Abdulaziz leads the finance department of one of the private colleges in Saudi Arabia. He's mainly responsible for ensuring the compliance of internal financial management policies and procedures, and conducts performance of reconciliation and accurate completion of the balance sheet. In addition, he manages the preparation of financial statements while giving advice on accounting system, budget, management information, cash flows and improvements of systems dealing with financial management and the payments pf staff and creditors. Abdulaziz is also well-versed in the recently announced VAT and has been advising SMEs on accounting related matter.
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Hesham K. Rowaihy
Partner – Pure Consulting Group
Hesham is a Partner at Pure Consulting Group, leading the management consulting practice. He is responsible for delivering transformation projects at client’s organizations that require strategy development, organizational effectiveness, and operational excellence.
Prior to Pure Consulting, Hesham was the Director of western region at Badir Business Incubation Program where he established and managed the first Technology business incubator and the first government-supported angel investors network (Sirb) in Jeddah. He coached and mentored entrepreneurs on strategy development and business modeling, and participated as a coach and judge in several local and regional start-up competitions.
Earlier, Hesham was a Manager at PwC Consulting, delivering several transformation projects with private and public sector clients. He worked closely with a Saudi Minister to formulate recommendations for organizing the labor market, tackling unemployment, supporting entrepreneurship, and developing SME sector in Saudi Arabia.
Hesham started his career in 2002 at Procter & Gamble as a support engineer intern and later joined Eimar Real Estate (SEDCO Subsidiary) as an Internal Consultant of property management, where he redefined departmental strategy and developed organizational & operational plans that led to improved performance.
Hesham holds a bachelor degree in electrical engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), and a master degree in business administration (MBA) from Indiana State University, USA.
Ziad Abdulaal is a Saudi venture capitalist and entrepreneur based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He currently serves as an investment manager at Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures (Wa’ed), a venture capital fund wholly owned by Saudi Aramco that focuses on innovative startups that aid economic development and diversification within the Kingdom. Abdulaal is also the co-founder of Mezmiz, Saudi Arabia’s premier online marketplace for healthy food. Abdulaal is passionate about entrepreneurship and has invested in several of the top Saudi startups working at Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures (Wa’ed)
Abdulaal joined Saudi Aramco as an investment analyst in 2014 and held various assignments within the company including Aramco’s portfolio management team, managing Saudi Aramco’s non-core portfolio and was part of the team that setup the Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Company “Dussur”, a $2 billion fund focused on industrial investments within Saudi Arabia. Abdulaal holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from PMU and a Master of Science in Finance from Durham University
Amal Dokhan is the Director of The BABSON GLOBAL Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (BGCEL). She held a number of roles in BGCEL including the New Ventures Acceleration and Corporate Innovation program. Throughout her career Ms. Dokhan gained a diversified range of experience in management and marketing related roles particularly in education and consultancy. Prior to that she worked in the KAUST Seed Fund where she developed marketing and events, while also providing a range of services to startup clients. Amal has previously managed an educational organization; during that time she designed programs and started several innovative initiatives to be implemented by the educators to improve the mindsets in order to foster creativity in the work place and the educational tools. In parallel to this she started her own business, which organized sports events and offered commercial consultancy to large organizations.
Bader is the Managing Director of Endeavor Saudi Arabia, he is coming from diversified disciplines as he was heading the SME development and debt financing division at the Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Center (WA’ED), where he worked directly with more than 200 startups companies in their business development stage, credit evaluation and approval while managing a portfolio exceeding USD 50 MM. He comes from a technical background that involved IT governance, database design, geophysical technologies. Besides his 10 years’ corporate experience, he had advised and invested in various local and international ventures in field such as motion pictures, streaming services, broadcasting technologies and SaaS. His voluntary contribution toward the local entrepreneurial eco system was vital where he has established a mentorship platform that is targeted to bring out corporations’ experts to help startups overcoming their business difficulties, also he put together the blue prints of an ICT university based incubator and acceleration program that was able to deliver successful ventures. Bader is holding a degree in Geophysics from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and MBA from London Business School.
Laoi Nassem is an entrepreneur, fashion designer, and business executive. He is well-known for founding "Lomar," which has become a pioneer in the Saudi men's apparel market. He's been locally, regionally and globally recognized for his inspiring entrepreneurial endeavor.
Emad Has a diversified experience in establishing and running Accelerators and Incubators in Saudi Arabia. He has established Badir-Jeddah business incubator, contributing in developing and managing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. Studied and visited over 30 Business Incubators, Accelerators, Tech. Transfer Offices, Innovation Parks across the US, Canada, and United Kingdom, prior to developing and validating several business developments approaches in handling different stages of the venture to adapt and overcome the challenges in our local market. Successfully incubated and handled more than 80 techs. based startups with an average of 40% graduation rate per year impacted the local economy by creating more than 300 jobs.
Emad holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, McMaster University, Canada, in addition to TOT Certification in Business Incubation Management Training Program by InfoDev - World Bank Group. And lately, he was selected from the UN-ESCWA Technology Center as an expert Technical Committee Member.
Emad is also an entrepreneur who founded two startups in Canada and Saudi Arabia.
A multi-sector well-rounded business executive with thirty years of experience in the information technology sector mainly in Saudi Arabia and served in positions in the UAE & Europe. Leads by example and empowers the creation of trustworthy team relationships. Comfortably assumes the role of the agent of change within the organization, not just initiating change, but championing and delivering and institutionalizing change initiatives. Possessing a natural intuition in business development, able to solve seemingly intractable business problems while delivering workable solutions accustomed to thinking "out of the box" while creating sustainable solutions.
Exhibiting a proficiency at combining technical knowledge within a commercial business framework through integrating innovative technologies into practical enterprise solutions. As a strategist and consultant the experience ranges from providing technology and business leadership to enabling strategic alignment, enabling companies to scale information technology aligned with the business strategy. Possessing a natural ability to interact with many levels in the organization from board, to governmental regulators, prospects, clients, and peers as a trusted adviser.
Specialties: Venture Capital, Investment, Regulatory, Online Portals, Broadcast Media, Islamic Banking, eGovernment, eCommerce, Civil Aviation, Airport and Airline management
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.
