About
About Stewart Kirkham
29 years building, fixing, and advising real estate organizations across the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Director-level roles at EY and KPMG, and executive director with P&L accountability on the owner’s side.
Stewart Kirkham
Founder, MeridianValue
Profile
From the boardroom to the building site.
I have spent 29 years building, fixing, and advising real estate organizations, from a 115-building urban regeneration in the Gulf to a waterfront destination that opened through a global shutdown, to the retail platforms and marina developments I advise today. The work spans the Middle East, Europe, and North America, and it runs from the boardroom to the building site, because strategies fail in the space between the two.
I held director-level roles at EY and KPMG, and I have sat on the owner’s side of the table as an executive director with P&L accountability. That double record shapes how I work: I reconcile the data before I touch the strategy, I put a named owner on every decision, and I stay until the numbers move.
MeridianValue is the practice I run from Dubai. I work a small number of mandates at a time for CEOs, boards, family offices, and institutional owners, and every public claim I make carries a period, a base, and a source.
- LinkedIn Top Voice
- Weekly READ, published every week
- 29 years, three continents
Career
The record
Every public claim carries a period, a base, and a source.
2025 to present
MeridianValue, Dubai. Board-level advisory across retail platforms, marina developments, and refit facilities in Saudi Arabia and Europe.
Scale: Active mandates in Saudi Arabia and Europe
2024
Joint venture partnerships secured for growth capital.
Scale: $800M
2021 to 2023
Portfolio reset and debt restructuring across 90+ residential and commercial assets in Oman, delivered inside a Big Four mandate.
Scale: $800M
2019 to 2021
Executive Director of a $1.4B waterfront destination in Jordan. Launch ran through a global shutdown; F&B EBITDA rose 361% and footfall grew 160%.
Scale: $1.4B
2010 to 2015
Senior Manager on a $5.5B urban regeneration in the Gulf. 115 buildings delivered with $3.5B in third-party funding and a $500M cost reduction.
Scale: $5.5B
Career
Director-level advisory roles at EY and KPMG across the GCC.
Scale: $9B+ in portfolios across the GCC, MENA, and USA
Selection
How I take on work
I decline more mandates than I accept, because advisory work fails when the advisor needs the engagement more than the client needs the result.
If the situation fits, I say so and show what it would take. If it does not fit, I say that instead, and I will point you somewhere useful where I can.
Request a conversation
If your strategy should be producing results and the organization has moved sideways, send me a message.
I will tell you whether I can help and what it would take.