Makkah, Saudi Arabia
The AI systems behind digital transformation.
AI Solution Architect at Cognivra, designing artificial intelligence solutions for enterprises in Saudi Arabia, including on-premise and sovereign deployments. Before this, Director of Data & AI at Samaya and Director at HiHala.
I build AI systems that run a business, not demonstrations of one.
I am AI Solution Architect at Cognivra, in the AIX unit.
I design artificial intelligence solutions for enterprises in Saudi Arabia, from the business need to the system in production, and I build the team and engineering practice that deliver them.
Many organisations here cannot let their data leave their own infrastructure. For them, I design on-premise and sovereign deployments.
Data protection is part of the architecture from the start, in line with the Saudi Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL).
Automation before headcount. Dashboards over decks. Scoped sprints instead of vague programmes.
KPIs treated like product metrics, and the uncomfortable question asked early rather than discovered late.
Employment and ventures together, most recent first.
AI Solution Architect
AI solution architecture and generative AI for enterprise clients in Saudi Arabia, within the AIX unit. I design artificial intelligence solutions that answer real business needs and can be run securely over time, including on-premise and sovereign deployments for organisations whose data must stay within their own infrastructure, in line with the Saudi Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL). I also build the team and engineering practice that deliver them.
Director of Data & AI
I led the group's data and artificial intelligence function, reporting to the Director of Strategy. Before it existed I ran the group's digital marketing across close to a hundred social accounts and twenty-nine brands. The reporting broke before anything else did, so I built the platform that fixed it, and the company turned that work into a department.
Director
A ticketing platform for events and partners, extending into services for visitors of the Two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Madinah, on its way to becoming a platform for the pilgrimage journey. My remit spanned product, data and commercial.
Chief executive
A software engineering and digital consulting company working in JavaScript, TypeScript, Elixir, Phoenix, React, React Native and Vue. Mobile, gamification, user experience, continuous delivery and remote practice, alongside fintech product management from requirements through to team supervision and testing.
Product & Promotion
A fintech venture building a super app. I work across product and promotion, shaping what gets built and the team that delivers it. The work is ongoing.
Software division manager
Ran the software division through a digital transformation programme: portfolio management and resource allocation, technical strategy across hybrid mobile, DevOps and QA, agile delivery from product backlog to sprint review, and product definition from workshops through to user testing. Coordinated a software and design team of twenty-five people across four continents, and presented digital strategy to executives and stakeholders.
Digital project & engineering manager
Built and ran an advertising technology startup serving an ecosystem of more than one thousand three hundred websites, with its own ad serving, scraping and scaling infrastructure. A Google policy change ended the model overnight. The best lesson in platform risk I have had.
Digital project manager
A digital consultancy doing startup consulting, user experience auditing, requirements and specification, dynamic prototyping and team coordination, for Total, GDF Suez, E-On, Olympique de Marseille, Salomon and Paris Saint-Germain.
E-commerce
Founded the first e-commerce business selling beard care products in France.
Functional project manager
Project initiation documents, requirements, functional specification, dynamic prototyping, planning, technical team briefing and user testing, for BMW, Google, Lancel, Symantec, Orange, Sage and Sauter.
One-off things I built, inside a role or outside one.
In build
Proving an object is genuine and tracing who has owned it, using chip verification and a hash-chained custody ledger. Written in Elixir and Phoenix.
Portfolio management
A two-year programme delivering twenty-five mobile learning applications, built with an engineering team I established in Istanbul.
Virtual reality
Conceived and led the build of a mobile virtual reality application that let future pilgrims walk through the landmarks of Makkah before travelling. At the time the idea was still considered a gimmick.
Customer relationship platform
A platform letting customers interact with BMW across the whole lifetime of their car. A four million euro programme.