How to Rescue a ‘Dead Horse’ Business?
Khalid Chami, Group CFO of ALi & Sons Holding explains how modern CFOs must act as ‘chief value officers’ to balance family business with growth, M&A, and disciplined investing in the UAE ecosystem.
In the latest episode of The Dollar Diaries, Khalid Chami — Group CFO at Ali & Sons Holding and an experienced investor across the region — offers a masterclass in how modern finance leaders move beyond bookkeeping to become architects of long-term value. Across a wide-ranging conversation that touches on family business dynamics, strategy formulation, portfolio management, restructuring, M&A integration, fintech investing, and career development, Khalid distills decades of practical experience into pragmatic advice for CFOs, investors, founders and ambitious finance professionals.
This blog post synthesizes the episode’s core ideas, expands on the frameworks Khalid uses, and translates his guidance into actionable recommendations you can use whether you’re running a family-owned conglomerate, launching a fintech startup, or plotting your next career move in finance.
Why the CFO must be a ‘Chief Value Officer’ Khalid’s central thesis is that the role of the CFO has to evolve. Too often CFOs are treated as guardians of the numbers — controllers and bookkeepers whose primary job is financial stewardship. Khalid argues that in modern businesses, especially diversified family groups, a CFO who confines themselves to cost-cutting and accounting risks being seen as an “expensive bookkeeper.” Instead, the CFO must earn a seat at the strategy table and adopt the mindset of a “chief value officer.”
What this means in practice:
Start with the tone at the top: Understand the shareholders (often family members), their values, risk appetite, and long-term objectives. Strategy must be aligned with shareholder intent and the company’s cultural DNA.
Prioritize value creation over mechanical cost cutting: Cost optimization is important, but indiscriminate cuts can cripple revenue-generating operations, delay projects, and destroy future value. The question should be “How can finance enable the business?” not “How can finance police the business?”
Be pro-business and pro-data: Partner with sales and operations to diagnose pain points—delayed payments, legacy processes, poor reporting—and fix those to unlock growth. Timely, accurate reporting and streamlined payments are not just back-office wins; they prevent operational bottlenecks that directly affect top-line performance.
Strategy, Trust, and Family Business Dynamics Family businesses bring unique advantages — longevity, deep institutional knowledge, and alignment around legacy — but also specific constraints and sensitivities. Khalid emphasizes that success in family-run enterprises comes from listening, earning trust, and integrating with the company’s culture rather than imposing change.
Key Principles for Working in Family-owned Groups
Build trust over time: Credentials matter, but trust is earned by demonstrating competence, integrity, and humility — especially when things go wrong. Admitting mistakes and correcting them is a key path to trust-building.
Be part of strategy formulation: A CFO excluded from strategy debates reduces their impact to number-crunching. Strategy involvement lets the CFO shape investment priorities, risk appetite, and resource allocation.
Respect DNA while evolving the business: The culture that built the company carries institutional wisdom. Changes must be additive and respectful — add “flavors” that modernize but don’t erase the core identity.
Portfolio Management: How to Pick What to Keep and What to Kill Khalid’s approach to portfolio decisions (whether investments, expansions, or divestments) is methodical and candid. He stresses that every opportunity should be tested against strategy, capabilities, and realistic returns — and that opportunity cost matters.
A Distilled Framework
Strategy fit: Does the opportunity align with your stated corporate strategy? If not, it’s a candidate for quick rejection.
Capability match: Do you have the technical skills, operational bandwidth, and people required to execute? Diversifying into areas far from your capabilities without clear plans to build them is risky.
Time and capital requirements: What is the burn rate and how long until the opportunity becomes self-sustaining? Realistic timeline and capital planning reduce the risk of draining resources.
Opportunity cost: If evaluating ten opportunities, which four deserve deep diligence? Kill or deprioritize the rest to preserve bandwidth.
Khalid shared practical examples: if a construction business focused on downstream opportunities is offered an upstream oil & gas deal outside its expertise, the decision should depend on strategy, capability-building plans, and whether pursuing upstream would cannibalize better-aligned opportunities.
M&A and Integration: Plan Before You Buy One of Khalid’s strongest cautions is against reactive M&A. Too many organizations acquire companies and only afterwards attempt to figure out integration. He recommends planning integration long before the deal closes.
Best Practices for Bolt-on Acquisitions
Define the why: Have a clear rationale for acquisition—synergies, distribution, technology, talent—and measure success against those metrics.
