Founded by senior practitioners. Built for boards. Resident in London and Dubai.
Pillar IQ was founded by senior practitioners after years inside the largest financial institutions and consultancies on both sides of the UK–GCC corridor. We built the firm we ourselves had wanted as clients - one where the people in the room are the people doing the work.
We do not run a pyramid. There are no junior consultants billed at senior rates, no management hierarchy assembled to populate a deck. Every engagement is led and delivered by people with two decades of practitioner experience in the issues we are asked to address.
Our identity is genuinely dual. London brings the depth of the UK regulatory perimeter and global capital markets. Dubai brings the energy of Gulf reform agendas, sovereign capital, and the institutions building the next generation of financial services. We move between the two daily.
A simple, three-stage method that has guided every engagement we have ever run.
Most engagements we are asked to bid for ask the wrong question. We invest the early weeks reframing the problem so that the rest of the work answers something that actually matters.
The recommendations we issue are designed to be implemented by the institution, on the institution's timeline, with the institution's people. No theoretical models that ignore reality.
We see engagements through to operational reality - through change, governance, regulator dialogue, and the first quarters of measured outcomes. That is when our work is done.
SJ International Consultants Ltd, Thavies Inn House, 3-4 Holborn Circus, London, EC1N 2HA, UK
We say what we believe, not what is convenient. To clients, to regulators, to each other.
Practitioners only. We bring deep functional and sector knowledge, not generalist frameworks.
We work alongside management - not above them. Their team is our team for the duration.
We measure ourselves on outcomes - in the institution's numbers, capabilities, and resilience.