Advisor.

Educator.

MENNA DESSOUKI

Delivering urban and
sustainability expertise for
public sector and real
estate developers.

years of strategic and
technical experience at
top global firms.

10+

30+

awards,
scholarships, and
recognitions.

5+

Practice Areas

Sustainability

CITIES

URBANISM, INFRASTRUCTURE, & SOCIOECONOMICS

GREEN DESIGN, OPERATIONS, & INITIATIVES

TRAINING SESSIONS

• Comprehensive capacity building programs

• Master classes on specific topics

LECTURES

• Short, intensive sessions with a topical focus

• Foundational knowledge for core skill requirements

• Lessons learned from industry and practical advice

Educator

MENTORSHIP

• Personalized, one-to-one feedback, coaching, and
  guidance on-the-job

• General advice on navigating career growth

MANAGEMENT

• Program & Project Management
  (Including team structuring, timelines, budgeting, scope
  definition, RFPs, sub-consultant selection, onboarding,
  and management, site acquisition, permits, stakeholder
  engagement, etc.)

• Design Management
  (For Pre-Concept, Concept, and Detailed Master Planning
  Stages, & Pre-Concept & Concept Building Design Stages)

• QA/QC Reviews and Health Checks

• Risk Identification and Mitigation Planning

Services

CO-CREATION

• Strategies and Action Plans

• Vision, Project Definition, and Brief

• Early-Stage Ideas and Concepts

• Roadmaps, Scenario Plans, and Toolkits

• Frameworks and Guidelines

• Pre-Development/ Pre-Investment Feasibility Studies

• Investment Prioritization and Options Appraisal

• Regulatory Alignment and Standards Compliance

• Targeted Research and Insights

• Commercial Proposals

REPRESENTATION

• Specialist Presence and Thought Leadership

• Panel Participation, Moderation, and Public Speaking

• Workshop and Meeting Facilitation

What Menna Brings

Top-tier Experience

Menna delivered strategic urban and
infrastructure planning and sustainable
design consulting to influential public and
private sector entities, whilst employed at
highly-regarded global engineering firms
and as the founder of LifeWise, a boutique
advisory firm.

Real Projects, Expertly Guided

01. COUNTIES, CITIES, & TOWNS

02. MASTER PLANS & campuses

03. BUILDINGS & PAVILIONS

Image: MDPI

Image: Informa

Selected Works

Menna’s project experience spanned multiple scales, development stages, sectors, and
settings, equipping her with the skills to bridge strategy, design, and implementation.

SCALE

Countywide Planning, Infrastructure, &
Environment Strategy (Buro Happold)

AlUla County, KSA

Site-Wide Energy and Sustainability
Certification Strategy (Arcadis)

Al Ghadeer Community, UAE

Sustainable Design Concept, Program,
Systems, & Technologies (Buro Happold)

Expo Sustainability Pavilion, UAE

There’s more...

Private Sector

Design Firms

Real Estate Developers

Strategy Firms

Public Sector

Visionary Clients

A selection of clients Menna provided city development and sustainability advisory to during her
previous roles and as founder of LifeWise, a boutique advisory firm.

About Menna

Originally from Cairo, Egypt, Menna’s interest in
cities and sustainability ignited when she moved
abroad in her early 20's to pursue further studies
and gain industry-leading work experience. Whilst
living alone was valuable, she often felt homesick,
recognizing the need for cities like Cairo to offer
affordable, high-quality education, attractive job
opportunities, and a higher standard of living. This
fueled her dedication to understanding city
competitiveness, talent attraction, and sustainable
urban development — spanning socioeconomic
planning, infrastructure, destination development,
arts, culture, city services, and sustainable
business. A strong advocate for urban
regeneration, she believes in maximizing existing
assets to create vibrant, equitable, and safe cities.

Early in her career, Menna found that quality
learning resources were too expensive and often
lacked the advice needed to deliver real projects —
barriers that slowed her progress. This inspired her
to create the MD Cities and Sustainability
Accelerator program, which provides early-career
professionals the skills needed to help inform city
development and sustainability projects from the
outset.

Fluent in Arabic and English and having lived in
different regions, Menna bridges Eastern and
Western perspectives and thrives in diverse,
international teams.

Menna's mission is to enhance city services and enrich public
life through sustainable, context-driven strategies, and
empower others to do the same.

Education

Menna’s Bachelor’s degree trained her as an architectural designer and building engineer,
and augmented her with a view on liberal arts and social sciences. Her Master’s degree, a
professional practice program, deepened her understanding of the built environment’s
impact on global sustainable development, whilst covering the basics of business,
technology, and economics.