Integration-by-design: Estimate cultural gaps, systems incompatibilities, and people issues before closing. Know which systems will change, which will remain separate, and how long full integration will take.
Balance patience with pressure: Integration takes time; new teams need to feel part of the family. But don’t wait forever—set milestones, metrics, and timelines to ensure progress.
Use consultants selectively: Consultants bring methodology and fresh eyes, but internal ownership is critical. Use external help for diagnostics or specialized integration tasks, not as a substitute for internal leadership.
Restructuring and Turnaround: When to Bury the Dead Horse When it comes to restructuring, Khalid distinguishes between dead horses (irrecoverable businesses) and recoverable units. The decision to divest or double down requires honest diagnosis.
Guidelines for Restructuring
Diagnose before you react: Use internal experts and external consultants to create an unbiased view of the business. Consultants provide frameworks; internal teams provide context.
Digital transformation can be restructuring: Implementing centralized shared services, ERP systems, and data lakes is often restructuring by design. These changes improve reporting, forecasting, and decision-making.
Incremental culture change: Preserve the useful aspects of the existing culture while introducing new practices and capabilities. Culture is not flipped overnight; it is enriched.
Investing in the UAE Ecosystem and the Fintech Thesis Khalid provides an inside view on why the UAE has become a magnet for capital: safety, infrastructure, digitized government services, and a top-down vision that aligns major institutions and sovereign investors. This macro context makes the region uniquely fertile for startups and institutional capital alike.
On fintech specifically, Khalid’s investment stance is pragmatic:
Regulation first: Many fintech models face heavy regulatory requirements and minimum capital thresholds. Understand licensing, capital requirements, and compliance before building product.
Distribution second: Product alone is not enough. How will you reach customers? Partnerships (banks, platforms, telcos) are often the most efficient route to scale.
Complement banks rather than fight them: Banks bring trust, distribution, and capital. Positioning fintech as a complementary capability often speeds adoption and reduces friction.
Realistic burn and timeline: Are you building for a quick exit or long-term scale? Capital and time horizons must match the ambition.
Practical startup advice from Khalid includes focusing on both product and go-to-market strategy, having realistic expectations about capital needs, and knowing whether you’re building to sell or build to last.
Career Advice: What You Should Be Becoming Khalid’s closing counsel is as personal as it is professional: focus on what you are becoming, not just what you are earning. Credentials (CMA, CPA, MBA, CFA) help, but career advancement is ultimately a function of skills, networks, exposure to strategic work, and continuous learning.
Career Moves that Compound Value
Choose roles that add capability and exposure: Early in your career, prioritize positions that teach you new skills (treasury, project finance, restructuring) and expand your network (bankers, investors, regulators).
Invest in yourself: Don’t wait for employers to fund upskilling. If AI or fintech literacy will make you more valuable, invest your time and money.
Take ownership of your trajectory: Seek mentors, ask what you’ll become in a role (not just how much you’ll earn), and measure career decisions by the skills and relationships you’ll acquire.
Key takeaways and final actionable checklist From Khalid’s interview emerge clear, repeatable rules for leaders and investors operating in family businesses and the broader UAE ecosystem:
Earn a strategic seat: Demonstrate value beyond accounting by contributing to strategy and showing how finance enables growth.
Build trust deliberately: Be honest, admit mistakes, and correct them quickly. Trust compounds and unlocks influence.
Prioritize capability and fit: Let strategy and internal capabilities decide which opportunities to pursue or kill.
Plan M&A integrations before you sign: Know how systems, culture, and metrics will align post-close.
Respect regulation in fintech: Map capital needs and distribution pathways before you scale the product.
Invest in continuous learning: Be accountable for your tech and domain literacy; training is an investment in career insurance.
If you lead finance in a family-owned conglomerate, sit on the strategy committee, and treat finance as an enabler of value. If you’re an investor or founder in fintech, do the regulatory homework and design a distribution-first strategy. If you’re a young finance professional, choose roles for what they’ll make you become.
Khalid Chami’s practical wisdom is grounded in humility: success in finance is not about ego or short-term wins, it’s about steady improvement, alignment with long-term strategy, and the patient cultivation of trust. For anyone navigating the crossroads between legacy institutions and fast-moving startups, his blueprint offers both guardrails and growth levers.
now this is a strategy we need to talk about more!