The preparation of carbon based catalysts following a modular concept has been investigated. A template assisted route was applied to obtain catalysts exhibiting different fractions of graphitic species while retaining their mesoporosity. The carbon materials were characterized by means of low temperature nitrogen adsorption, powder X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The synthesized replicas were tested as catalysts in oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene and electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction. The role of the different carbon species, namely amorphous carbon, small graphitic crystallites, and large graphitic crystallites in the catalytic behavior was discussed.