85% of the fundraising goal within 18 months through major gift strategy and community engagement. Grew annual programming from 12 to 40+ community initiatives, expanding the institution's reach across the tri-state area and cementing ICPC as a regionally recognized anchor institution.

Rebuilt the board governance structure to formally separate executive and fiduciary responsibilities, established the institution's first endowment vehicle, and created a 45-person HR framework under a values-driven performance management system — positioning ICPC for long-term sustainability independent of donation cycles.

12,000+ Members · $20M+ Assets

Amal & Company · Consulting

Amal & Company · Managing Partner

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Co-founded a boutique consulting firm serving clients across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. The proprietary Amal Portal platform delivers sustainable knowledge systems and measurable growth strategies.

Amal & Company operates across four service lines: Organizational Diagnostics, Systems Architecture, Executive Coaching, and Board Governance. The proprietary Amal Portal — a SaaS-enabled knowledge management platform — is deployed with client organizations to institutionalize processes, track KPIs in real time, and reduce long-term advisory dependency.

Clients span financial services (Islamic finance, tax & accounting), healthcare operations, faith-based institutions, government-adjacent nonprofits, and private equity-backed growth companies. Currently expanding AI-powered advisory offerings to serve mid-market firms across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

3 Continents · Est. 2020

Areas of Expertise

Serving Three Sectors,
One Integrated Approach

Amal & Company serves a trisector client base across three core verticals with a uniquely integrative consulting methodology.

Government Agencies

Budget transformation, procurement reform, and policy-level operational restructuring for public sector organizations.

What we do Multiyear fiscal planning, procurement reengineering, interagency coordination frameworks, and departmental KPI alignment — translating policy priorities into measurable, auditable programs.

Who it's for City budget offices, procurement departments, municipal agencies, and public institutions navigating operational reform or budget transformation.

Key outcomes

30% faster procurement cycles Auditable accountability structures Cross-agency KPI alignment

Nonprofit Organizations

Mission alignment, institutional development, KPI frameworks, and community-scale systems for mission-driven organizations.

What we do Institutional turnaround, board governance redesign, capital campaign strategy, executive succession planning, and community-scale systems — grounded in direct operator experience at a $20M+ institution.

Who it's for Nonprofits, faith-based institutions, community organizations, and foundations facing growth, leadership transitions, or structural challenges.

Key outcomes

Mission-aligned governance Sustainable endowment structures 12,000+ member scale

Private Sector

Financial services (tax, accounting, Islamic finance), healthcare, real estate, and AI & software companies — especially productized service platforms.

What we do Islamic finance structuring, healthcare workflow design, real estate asset management frameworks, and go-to-market strategy for AI and software companies with productized service models.

Who it's for Founder-led firms, financial services companies, healthcare providers, and tech startups that need institutional-grade operating systems without sacrificing speed or culture.

Key outcomes

Shariah-compliant structures Scalable operational frameworks 3 continents served

The Methodology

How Omar Drives
Transformative Change

Adaptive Leadership

Drawing on experience across Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, and community institutions — applying the right leadership style to each unique organizational context.

Trained in Harvard's adaptive leadership framework under Brian Mandel, Omar brings a fluid leadership inventory — shifting between directive authority when clarity is needed, consultative facilitation when alignment is the goal, and servant leadership when culture is at stake. He has guided organizations through leadership transitions, crisis response, and long-range strategic pivots across all three sectors, always calibrating his approach to the organization's readiness and the nature of the challenge.

Data-Driven Systems Design

Building scalable operational systems backed by dashboards, KPIs, and process automation — grounded in Michael Porter's competitive strategy frameworks.

Every engagement begins with an operational diagnostic: mapping current-state workflows, identifying bottlenecks, and establishing a measurable baseline. Omar designs custom KPI dashboards tailored to each organization's size and reporting cadence — from board-level scorecards to department-level OKR frameworks. Systems are built for sustainability: clients leave with internal documentation, trained staff, and platforms they own and operate independently.

High-Stakes Negotiation

Certified through Harvard's negotiation-training program — enabling complex deal-making, vendor negotiations, and multi-party alignment across sectors.

Credentialed as Chief Coach of Coaches in Harvard's Program on Negotiation — one of the most rigorous negotiation credentials available globally. Omar applies principled negotiation frameworks (interest-based bargaining, BATNA analysis, ZOPA mapping) to real-world deal structures involving labor unions, municipal governments, private developers, and multi-stakeholder coalitions — and has served as a trusted neutral convener in high-stakes agreements across all three sectors.

Operations Strategist.
Executive Advisor.
Systems Thinker.

Trained at
Harvard

A Career Built on
Cross-Sector Impact