AI-Native CTO + Technology Operating Partner
AI is changing what companies build, how technology teams work and where competitive advantage comes from.
I help founders, investors and organisations across the Middle East and Africa turn that change into better products, stronger technology foundations and operating capability that works in the real world.
25 years in technology, the last eight building in the Middle East. Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Amazon, then Emirates Group, Rain, MultiBank Group, CTO of the sovereign-backed Digital Assets Oasis and now a venture studio in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Technology leadership across regulated financial services, digital assets, aviation, marketplaces, AI and economic development.
Built in the Middle East
For eight years my work has been in the Middle East, inside the institutions, regulators and markets that founders and investors here have to work with.
That changes what a technology decision looks like. Regulation, government stakeholders, partners and talent are part of the architecture, not a footnote to it.
Chief Technology Officer. The first regulated digital-asset exchange in the MENA region, in DIFC.
Chief Technology Officer. A sovereign-backed free zone in Ras Al Khaimah.
Embedded CTO, building consumer, fintech and SaaS ventures.
The same eight years also run through Emirates Group and MultiBank Group. If you are building, investing or governing in the region, that is context you will not have to explain to me.
Founders, investors and institutions arrive with different questions. Each has its own page.
For founders and CEOs
For investors, boards and venture studios
For executives and institutions
It changes the roadmap itself.
Software can now interpret, create, reason and act. Small teams can build what once required departments. Products can adapt to each customer. AI agents can increasingly take on complete pieces of work.
That creates extraordinary opportunity. It also creates new technical debt, security risks, cost models and organisational questions.
The companies that win will not be the ones that use the most AI. They will be the ones that make the best decisions about where intelligence belongs, how it is governed and how people work alongside it.
That is the work of the AI-Native CTO.
Some companies need an experienced CTO around the table each week. Others need decisive leadership through a transition, an independent view before an investment or a practical route from AI ambition to execution.
I work across six connected areas.
Ongoing senior technology leadership without a full-time executive hire.
Hands-on leadership when the business cannot afford drift.
Independent technology judgment for investors, boards and portfolio companies.
Move from scattered experiments to a clear AI-native operating model.
Clear, time-bound engagements for difficult technology questions.
An experienced voice for boards, conferences and institutions working through the AI shift.
From AI-assisted to agentic
The first phase of enterprise AI gave people better tools. The next gives software more responsibility.
AI agents will research, plan, produce, test, monitor and coordinate work. But an agent is not a digital employee simply because it can call a few tools. It needs a clear role, trusted knowledge, controlled access, measurable standards and a human owner.
Becoming agentic is therefore not a software installation. It is an operating-model decision.
I help leaders decide which work should remain human, which work can be delegated and how to build the control system around both.
I connect business ambition to architecture, investment, teams and executable work. The strategy does not end when the presentation does.
I have built new platforms, led large engineering organisations, replatformed regulated businesses and created technology foundations where none existed.
My experience spans global institutions, high-growth companies and greenfield ventures. I understand both the control expected at scale and the speed required to create something new.
I am not tied to a cloud, model, platform or consultancy delivery target. The recommendation starts with what the organisation needs.
Over 25 years, I have worked across software engineering, architecture, product, operations, transformation and executive leadership.
This range matters. The hardest technology decisions are rarely purely technical. They sit where customers, capital, regulation, talent and execution meet.
The question is usually asked a quarter too late, and framed as a budget decision when it is a risk decision.
Technology Operating PartnerMost reports describe a system. A useful one answers the questions the investment committee is actually asking.
Talent and OrganisationThe pilot worked. It was never going to survive contact with how the company actually makes decisions.
Whether you are building something new, repairing what already exists or deciding what AI should mean for your organisation, the first step is a clear conversation.
I will give you an honest view of the problem, where I may be able to help and what I would do next.
Start a ConversationI work across the Middle East and Africa, and meet clients in person in Dubai, Riyadh, Accra, Cape Town, Nairobi and Abuja.