"The best advisory work doesn't just answer the question in front of you — it reveals the three questions you hadn't thought to ask."
Terence Oben founded Themis Advisory Group on a conviction shaped by more than fifteen years of professional practice: that the most consequential business decisions sit at the boundaries between disciplines, and that the advisors who see across those boundaries deliver outsized value. Trained as both an attorney and an accountant, with specialized experience in international taxation, he built a career identifying the places where legal complexity, financial architecture, and regulatory opportunity intersect — and helping companies act decisively when they get there.
Before founding Themis, Terence established Oben Legal, a law practice grounded in the principle that legal counsel should be strategic, not merely reactive. That founding instinct — the belief that professional services should anticipate complexity rather than respond to it — now animates every engagement Themis undertakes. The pivot from legal practice to a broader advisory model was not a departure but an expansion: a recognition that his clients' challenges rarely fit neatly within a single discipline, and that the advisory structure serving them should not either.
His perspective is shaped by a genuinely global orientation. Of African descent, with professional experience spanning multiple jurisdictions and regulatory environments, Terence reads opportunity where others see fragmentation. He is particularly focused on the emerging landscape of federal and state funding for artificial intelligence, education technology, and American re-industrialization — areas where regulatory complexity and transformative capital converge, and where businesses need advisors who understand both the rules and the possibilities they create.
This cross-disciplinary fluency is Themis's defining characteristic. When a client faces a government funding opportunity, Terence does not see it as a legal question, a tax question, or a compliance question — he sees it as all three simultaneously, and structures his advisory accordingly. It is this integrative thinking that allows Themis to deliver judgment that clients can actually act on, not just analysis they can file away.
Fifteen years of legal practice focused on navigating the intersection of corporate law, regulatory compliance, and strategic advisory — turning regulatory environments into sources of competitive advantage.
Deep expertise in cross-border tax structures, transfer pricing, and the financial architecture that optimizes international operations and government-funded programs.
Specialized knowledge of federal and state grant programs, appropriations processes, and the compliance infrastructure required to secure and maintain non-dilutive capital.
Beyond his commercial practice, Terence founded the AfriGlobal Legacy Foundation — an organization dedicated to building institutional capacity, advancing educational access, and fostering intergenerational prosperity across the African diaspora. This dual commitment to commercial excellence and social purpose is not a side project. It is central to who he is and how he leads.
Visit the Foundation →The evolution from Oben Legal to Themis Advisory Group reflects a simple observation: the problems worth solving rarely respect professional boundaries. Clients navigating government funding, regulatory risk, and strategic complexity need advisors whose expertise is equally unbounded. Themis was built to be that advisor.
Visit Oben Legal →At Themis, Terence leads alongside Managing Director Ksenija Nikolić, whose operational command and international relations expertise ensure that every engagement delivers not just sound judgment, but executable strategy. Their partnership is the structural foundation of the firm: Terence's cross-disciplinary vision identifies the opportunity; Ksenija's operational rigor ensures it is captured.