We created Renaissance to be your partner in turbulent times.

As an entrepreneur, your job is to make difficult decisions: You need to be ahead of the curve. You often operate in a vacuum of data. You need insight and to interpret signals. And time is always of the essence.

Everything is changing: technologies, markets, channels, tastes, preferences. These days, change comes at you fast and from every direction.

And everyone is looking at you for a decision: Being the boss can be a lonely and stressful enterprise.

Sometimes, what you most need is counsel: You want to test ideas, to bat thoughts around, to think through scenarios and outcomes and for the advice you receive to be thoughtful, data-driven and rooted in fact, experience and analysis.

And you can’t talk to the people around you: Family businesses are often the most complex with deep and layered conflicts of interest.

At Renaissance, we provide advice. We help you execute it. And we stand behind the results.

Genesis

Renaissance was founded on the conviction that Pakistan lacks sophisticated advisors of the kind the market is increasingly demanding. Despite being one of the world’s largest countries, Pakistan is notably insulated from global capital flows as well as M&A and private investment activity. The pressure to adapt is coming from a

new generation of business owners and entrepreneurs, often educated abroad and with their own global networks of friends and business partners. We see this impetus increasing. There are a large and growing number of enterprises in the $50 million to $250 million

range that are faced with strategic and financial opportunities they have not previously encountered.

These businesses and their owners need high-quality advice on a bespoke basis delivered discretely.

Principals

Renaissance was conceived by Ali Ahsan and Yasser Toor.

Ali moved to Pakistan in 2014 following a career in corporate securities law and advising Fortune 100 companies at McKinsey & Co. in New York. From 2014 to his departure in 2018, Ali built the on-ground McKinsey practice in Pakistan from one (himself) to 40 employees. As word of his departure circulated, Ali found himself being approached by large family-owned enterprises for advice, many of which he had spent years calling on for McKinsey without success.

Yasser was born and raised in Lahore and had spent twenty years as a private equity investor,

first in the United States and later focused on emerging markets in sub-Saharan Africa.

By 2018, he was also spending more and more time in Pakistan to be closer to his family and had similarly found himself being approached by friends and business-owners for advice as a trusted confidante.

These businesses and others— often led by capable foreign-educated second and third generation heirs— saw value in high-quality counsel and analysis but sought personalized and high-touch interaction with principals rather than broader teams that typify larger firms. The issues and companies were complex,

multi-generational, with cross family ownership and often required a high degree of discretion as well as a customized solution.

Ali and Yasser teamed up to launch Renaissance in 2018 with a focus on providing world-class strategy and advice to the executive leadership of large enterprises in Pakistan. We take pride in our deep and long-term relationships with some of the most progressive businesses in the country and the fact that the majority of our new clients are referrals from our existing relationships.

We have known each other for over three decades and often have relationships with our clients that span a similar time-frame.

Values

To work on complex problems for key decision-makers: Our structure and team is lean and focused by design. Our clients choose to work with us because they value principal-to-principal interaction. Consequently, we dedicate substantial amounts of our own time to each client and their mandates. This also means that we seek to focus on the most complex and most demanding tasks. We have, and will, decline work that does not promise to significantly move the needle for an enterprise.

To be fact-based and frank: We believe in the power of data and logic, and work from first-principles to address problems and create solutions. Our clients engage us not because we

agree, but because we bring a clear perspective rooted in fact-based analysis and commit to providing our best advice to our clients, regardless of what they may wish to hear.

To put our money where our mouths are: We believe in standing behind our advice and our engagement structures reflect this. Where the project allows (ie where success is objectively measurable, whether an M&A transaction or business process improvement), we welcome success-based compensation and opportunities to invest our own capital.

To be world class: Between us, the principals have more than three decades of experience at

leading firms of global business and finance. Renaissance embodies our belief that the professional traits essential in New York are sought in equal measure everywhere – professionalism, discretion, absolute dedication to the tasks at hand, a commitment to over-delivering and being always-on and always available.

Collegiality: We work in this space because we enjoy it and enjoy working with each other. We want our colleagues, clients and counterparts to experience the same collegiality that keeps us energized and excited to engage every day.