Marrakech – Abdelali Benamour, the Moroccan economist who founded the management school HEM and led the Competition Council for a decade, died on Thursday in Casablanca. He was 85.
Born on September 10, 1941, Benamour earned a licence in economics from Fez and Rabat in 1964. He then continued his studies in Paris, completing a DES at Paris-Panthéon in 1966 and a doctorate in economics at Paris-Sorbonne in 1968.
From 1966 to 2001, he taught as a professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat and Hassan II University in Casablanca. He also cofounded ISCAE and became its first director, running the school from 1971 to 1976. In those early years, he worked to open the institution to the corporate world and abroad, including a strategic partnership with HEC Paris.
In 1988, Benamour founded HEM, which grew into one of Morocco’s main schools of management and drew students from the country and beyond. His ties to the school were personal. His family lived there in its early years, and his eldest son was born there while he directed it.
At the faculty of economic, legal, and social sciences in Casablanca, his lectures filled the amphitheater nearly an hour before each session. He gave the first part of every class to student questions, often tying them to current economic, political, and social affairs.
His work extended into politics. He served as a USFP deputy for Casablanca from 1976 to 1981 and sat on the city’s communal councils in Mâarif and then Aïn Chock from 1976 to 1992. He later distanced himself from the USFP and from partisan life.
In 1995, Benamour founded the association Alternatives, a think tank focused on economic, educational, and societal questions. He presided over it until 2002 and remained its founding president afterward. The group organized conferences and meetings on subjects that ranged from judicial reform and democracy to institutions and economic development.
His name also stayed tied to the Competition Council. Named its president in August 2008, he confronted the limits of a body that was largely consultative and lacked real means of action. He pushed to widen its powers, arguing for an authority that could issue decisions and impose sanctions rather than only produce opinions and studies.
That effort accompanied Law 20-13, adopted in 2014, which strengthened the institution and allowed it to take up cases on its own initiative. He remained president until 2018, when Driss Guerraoui succeeded him.
Benamour held other public roles as well. He served on the board of Bank Al-Maghrib from 1994 to 2003, joined the special education commission COSEF from 1999 to 2005, and was a member of the Advisory Council on Human Rights.
He also wrote several works on economics and education, among them “Intermédiation financière et développement économique du Maroc” (1968), “La comptabilité nationale marocaine” (1971), “Le Maroc Interpellé” (1993), and “Repenser l’École” (2007).
A father of four, Benamour saw the institution he founded stay within his family, as his daughter Yasmine took over HEM.
