Keenan Grote features in Villa 88 Magazine to discuss 'Building the future of the Region'

Click here to view the feature on Villa 88's Website: https://www.villa88.com/man/keenan-grote-pmkconsult-future-region/

Keenan Grote, the founding partner and Chief Operating Officer of PMKConsult, is a man who knows how to find silver linings. A nimble and intuitive businessman, he has built a career out of following his gut and spotting opportunities in situations that might cause others to throw in the towel. A builder at heart, he has, over more than fifteen years, constructed a business in the region focused on helping the Gulf grow and prosper.

His first pivot took place when, after studying to be a lawyer, he realised what he really wanted to do was follow in his father’s footsteps. He turned a job he originally did over the summers and on weekends into a full-time career, working in the New Orleans construction business, renovating and flipping houses. “I loved that kind of work,” Keenan recalls. “I loved the immediate gratification of being able to stand back and see something you achieved in a day, building something with your own hands.” 

Then Hurricane Katrina hit hard. For the next six months, Keenan helped rebuild the city. Then, he and his wife Shali decided to think outside the box again, and this time, they looked East – to Dubai. On the recommendation of an old school friend, they planned to spend a year in the UAE, exploring the burgeoning construction market in the country. That was in 2006. 

“The first job I ended up taking was for a contracting company. The CEO was a guy named David Gatward,” recounts Keenan. “Over the course of the next couple of years, he and I built up a good relationship, and we decided to set up a management consultancy on our own. And that’s when 3SixtyConsult was born, in 2008.”

For most people working in any capacity with the construction or housing industry, 2008 is a year that lives in infamy, with the global crash of the housing market. Keenan, however, says he “hit the ground running”, strategically building a diversified business of specialised projects. For example, he was behind the construction of Sky News’ first Arabic channel in Abu Dhabi, which he managed the build from the ground up. 

“We ended up having more work than we could really handle – we were doing a lot of media and broadcast builds, which were booming at the time,” says Keenan about those heady early days, name-checking other builds like the Baynounah Media Group, OSN and Al Jazeera in Qatar.

Over the years, 3SixtyConsult continued to grow and, eventually, Keenan bought out his partner to take sole control of the company in 2018. Then, in 2021, he was looking to make his next big leap of expansion. 

“I was doing quite well, but as a sort of captain of the ship, you’ve only got two hands. So, when you’re focused on service delivery, you aren’t able to put the time into business development,” says Keenan. “So I really wanted to work with someone who had the same goals and aspirations, and where we weren’t going to cannibalise our existing client base – where one plus one could equal three.”

He found that partner in Kevin Woolley and his company PMKConsult. The merger of 3SixtyConsult with PMKConsult was the start of a new era for the founders. They created a refreshed brand and business to emphasise their three core values – People, Management, and Knowledge. 

Since the merger, PMKConsult has grown “100 per cent per year”, as Keenan puts it, acquiring businesses to expand their commercial service portfolio and geographic footprint. Today, they have offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah, London, and most recently in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where they opened three years ago. 

The company currently specialises in projects across various sectors, excluding civil infrastructure and transportation, and has built a strong technical team with backgrounds in contracting and engineering. 

“I think we’ve got some of the best people in the industry working at PMKConsult. We work very hard to recruit the best and to keep the best,” says Keenan. “We always look for technically competent people to deliver the work we’re involved in. We have a number of engineers and architects who have come from a myriad of different backgrounds and professions, as opposed to people who have just sort of ventured into project management by doing some certification. We are adamant that it’s an added value to have people who come from those backgrounds to be able to manage the engineers and architects working across our projects.”

Over the past three years, the firm has focused on high-end retail and hospitality projects, appointed by UAE developers such as Aldar and DFS Group. In fact, when DFS Group won the contract to place all the duty-free stores at Abu Dhabi Airport, PMKConsult was contracted to help them deliver all their luxury brands, including Gucci, Fendi, Hermès and Michael Kors, among others. 

“We worked for several years with the brands themselves, as well as the DFS team, and we managed the design of the stores all the way through to different supply chains. Many of these brands insist on getting luxury and the highest calibre of joinery and millwork done, mostly from Italy and some places in France. Our team coordinated that with the direct supply chain, the deliveries and logistics,” Keenan explains, talking of the meticulous process of making sure the stores were up to the exacting levels the luxury brands required. 

After successfully working with such luxury brands for several years through DFS, PMKConsult went on to work on an extensive project with Burberry. They collaborated with the British fashion house on the construction of store locations throughout the GCC.

Another category that is important for Keenan’s company is the hospitality sector, which has led PMKConsult to work with hotels such as Rixos, Marriott, Hilton, and Aldar Hospitality – the latter being one of its biggest clients. “At present, we have a team of around 15 people working on Yas Plaza on Yas Island on what was originally five independently operated assets that are now being converted into a single five-star resort operated by Aldar, which will be around 1,700 keys,” he explains. 

Over the years, Keenan has earned his company award-winning recognition due to his ability to handle operations, service delivery and a high level of technical competency. Their portfolio now includes projects in the GCC, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, comprising some of the region’s most prestigious assignments, from national museums and speciality clinics, to anticipated commercial and governmental projects.

As with any business looking to remain on the cutting edge of innovation, Keenan has made technical competency a cornerstone at PMKConsult. His focus is to consistently be aware of and adapt to new technology, in order to be more effective and efficient in running his business so it can be at the forefront when it comes to delivering time-sensitive projects. 

“We have been working for years now on how to integrate technology into the construction field,” Keenan shares. “There are a few technological elements, mostly software, that we have utilised and brought in – that ranges from condition surveying and front-end identification of your environment through scanning software.”

PMKConsult has started using a software called Matterport, a 3D-scanning tool that performs a 4k video scan and a laser scan of a built environment. The software can be used to go into any existing asset and proceed through the entire building, using the scanning technology to create a digital twin of that environment. This representation can then be converted into AutoCAD or BIM technology to measure and design any refurbishment or alteration to a given space. 

“It’s also a great way for you to be able to work with clients who may have stakeholders in multiple locations around the globe, because it allows them to do a virtual tour through the space from any place in the world,” says Keenan.

On the software side, the PMKConsult team continues to explore advances to best suit clients’ needs. “One of the big pushes my team is working on right now is exploration into 3D printing technology and its application in construction,” notes Keenan. “There are a number of entities coming into the market now globally, mostly in the United States, followed by Europe, and we’re looking to see if we can find a way to push this technology further than it currently is in the GCC.”

Ever the optimist, Keenan is also bullish about how AI technology will be integrated into his industry. “The technology is becoming a big player in the construction market, and to be perfectly honest, it’s about time, because this construction industry, for the last 100 and 150 years, has hardly evolved,” admits Keenan. He points to how the integration of AI into construction could assist in creating more efficient designs on projects across all sectors, and how it can also be leveraged in the implementation and management of subcontractors and contractors, on-site manpower, and even the tracking of health and safety issues. 

Looking to the future, Keenan only sees huge potential for the region. Besides the booming construction business in Saudi Arabia, he points to the untapped potential of Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE as another area of industry growth, adding that he is looking forward to PMKConsult having a major role in helping to build that future. 

“PMKConsult is UAE born and bred. We’re very proud of that. We love this country that we’ve grown with and the clients we’ve worked with,” he concludes. “All I want to do is continue to bring value, quality of expertise, and management consultancy to businesses that are looking to make the region thrive and prosper.”