Dr. Samar Khan is an aspiring young Saudi woman who lives by the creed that one should strive to serve a higher purpose by going above and beyond the call of duty. Born in 1983, Dr. Samar received all of her schooling in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and earned her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from King Abdul-Aziz University. After graduating, she decided to pursue her Master’s degree in Economics and Administration from Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University. As she continued living in the UK, she discovered her passion for economics and administration, so she decided to pursue her PhD degree in Energy Security and Renewable Energy from business perspective at the same university. She authored an article with the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies entitled “Energy efficiency: the first renewable’’, and published a journal paper in the Energy Research Journal titled: ‘’Investigating Consumer Awareness of Energy Efficiency in Saudi Arabia’’. She also wrote many articles in different newspapers in Saudi Arabia. As one of pioneering Saudi women in energy, she was featured in numerous Saudi newspapers and magazines, where she became a regular guest on Middle Eastern talk-shows. Currently, Dr. Samar is an assistant professor and Dean of College of Business at Effat University.
Mazin Al Zaidi is part of the investment attraction and development team at the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), specializing in digital technologies & industries. Key focus of his work is the continuous attraction of direct foreign investments in the Digital sector and the development digital ecosystem in Saudi.
Before joining SAGIA Mazin spent 8 years in the startup tech and innovation ecosystem of London. He launched his own business in 2012 during his postgraduate study at the University of Warwick in the UK. He started his business in the university's library where he used to conduct most of his work. Since then his business has transformed more than once, and today that business has been crafted into Innorrupt.
A background in technology, business and engineering, Mazin helps established organisations to make growth through strategic innovation, new business models and corporate entrepreneurship. He supports digital business transformation through the adoption and deployment of digital technologies and disruptive business models to improve organisational performance. Mazin combines security thinking analysis with innovation processes to enable organisations to avoid creative destruction. Mazin has managed different projects in London, Tokyo and San Francisco.
Mazin is a Ph.D. researcher at the Cyber Security Center in the International Digital Lab (IDL) at the University of Warwick. Mazin’s current research in cyber security focuses on the protection of intellectual assets within an agile dynamic business environment (e.g. incubators, accelerators & innovation labs).
In 2016, Mazin was a guest lecturer at the University of Warwick on the subject of corporate innovation. He has been invited to speak at numerous conferences and events on innovation and entrepreneurship, including the Arab Innovation Network Annual Conference in UAE and the Entrepreneurial Knowledge Symposium at Souq Okaz in Saudi Arabia.
Ali has more than 9 years of idustry and consulting experience. He led a variety of strategy, operations and organizational projects, including: developing and executing for a market entry strategies, strategic opportunity portfolio prioritization, developing operations manuals, developing organizational processes, and developing organizational roles and responsibilities.
His professional experience includes:
• Planned and activated a key initiative of a semi government entity, in collaboration with key international stakeholders. This role included the supervision of an integrated social media campaign to support the initiative.
• Developed the investment kit for an SAR 600 Million riyal plant, which was addressed to the governor of the Public Investment Fund.
• Conducted operational diagnosis on a Facility Management company that led to an 11% improvement of the bottomline.
• Developed the operations manual, marketing strategy, and the initial business model, for an initiative of a newly established semi-government entity. The engagement included adapting a completely new service to the Saudi market using global benchmarks along with local market insights.
• Led an engagement to review the strategy of a Jeddah based branding firm. The strategic review included prioritizing the opportunities portfolio of the company with a focus on optimizing the learning curve of the company.
• Led a stream in an exploration organization to redefine the methodology to prioritize upstream exploration opportunities to ensure a target based approach for prioritization.
• Consulted with companies engaging in tight gas operations, gathered global tight gas raw data, and executed feasibility studies; resulted in Saudi Aramco's CEO, re-directing the tight gas strategy over the next ten years.
• Won 1st prize at a three month Arab Oil Exploration Workshop, Egypt sponsored by Saudi Aramco and Petroleum Development Oman.
A career that has spanned many links up,down, and across the hi-tech food chain. I equally enjoy both the business and technical aspects of the work I do but the thing I enjoy most is unleashing the potential of people around me and seeing their success multiply. Specialties: VC, E-gov services, Corporate Strategy, Embedded and real-time software, DSP software, GSM, Networking, RTOS, and the Mobile Communications Market in general
