Philippe De Backer is a Senior Advisor at Arthur D. Little (ADL), based in Dubai, and a core member of ADL's Growth practice. Mr. De Backer is a thought leader in corporate strategy and strategic planning/implementation, investment and capital deployment/fundraising strategy, business and operating models, organizational design and effectiveness, and M&As. Previously, he worked for Bain & Company, where he served as Partner & Global Head of Financial Services, working in leadership positions in the company's Boston, Brussels, Paris, and Dubai offices. From 1993 to 2016, Mr. De Backer supported clients across many geographies, with particular emphasis on large-scale bank transformations. In addition to his consulting experience, he founded a New York–based investment firm and successfully IPO'd a large special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with BlackRock on NASDAQ to deploy growth capital in domestic US community banks. Mr. De Backer is a widely published author with several books on management and financial services. He earned an MBA from Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business and a bachelor of arts degree from Colgate University, where he graduated magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is fluent in French, Dutch, and English. He can be reached at experts@cutter.com.