Jamal Fakhro

Jamal Mohamed Al-Fakhro (Arabic:جمال بن محمد بن عبدالرحمن بن محمد بن حسن بن محمود آل فخرو) is a veteran Bahraini legislator, business advisor and a member of Shura Council, the Bahraini upper house parliament. ). He is the Managing Partner for KPMG (one of the Global Big 4 professional services firms’) in Bahrain and Qatar. Fakhro was the first ever Arab to be appointed as a member of the KPMG Global Board and Global council. Fakhro was the Chairman of the KPMG Middle East and South Asia (MESA) Board; and member of the KPMG Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMA) Regional Board till Oct 2014. Having served as Managing Partner since 1987, he has extensive experience in the field of Audit, Tax and Advisory services in the region, especially for government sector, and banking and financial services companies. He also advices many family businesses in relation to family governance, risk and sustainable succession planning.
Fakhro has a special interest in the matters of Corporate Governance, and is a Founding Board Member of the Pearl Initiative in the Middle East, an initiative developed with the collaboration with the UN office for partnership aiming for transparency and accountability in the private sector.

Fakhro has been an active member of the Shura Council (Consultative Council (Bahrain)) since 1992 and the 'First Vice Chairman' for a number of legislative terms. A member of the Shura Council for over two decades, he has held responsibility in a lot of critical roles in different fields. For many years he was the Chairman of the Committee on Financial and Economic Affairs. Fakhro was also a member of the Committee preparing the National Action Charter of Bahrain (2001), subsequently he was a member of the committee activating the National Action Charter (2002), the National Dialogue (2011), and the National Committee to follow up on the implementation of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) Report (2011–2012).

In his role as Shura Council member, Fakhro has headed up a number of international, regional & national delegations at parliamentarian conferences. He has also been heading the Bahrain delegation to the IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) since 2007.

After graduating from Cairo University in accounting in 1977, Fakhro joined Fakhro Establishment for Accounting and Auditing (first national accounting and auditing firm established in Bahrain in 1968). The firm then was focusing on national work and clients and had not more than 15 employees. Fakhro along with the partners of the firm (Jassim Fakhro and Hussain Kasim) worked together to join a global firm and succeeded in becoming a national representative firm of KMG in 1982. In 1988 he led the negotiation of merging the operations of Fakhro Establishment and Peat Marwick to establish KPMG Fakhro in Bahrain. In 1997, he negotiated with KPMG International to acquire the operations in Qatar and since then the Qatar operation was established as one partnership with the Bahrain operations. Today, the Bahrain and Qatar offices, have a team of over 600.

Fakhro was recognized and honoured with the Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa Medal of a second-class, by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, at the opening ceremony of the eighth session of former Shura Council.