The answer lives in this podcast
What did Nourhan Farhat learn from her time at Roland Berger that still shapes her leadership today?
Roland Berger built two things in Nourhan Farhat that she carries into every role: resilience and a well-rounded problem-solving character. At Roland Berger, consultants owned the full arc — from defining the problem statement to managing client relationships — even at the business analyst level. That experience instilled one core conviction she considers the single most transferable skill across any career: no matter what the problem is, you can figure it out.
Owning the full arc — even as a junior consultant
Most junior roles in large organisations involve a narrow slice of a larger process. At Roland Berger, Farhat experienced something different. Even as a business analyst, she was responsible for the entire consulting engagement — from shaping the problem statement at the outset to managing the client relationship throughout.
That breadth of ownership is not incidental. It directly develops the kind of versatile judgment that generic task execution never builds. As Farhat explains in Beyond the Deck, this full-arc ownership is what turned consulting into a genuine leadership school — not just a technical training ground.
It is also worth noting that it was a Roland Berger presentation — the very first session she attended on the subject — that introduced Farhat to consulting in the first place. The firm that sparked her interest in the field also shaped how she practises leadership more than a decade later.
The mindset that outlasts any specific skill
After 10 years in management consulting and several more at Kareem, Farhat does not point to a framework, a methodology, or a sector specialisation as the thing consulting gave her. She points to a mindset.
"No matter what the problem is, you can figure it out." That is the formulation she uses in this episode of Beyond the Deck — and she is explicit that it is the single most transferable skill across any career. Not problem-solving techniques. Not analytical rigour. The underlying belief that problems are solvable, full stop.
That belief matters especially in corporate leadership, where the problems are messier than consulting engagements and the feedback loops are slower. When Farhat moved from consulting to Kareem's corporate strategy team, she described the shift as wanting to own deliverables and operate with real P&L responsibility — precisely the kind of stakes where a resilient, figure-it-out mindset is tested daily. You can hear her trace this arc in detail on Beyond the Deck.
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Strategies could be great on paper, but unless you really fix the operating model, the incentives, the entire culture of the company, the values of the company, I think that's the make it or break it."
Nourhan Farhat — VP of People, Strategy and Ventures, Kareem.
Farhat studied engineering before entering management consulting, where she spent 10 years — beginning with Roland Berger, the first firm she ever heard present on what consulting actually was. She joined Kareem initially as Head of Corporate Strategy and Chief of Staff, before her remit expanded to cover People and Ventures. She describes the move from consulting to the corporate world as a deliberate choice to stop being behind the deck and start owning outcomes with real business consequences. Her combined role at Kareem — spanning people, strategy, and ventures — reflects the same full-arc ownership she first encountered at Roland Berger.
The quote above, drawn from the same conversation on Beyond the Deck, illustrates how Farhat's consulting training has evolved: the figure-it-out mindset now applies not just to business problems, but to the cultural and organisational conditions that determine whether any strategy lands.
See also
How did Nourhan Farhat come to hold the combined roles of strategy, people, and ventures at Kareem?
Farhat joined Kareem as Head of Corporate Strategy and Chief of Staff. Ventures was added because Kareem's smaller business units — including Kareem Box — needed strategic oversight, and the People role followed as a temporary arrangement that has now lasted four years.
What does Nourhan Farhat believe is the most important trait to look for when hiring?
Farhat says drive and resilience are her make-or-break criteria when evaluating candidates. She argues that skills can always be trained and learned on the job — but intrinsic motivation and the capacity to bounce back cannot.
How does Kareem approach AI integration across its business?
Kareem designated 2019 as its "Year of AI" — well before the current wave of AI hype — embedding AI into core systems like ride-hailing demand prediction and dispatching ahead of the broader industry conversation.
Key takeaways
- Roland Berger gave Farhat ownership of the full consulting arc — from problem definition to client relationship — even at junior level, building resilience and well-rounded judgment from the start.
- The mindset she considers most transferable is not a methodology but a conviction: that any problem, however unfamiliar, is solvable.
- That same figure-it-out belief underpins her move from consulting into corporate leadership at Kareem, where stakes involve real P&L responsibility rather than advisory outcomes.
- It is also worth noting that Roland Berger was the firm whose presentation first introduced Farhat to consulting — making it both the origin and the lasting foundation of her professional character.