Economic development & management consulting · Chicago

Evidence that moves local economies forward.

OAO Management & Financial Solutions advises governments, development agencies, and community institutions on where growth can happen, what it will cost, and how to fund and manage it. We bring World Bank and ILO-grade analysis to city, county, and state economic development work.

Request a capabilities briefing See selected engagements

Founder's client record

Practice areas

Six ways we help a region grow on solid numbers.

Each practice starts with data built for the decision at hand: a market sized from the bottom up, a workforce mapped by sector, a grant applicant tested against its own projections. Then we turn it into a plan someone can own.

ED-01

Economic development strategy

Regional and sector strategies, cluster analysis, and implementation plans with owners, timelines, and indicators. Built for adoption, not the shelf.

  • Cluster mapping
  • Value chains
  • Action plans
ED-02

Market & feasibility analysis

Market sizing, demand estimation, and feasibility studies for sites, programs, and ventures, triangulated top-down and bottom-up.

  • TAM / SAM
  • Feasibility
  • Demand models
ED-03

Workforce & labor market intelligence

Labor market information systems, skills-gap studies, and decision-support dashboards that show policymakers where jobs are and where they are going.

  • LMIS design
  • Skills gaps
  • Dashboards
ED-04

Small business & entrepreneurship ecosystems

Ecosystem benchmarking, national and local entrepreneurship strategies, and capacity building for small, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses.

  • Benchmarking
  • SME programs
  • Training
ED-05

Grant & investment due diligence

Viability assessments of firms and projects seeking public or donor capital, covering financials, market position, management, and risk.

  • Viability reviews
  • Financial models
  • Risk
ED-06

Financial management & compliance

Multi-funder budgeting, internal controls, and grant compliance for nonprofits and public programs, plus surveys and M&E that prove results.

  • Internal controls
  • Uniform Guidance
  • M&E

Who we serve

Public purpose, measured outcomes.

We work where economic policy meets delivery: the agencies that set priorities, the funders that finance them, and the organizations that carry them out on the ground.

Cities, counties & states

Economic development departments, workforce boards, and planning agencies in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, and beyond.

Multilaterals & donors

Development banks, UN agencies, and federal funders who need donor-grade research and independent assessment.

Nonprofits & community lenders

Community organizations and CDFIs managing multi-funder budgets, compliance, and impact reporting.

Businesses & investors

Firms entering new markets or seeking public incentives, and investors who need a defensible market case.

Track record

Selected engagements.

A representative sample of economic development and advisory work delivered by the firm's founder for institutional and community clients.

ClientEngagementContribution & result
ILO · Ministry of LabourNational Labour Market Compass
ED-03 · Current		Leads technical design of a national decision-support platform used by senior labor policymakers.
IFC · Ministry of EntrepreneurshipNational Entrepreneurship Strategy
ED-01 · ED-04		Authored the operationalization plan, adopted as official government guidance.
World Bank · Finance for JobsTech-ecosystem benchmarking
ED-04		Quantitative benchmarking of an entire entrepreneurial ecosystem that informed investment strategy.
World BankDiscrete choice experiment
ED-02 · ED-03		Designed and ran a study with 122 senior executives on the social value of jobs.
USAID via Andersen / DAIGrant viability assessments
ED-05		Assessed firms seeking $1M–$3M grants. All four assessed firms secured funding.
E-Trade Alliance · PalladiumDigital financial services market study
ED-02		Market research and product-market fit for smart-card and point-of-sale payment products.
UN WomenWomen's entrepreneurship program
ED-04		Business, marketing, and finance capacity building for 45 women entrepreneurs.
Agility · Italian Development CooperationRemote-work feasibility study
ED-02		Feasibility analysis for job creation in an access-restricted region.
IMAN · ChicagoDirector of Finance
ED-06		Multi-donor compliance, financial modeling, internal controls, and a $3M line of credit for a South Side community organization.

Engagements were delivered by Omar A. Omran as principal or lead consultant, including work completed before the LLC was formed.

How we work

From question to adopted plan.

The same five steps run through every engagement, whether the client is a city department or a multilateral program.

Frame the decision

Agree on the decision the work must support, who makes it, and what evidence will satisfy them.

Build the evidence

Bilingual surveys, executive interviews, focus groups, and administrative data assembled into clean datasets.

Analyze & benchmark

Market sizing, financial models, and peer comparisons that show the gaps and the realistic upside.

Recommend

SMART recommendations with owners, budgets, time horizons, and the indicators that will track them.

Support delivery

Monitoring frameworks, funder reporting, and course correction once implementation begins.

Portrait of Omar A. Omran

Founder & principal consultant

Omar A. Omran

Economist and strategist · Orland Park, Illinois

EducationMBA, Finance & Strategic Management, University of Illinois Chicago · BA, Business Administration, Birzeit University
Academia13 years lecturing; Assistant Dean of Business & Economics; founding director of an Erasmus+ research center
IndustryController who scaled a distributor from $5M to $60M; finance leadership for Chicago nonprofits
LanguagesEnglish and Arabic

Omar founded OAO Management & Financial Solutions to bring the rigor of international development economics to the communities he lives and works in. His career spans World Bank, IFC, and ILO assignments, USAID-funded due diligence, and senior finance roles in Chicago's nonprofit and distribution sectors.

That mix means clients get an analyst who can design the survey, build the financial model, defend the findings in front of a ministry or a city council, and then set up the controls to manage the money that follows. His research on clusters, quality management, and entrepreneurship education has been cited more than 740 times.

Good economic development starts with a number everyone trusts and ends with a plan someone owns.

Contact

Planning a strategy, study, or program?

Tell us the decision you are facing. We will reply within two business days with a short note on how we would approach it, at no cost.

Registered in Illinois as OAO Management & Financial Solutions, LLC, doing business as OAO4Solutions.

Emailomar@oao4solutions.com
Phone+1 (708) 932-0449
OfficesChicago, Illinois · US | MENA | Europe
LinkedInomar-omran-bzups