Opportunities & collaboration
My approach: I’m a builder at heart. I stay hands-on as a chief engineer and individual contributor while leading delivery and innovation teams.
I welcome opportunities to collaborate, advise, and build ambitious technology and AI ventures. I’m also open to full-time executive roles where the mission, scope, and team are the right fit.
Relevant roles include Chief Technology Officer, Chief AI Officer, VP of Engineering, Chief Innovation Officer, and Vice President Solutions.
I’m open to opportunities in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Minh City.
What I am doing right now
I am building a focused portfolio of AI products and services grounded in two decades of hands-on work across AI, data, machine learning, enterprise architecture, and automation.
Services
- CTO and AI advisory
- AI strategy to production
- Agentic operations and enterprise automation
- AI platforms, inference infrastructure, and GPU-powered services
Alongside this initial portfolio, I bring deep experience bootstrapping large-scale GPU-powered AI platforms and production services, including a 200 TB inference cluster running across 500 NVIDIA GPUs. I am open to senior leadership roles, advisory engagements, partnerships, and ambitious AI programmes.
Explore BUSA / CTO AI stories · Services & consulting · Connect on LinkedIn
Essays
Long-form reflections on AI, education, cognitive autonomy, and the human purpose of learning.
- Why We Still Study — The human purpose of education in an age of abundant intelligence.
- The Dark Forest — A conversation with AI about evolution, post-biological existence, and escaping the Dark Forest.
Summary
Enterprise AI and technology executive with 20+ years of experience building and scaling AI, automation, data, and digital platforms across APAC and EMEA.
At NEOM, I led AI & Automation, turning AI from experimentation into production across operations, workforce productivity, enterprise workflows, and customer-facing services.
Built sovereign enterprise AI infrastructure, deployed 50+ active AI assistants, delivered production AI applications and automation workflows serving 5,000+ users, with measurable ROIC impact.
Across leadership roles at NEOM, DBS, ING, Philips, and Teradata, and through 4 startup and scale-up environments, built teams, platforms, and products from concept to production, combining startup speed with enterprise scale.
AI Strategy to Execution
Advise senior leadership on AI strategy, governance, prioritisation, and scaling.
Turn AI strategy into production systems with measurable business impact and improved ROIC.
Sovereign AI Infrastructure
Build enterprise AI platforms and agents integrated across IT, OT, and operational workflows.
Team and Platform Scaler
Build and lead high-performing, cross-functional teams.
From Pilot to Production
Deliver products, platforms, and automation that hold up in real operating environments.
Selected experience
NEOM
Director, AI and Automation · Sep 2022 – Jul 2026
Led NEOM’s AI and automation programme across multiple sectors, focusing on operations, support functions, workforce productivity, and customer services.
Led multidisciplinary teams spanning AI, cloud, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, DevOps, data engineering, and platform delivery.
Defined the governance and operating model for AI and authored the NEOM AI Standards and Guidelines to support responsible AI adoption across the organisation.
Directed the build-out of sovereign enterprise AI infrastructure on Huawei Cloud and Oracle Cloud, including a self-hosted inference farm, enterprise model routing, and six production-grade models spanning vision, reasoning, TTS, and STT.
Led deployment of 50+ active AI assistants, core AI applications, AI deep research pipelines, and enterprise automation workflows integrated with document repositories, SaaS platforms, and IT/OT systems for production use.
Built and scaled the AI & Automation Centre of Excellence to 30 junior members, 6 AI experts, 150 community participants, and 500+ subscribers enterprise-wide.
Built the CoE learning curriculum on AI and data-driven Decision Science to facilitate the business engagement process and help teams bootstrap AI solutions from pilots to adoption.
Advised senior leadership at CEO / DCEO / VP level on AI strategy, governance, prioritisation, and scaling across business and technology functions.
Built partnerships with global technology firms and PIF. Regularly invited to contribute to AI industry gatherings in Saudi Arabia.
Stemly
Head of Science and Technology · Mar 2020 – Jun 2022
Led development of a hierarchical forecasting platform spanning SKU-, category-, and time-based forecasting for complex supply-chain and retail use cases, improving forecast quality, planning, and commercial decisions.
Delivered custom enterprise deployments for 10 customers, supporting catalogues of 10,000+ SKUs and enabling advanced forecasting in demanding operational environments.
Designed the SaaS and API platform from first principles and bootstrapped the DevOps foundation needed for reliable deployment, scaling, and customer onboarding.
Worked across sales, product, and engineering to speed up go-to-market and onboarding.
Teko Ventures
Chief Data Officer · Sep 2018 – Feb 2020
Built and led a 50-person multidisciplinary data organisation across six teams covering DataOps, Engineering, Data Science, Reporting, platform/DevOps and SaaS product delivery.
Defined and executed the company data strategy, putting in place the teams, platforms, and governance needed to scale data and AI.
Led development of key AI products, including a sales forecasting engine and recommendation framework, improving customer engagement, personalisation, commercial performance, and decision quality.
Built Data and AI consulting into a repeatable business line.
DBS Bank
SVP, Data Architect · September 2017 – May 2018
Led the design of DBS’s next-generation enterprise data platform for BI (Big Data), analytics, data science / machine learning, and AI across DBS Group (Singapore, India).
Led architects, data modellers, and lead engineers delivering the bank’s group-wide data transformation across big data and data science.
Defined a unified strategy and operating model for enterprise data practices, aligning architecture, governance, and delivery across a complex multi-country banking environment.
Established approaches for metadata management, data governance, and data access control, bringing data science, AI, and ETL under one enterprise data framework.
Integrated vendor platforms, in-house engineering, and open-source tooling to accelerate innovation while maintaining enterprise control and operating discipline.
Earlier Experience
ING – Enterprise architecture and streaming analytics leadership across predictive banking, fraud, and large-scale data platforms
Teradata Benelux – Head of Data Science across applied analytics, enterprise consulting, go-to-market, and custom ML solutions
Philips Research – R&D and engineering leadership in advanced software, compression systems, and hardware-software co-design
Executive Leadership Highlights
- Enterprise AI strategy and execution
- AI governance and standards
- Sovereign AI infrastructure
- AI across IT / OT systems
- From pilot to production
- Operational impact and ROIC
- Author and speaker
Education & Executive Programs
- AI Program – Stanford University
- Executive CTO Program – The Wharton School
- Master in Business Marketing (MbM) – TiasNimbas Business School
- Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering – Università di Catania
Selected Stanford Coursework
- XCS236 – Deep Generative Models
- XCS224N – Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning
- XCS221 – Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Techniques