RABAUD ADVISORY
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Access · Negotiation · Institutional judgement

When the decision depends on people you cannot simply call

RABAUD ADVISORY advises institutions and companies operating where access is political, procedures are European, and the ground is unforgiving. We read how the decision is actually made, open the right channel, and hold the conversation.

Request a conversation Areas of practice

Both sides of the table

Brussels, fifteen years
The institutional side

Our founder Philippe Rabaud designed, funded and supervised European Union civilian missions from Brussels — writing mandates, structuring missions, overseeing budgets and procurement, coordinating Member States that did not always agree.

Dubai, since 2023
The other side

He now directs the delivery of contracts serving those very missions across Afghanistan and Iraq, for a leading European security operator — the private side of the same equation.

Twenty-five years of this work come down to one skill, and it is not a technical one: understanding how a decision is reached inside an institution, and being able to speak to the person who reaches it. Security was the terrain. The craft is negotiation.

RABAUD ADVISORY sells judgement: reading a situation, preparing a position, opening a channel, and sitting at the table. An advisory firm — nothing else.

We deploy no personnel, provide no guards, sell no equipment and operate no contracts. When an operator is required, we help you choose one — we are never that operator.

Areas of practice

Two families, one asset: an insider's reading of how institutional decisions are made — who decides, on what timeline, under what constraint, and what will actually be heard.

A
Institutional mandates

For organisations competing for, or delivering, European Union and United Nations mandates. Three steps, in the order they arise.

Positioning, bid strategy and proposal architecture — starting from the mandate behind the tender, not from the tender itself.

Assessment of local partners, subcontractors and intermediaries where public records are thin and reputation travels by network.

Logistics, accommodation and duty-of-care arrangements designed before the award, so that what is promised in the bid holds on day one.

B
Negotiation & representation

For private organisations facing an authority, an administration or a counterpart in a country where they have no history and no entry point. Diplomatic craft, applied to private interests — beyond the security sector.

Institutional representation

Carrying a private organisation's case to ministries, authorities, donors and international missions — in the register they expect, through the channel that exists.

Unblocking difficult situations

A permit that never comes, a contested implantation, an incident with local authorities, an exit from a contract or from a country. We prepare the position and hold the table.

Briefing & training

Working sessions for teams entering an institutional market or a new country: how decisions are made, by whom, and what your counterpart is actually measured on.

We open doors. We do not buy them.
Our work is representation and negotiation, conducted openly and within the law of the jurisdictions concerned. We decline assignments that require anything else, and we say so plainly.

Track record

Public institutional assignments only. Client-sensitive engagements are not disclosed.

0
EU civilian missions shaped — EUAM Iraq, EUPOL Afghanistan, EUBAM Libya, EUCAP Nestor
0
Member States brought to agreement on the staffing of a single mission
0+
Years across EU institutions, French ministries and the MENA region
0 M€
Combined mission budgets supervised (30 M€ + 34 M€)
0
International staff under duty of care in a critical-risk environment
0
Missions launched from nothing — and one closed and handed over

Behind every mission budget there are people who have to come home. That is the figure we have always counted first.

Education
NATO Defense College, Senior Course 111 · MSc International Relations, Panthéon-Sorbonne
Working languages
English (C2) · French (native) · Spanish (basic)

The firm

RABAUD ADVISORY is an independent firm based in Dubai, working across Europe and the MENA region through a network of institutional, legal and field practitioners assembled for each assignment. We take on a limited number of engagements, because the founder runs them himself.

Philippe Rabaud
Philippe Rabaud
Founder & Principal

Senior Analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the European External Action Service, briefing the EU High Representative and Member States on regional security. Before that, at the heart of the EU's civilian crisis-management machinery: designer and launcher of the EU Advisory Mission in Iraq, coordinator of EUPOL Afghanistan through to its closure, and programme manager for EUBAM Libya and EUCAP Nestor at the Foreign Policy Instrument.

Since 2023, based in Dubai, Country Director for Afghanistan and Iraq with a European security operator, responsible for the operational, contractual and financial delivery of contracts serving EU missions and delegations in both countries — the private side of the same equation.

  • European External Action Service — Senior Analyst, MENA (2019–2023)
  • EEAS / CPCC — Policy Officer, design and launch of EUAM Iraq (2017–2019)
  • EEAS / CPCC — Desk Coordinator, EUPOL Afghanistan (2015–2016)
  • European Commission, Foreign Policy Instrument — Programme Manager (2011–2015)
  • French Ministry of Defence — Chief of Staff to the Political Director; Deputy NATO Branch Chief (2006–2011)
  • Prime Minister's Office (SGAE) — Deputy Head, Enlargement & International Relations (2001–2006)
  • Reserve Lieutenant, counter-terrorism section, French Gendarmerie (2009–2015, concurrent)

I have spent my career in rooms where the file was thick and the trust was thin. What settled those rooms was never the document — it was knowing who was in front of me, what they could not say out loud, and what they needed in order to say yes. That is what I bring to a client.

Philippe Rabaud
Founder & Principal, RABAUD ADVISORY

Request a conversation

Tell us what you are facing, in a few lines. The first exchange establishes whether we are the right firm for it.

  • We answer within 48 hours.
  • The first conversation is confidential and free of charge.
  • If we are not the right firm, we say so — and, where we can, we point you to who is.
Email
office@rabaudadvisory.com
Telephone
+971 52 813 5868
Office
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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