Entrepreneur, Strategy & Management Consultant, Founder, and CEO of Avane
Drawing on years of experience advising royal families and major family-owned conglomerates across the GCC, Ahmet Orhon delivers a compelling perspective on the long-term sustainability challenges facing family businesses. Based on his work with entities such as the Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari royal families, Orhon highlights a critical statistic: over 90% of family-owned businesses fail to survive beyond the third generation. This session addresses the systemic causes behind this generational decline and offers strategic insights into how business families can design structures that ensure continuity, professional governance, and long-term profitability.
Ahmet shares first-hand lessons from helping legacy-driven organizations future-proof their operations — from rationalizing portfolios and phasing out obsolete verticals to preparing the next generation for emerging industries. This talk is particularly valuable for founders, board members, and next-gen leaders seeking to institutionalize their business while preserving entrepreneurial agility. If you are looking to turn your family enterprise into a future-ready, resilient organization, this conversation offers a transformative roadmap.
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
With a background in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Harvard and hands-on experience leading global projects at McKinsey, Ahmet Orhon brings both strategic and operational depth to the topic. Drawing from his own entrepreneurial journey—founding a high-growth foodtech startup in Turkey—Ahmet emphasizes a powerful insight: while ideas may spark innovation, it is execution that drives impact. In fact, he asserts that 80% of innovation and entrepreneurial success stems from effective implementation rather than ideation.
Through mentoring startups, government agencies, and multinational corporations, Ahmet helps organizations build innovation-driven cultures and scale entrepreneurial initiatives that are both agile and sustainable. This talk offers actionable frameworks for turning ideas into outcomes, fostering intrapreneurship, and navigating the unseen variables that shape new ventures. Ideal for corporate leaders, founders, and ecosystem builders, this session equips you with the tools to future-proof your organization through innovation.
Strategy, Leadership and Transformation
Drawing on over a decade of experience at McKinsey, Ahmet Orhon breaks down the real equation behind strategic success: only 20% lies in the brilliance of the idea—80% comes from execution. This critical insight reframes strategy not as a plan on paper, but as a living process powered by effective implementation. Yet execution doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it requires strong, adaptive leadership at every level of the organization.
In this talk, Ahmet explores how leadership is evolving in response to a new generation's expectations and an increasingly volatile business environment. He delves into how to lead transformation efforts, empower emerging leaders, and hardwire agility into the organization. By interlinking strategy, leadership, and change management, this session offers a practical framework for organizations looking to thrive in a reality where transformation is not a phase—but a constant.
