BROWSE BY REGION

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.

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.

Ahmed works with 500 Startups as Head of country operations in Saudi Arabia, investing in seed-stage startups and fundraising from investors. He received his MBA-Finance from Cornell University- Johnson Graduate School of Management 

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