A return to the boutique tradition of executive search.
Kaelis Advisory was founded on a simple observation: the largest search firms have optimised themselves for throughput, not outcomes. Mandates are assembled by committee, shortlists drawn from CRMs, and the human work, the judgment about character, fit, and future, gets pushed to the margins.
We are deliberately small. We work with a handful of founders, boards, and CEOs at a time, and we resist the temptation to grow past that. The result is search and counsel that feels less like a vendor relationship and more like an alliance.
Our practice spans executive search, headhunting, recruitment partnership, leadership coaching, and strategic advisory, but the unifying thread is the same: careful work, done by people who care.
Paris · Dubai · Beirut
Carol Keyrouz
Founder · People & Culture Strategist
Kaelis is the work of a single practitioner with over twelve years shaping the people architecture of fast-moving companies, from fintech and SAP consulting to aviation and infrastructure. Carol has partnered with C-suites across the Middle East and Europe to design organisations that scale, to place the leaders who carry them, and to build the cultures that make those leaders stay. Every engagement is led personally, from the first conversation to the final reference call.
- ·12+ years leading People & Culture and HR transformation across fintech, technology consulting, aviation, and infrastructure.
- ·Workforce, succession, and organisational design mandates spanning the UAE, KSA, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, and Germany, up to 1,700 employees.
- ·MBA, Université Paris-Dauphine · CIPD Level 7 · fluent in Arabic, English, French, and conversational Italian.
The principles that shape every engagement.
Few clients, deeply served
We cap our active engagements. It costs us scale and gives our clients our full attention.
Partner-led from first call
No junior intermediaries. The person you meet is the person who runs your search.
Research before reach-out
Every shortlist is preceded by a mapping exercise. We earn the right to make the call.
Discretion as default
Most of our work never appears on a website. Including, often, our clients' names.
Twelve years of people architecture, across four sectors and two regions.
2024 - present
Kaelis Advisory
Founded the practice to return executive search to the boutique tradition. Partner-led mandates across MENA and Europe.
2020 - 2024
Group Head of People, fintech scale-up
Built and led the people function from Series B through Series D, scaling the organisation from 180 to 1,100 across nine countries.
2016 - 2020
People & Culture, SAP consulting
Led culture, talent, and organisational design programmes for enterprise transformation clients across the Gulf.
2012 - 2016
Aviation & infrastructure
Early career in workforce planning and HR transformation across aviation operators and infrastructure groups in Lebanon, UAE, and KSA.
“We do not fill seats. We help decide who sits at the table for the next chapter. The work runs on trust, and we treat it as the scarce resource it is.”
Begin a Conversation