Omar Khan
Founder and Senior Partner
Sensei International
Excellence in Client ServiceOmar Khan was born in Egypt, the son of Pakistani diplomats, and has lived in Germany, the United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, England, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Dubai and Singapore. It’s no wonder then that Khan’s latest book (with Alan Weiss) is called The Global Consultant. He operates a blog of the same name.
Khan was a pioneer in Neuro-linguistic programming, and tapped that background when he founded Sensei International, a global leadership development and consulting firm with 20 people in the U.S., the U.K., Asia Pacific, the Middle East and South Asia.
In 1992, Khan created a firm called Training 2000 in Pakistan, fertile ground with enough business and hardly any consulting firms. “This was the heyday of re-engineering. Re-engineering process is one thing, but re-engineering people is another.”
This gave Khan his big idea. “If we took our people management skills and linked them with the process skills of a change management firm, it would be a potent combination,” he says. So that’s what he did, teaming with a British firm called York MDM to form Sensei International.
“Usually you have people that deal with human performance, and others that deal with business performance and never the two shall meet,” he says. “We are interested in delivering strategic business results by working through and engaging in human performance. We’re looking to build a bridge that we think has been overlooked.”
Khan says there’s no easy way to define Sensei. “We were doing this long before anyone knew what to call it.” Khan says. “Elements of what we do fall into strategy, we support operations, and there’s clearly an HR component. I think Sensei transcends the usual way the profession is defined.”
Clearly Khan is onto something. Khan says the firm’s been growing steadily and forecasts double-digit growth again this year. He was nominated for the Top 25 award by more than a dozen clients, which include American Express, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Ritz-Carlton and Unilever. “This award is a re-affirmation of what we’re doing,” Khan says.
“Hopefully, we can continue to add to the value space—and maybe even create a new one.”
—Joseph Kornik
>> Full list of Top 25 Consultants 2010
