This is a profile image of Rima Assi

Rima Assi

Senior Partner and Managing PartnerAbu Dhabi

Leads the Abu Dhabi office in the UAE; a core leader of our efforts in public finance and investments; globally coleads our work in social, public, healthcare, and education and champions our diversity and inclusion agenda

Rima is the global coleader of our work within the social and public sector, as well as healthcare. She also leads the Abu Dhabi office in the UAE.

Rima advises leaders, policy makers, and governments on wide-scale transformations with specific focus on fiscal-management and investment programs, enabling sustainable economic growth. She instills measures that shape sovereign balance sheets, such as making capital-expenditure investments more productive and developing sustainable debt programs; improve fiscal-cycle management via optimizing expenses and increasing fiscal revenues; attract investments into productive sectors; and develop growing ecosystems affecting the lives of over 400 million people in the Middle East and North Africa.

Rima has also been a strong proponent of innovation in knowledge and capabilities within the firm. Since 2019, she has driven the knowledge investment where she grew our internal capabilities to build assets and analytics platforms to enable faster insights to clients globally in the public finance and economic development space.

An active advocate of gender diversity, Rima has led McKinsey’s diversity and inclusion efforts in the Middle East for the past ten years. She has transformed the performance-review processes to increase awareness of unconscious biases and strengthened the meritocratic and inclusive environment for colleagues. Rima has published frequently on women’s empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa and is a frequent participant in and speaker at diversity-awareness events.

Rima is also a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and was recognized by Forbes in the top 50 most powerful businesswomen in the Middle East in 2022.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Rima was a banker working in the risk-control department of a multinational investment bank and financial-services company in France. She is fluent in Arabic, English, and French.

Published work

Adapting tax collection for uncertain times,” McKinsey & Company, September 2020

Closing the $30 trillion gap: Acting now to manage fiscal deficits during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020

The great balancing act: Managing the coming $30 trillion deficit while restoring economic growth,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020

Women at work in the Middle East,” McKinsey & Company, March 2020

Spending reviews: A more powerful approach to ensuring value in public finances,” McKinsey & Company, March 2019

Past Experience

Société Générale
Risk analyst

Education

Hautes Études Commerciales
MA, management