2015-2016

Master of Philosophy (MPhil)

Engineering for Sustainable Development

• Cambridge Trust Scholar

• Distinction in Dissertation (A+)

• Best Dissertation Poster Award

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (BSC)

ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING

• Academic Achievement Scholarship

• High Honor’s, Dean’s List

• Graduation Project featured in World Architecture
  News (WAN)

• Conference Grant to present at World Congress
  on Water, Climate, and Energy in Dublin, Ireland

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE DIPLOMA &
AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA

Valedictorian

Work Experience

INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT -
CITIES, DESTINATIONS,
cultural placemaking, &
SUSTAINABILITY

Dubai, UAE

Cairo, Egypt

• Menna provides strategic and technical
  advisory and training across all aspects
  of urban and infrastructure
  development, cultural and creative/arts
  planning, placemaking, destination
  development, and sustainability, in
  English and Arabic.

2025-PRESENT

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR &
PROJECT DIRECTOR -

CITIES, INFRA. & SUSTAINABILITY

Dubai, UAE

Riyadh, KSA

London, England

• Led multidisciplinary, global teams to
  deliver large, multi-sectoral city advisory
  and sustainability projects.

• Authored business development
  proposals and built client relationships.

~6 YEARS

FOUNDER & SUSTAINABLE
URBAN DEVELOPMENT LEAD

Dubai, UAE

Tirana, Albania

Cairo, Egypt

• Provided strategic and technical
  advisory in integrated urban
  development planning, sustainable
  systems and technologies, sustainable
  infrastructure coordination, green
  buildings, sustainability certification,
  and sustainability integration in
  organizations.

2.5 YEARS

SUSTAINABLE MASTERPLANS
& BUILDINGS CONSULTANT

Abu Dhabi, UAE

• Provided sustainable design guidance
  for communities and large-scale
  master plans during the Concept
  Master Plan (CMP) and Detailed Master
  Plan (DMP) stages of development.

• Collaborated with multiple disciplines
  including environment, ecology, urban
  planning, landscape, energy and water
  infrastructure, transport, architectural
  design, mechanical engineering, and
  safety and security.

>1 YEAR

URBAN PLANNER

Cairo, Egypt

• Developed early-stage concepts and
  strategies for master planning projects,
  including user experience ideas,
  activity programs and project briefs.

• Conducted research on city planning
  strategies, helped develop urban
  design guidelines, and prepared
  proposals for work winning.

0.5 YEARS

GREEN BUILDINGS &
CONSTRUCTION SITE INTERN

London, England

Düsseldorf, Germany

Cairo, Egypt

• Developed new technologies to
  improve the energy, daylight, and
  thermal comfort of buildings.

• Conducted primary research and
  developed 1:1 scale prototypes of new
  building technology products.

• Conducted construction site audits and
  helped review construction stage
  drawings for Cairo Airport’s seasonal
  terminal building.

• Developed a strategy to integrate big
  data within Mace’s internal operations.

Arcadian of the Quarter Award, for
leading People & Culture initiatives.

Middle East Young Engineer of the
Year 2014 Award

“Menna replaced my assumptions in the
realm of sustainability with actual, fact-
based possibilities. She is a true
professional with deep, spanning
knowledge that sets projects up for success
at the very beginning. At a time when
overscheduled professionals stare down an
unsustainable cadence of meetings, seeing
a forum that Menna will be leading on my
calendar has become a "look forward to it"
moment for me and my team at AOA. So
fortunate to have connected with this
unique professional.”

“Menna has a dedication and sense of
purpose which are outstanding. Her prior
professional and academic achievements
before coming to Cambridge, and her
exceptional performance while at
Cambridge, demonstrate that she is
capable of high levels of achievement in her
future career. Menna has a natural
confidence when speaking in public,
combined with a natural openness which
makes her a great team player as well as a
highly competent leader.”

“Menna worked with me on secondment
from Buro Happold’s Dubai to London office
and was a great pro-active member of the
team. On our main project together she
successfully took ownership of the complex
energy modelling tasks on a project with
Zaha Hadid architects and also helped to
manage the LEED assessment process with
Buro Happold’s Beijing office. At all times
she was diligent, professional, friendly and
great at collaborating.”

Tom Acomb

Chief Creative Officer, Blooloop Power 10,

Acomb, Ostendorf, & Associates (A0A), USA

Prof. Peter Guthrie

Professor of Engineering & Sustainable Dev.,

University of Cambridge, UK

Dr. Mark Dowson

Director of Sustainable Operations,

Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), UK

A few more here...

MENNA’S PROFESSOR

MENNA’S CLIENT

MENNA’S FORMER LINE MANAGER

Recommendations

CITIES &
SUSTAINABILITY

ACCELERATOR

D

Latest News

MD CITIES & SUSTAINABILITY ACCELERATOR PROGRAM -
COMING SOON

This 4-week online program equips early-career urbanists,
strategy consultants, designers, and real estate developers
with an understanding of multiple angles of development
planning, management, cultural placemaking, and
sustainability.

It simplifies complex topics and explains the interplay between
natural, built, and human systems, and how to uncover insights
at their intersection.

M

menna@mennadessouki.com