The Gulf Magazine

The Gulf Magazine Connecting the Gulf with insightful news, business trends, and regional expertise.

She turned Communications and electronics engineering degree into something nobody had a roadmap for.That is where it st...
11/06/2026

She turned Communications and electronics engineering degree into something nobody had a roadmap for.

That is where it starts.

She began with internships at the Egyptian Telephone Company and Egyptian Radio and TV Union. Satellite systems. Studio blueprints. The kind of grounding that had nothing to do with where she was heading. But it gave her something most product leaders do not have coming in: she understood how systems are built at the hardware level before she ever touched a software brief.
Then she went sideways. Marketing. Public relations. Then in 2014, she co-founded Blue Card, a mobile app that let users share real-time business card information. It ran for about a year. It did not become a household name. But it taught her exactly what it costs to build something from nothing, and that lesson did not leave her.

She moved into business analysis and product management, taking on roles at ExpandCart, almentor, Wanas Apps, Suiiz App, MyCash and most recently Career180 where she continued building and scaling digital products across EdTech, e-commerce, and fintech. With each one came the same quiet observation. Talented women across MENA were doing the work. Building the products. Shipping the features. Just without the community around them to reflect it back.

Omkolthoum Gamal El-Din decided that needed to change.
Since taking the Egypt Chapter Lead role at the MENA Women Product Managers Guild in December 2024, she has been recognized as one of Egypt’s Trailblazing Product Leadership Voices of 2025 by The Arab Leader and named an Arab Leaders 2025 Honoree. Her writing has appeared in Business Analysis Magazine.

She holds ISTQB Foundation Level certification and a Software Product Management credential from the University of Alberta. Her work is supported by formal grounding in software quality and product management, including ISTQB Foundation Level certification and a Software Product Management credential from the University of Alberta. She now helps shape how the region thinks about women in product, one conversation and one community at a time.

Most people trust that the food on their plate is safe. Someone had to make sure of that before it got there.Mohammad Al...
09/06/2026

Most people trust that the food on their plate is safe. Someone had to make sure of that before it got there.

Mohammad Aljaar is that person. He studied food science and nutrition at the University of Jordan because his interests reach beyond quality control into system effectiveness, continuous improvement and organizational excellence, including active contributions and discussions around ISO implementation challenges and EFQM excellence principles. He chose to be the one who builds those systems right.

He graduated in 2023 with a certification portfolio that most professionals spend a decade building. ISO 22000 for food safety. ISO 9001 for quality. ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety. ISO 14001 for environment. Halal requirements. And an EFQM Certified Assessor credential above all of it. Five frameworks. One specialist who understands where they connect and where they break down.

At AlBandar Group today he works as a Quality Control Specialist, applying that foundation in real operational environments where a missed detail is never just a paperwork problem. The Gulf region is expanding its food production and manufacturing infrastructure fast. The professionals who can assess quality, safety and compliance across all of these systems at once are exactly who the industry is looking for.

Mohammad Aljaar is one of them. He is early in his career. The depth he has built this early tells you everything about where he is headed.

Mohammad Aljaar is a Quality Control Specialist and EFQM Certified Assessor at AlBandar Group, Amman, Jordan.

Follow The Gulf Magazine for daily coverage of the emerging professionals shaping the future of the Middle East.

Almarai is the largest vertically integrated dairy company in the world.It feeds over 100 million people across the Midd...
07/06/2026

Almarai is the largest vertically integrated dairy company in the world.

It feeds over 100 million people across the Middle East every single day.

Fawaz Aljasser is now the person responsible for what it does next.

Appointed as CEO of Almarai Company, Fawaz arrives at the Kingdom’s most iconic food brand carrying 20 years built entirely inside it. He ran the bakery division that manages L’usine and 7DAYS across regional markets as Executive Vice President. He served as Chief Human Resources Officer during one of Almarai’s most aggressive workforce localisation periods. He led the General Manager role at Taiba Company, a joint venture between Almarai and PepsiCo, overseeing dairy and juice operations across Jordan. And before any of that, he directed the Technical Institute for Dairy and Food, building the very talent pipeline that Almarai’s production floors depend on.

He did not join Almarai to run it.

He stayed long enough to earn it.

His framework for leading the Gulf’s most consequential food company:

➤ Human Capital Built Before the CEO Title: Most executives arrive at the top with a commercial or financial track record. Fawaz’s defining credential is different. As CHRO during Saudi Arabia’s Saudisation push, he rebuilt Almarai’s workforce architecture from the ground up, creating localisation programmes that delivered operational continuity without sacrificing production standards. That experience means he understands exactly what the organisation is capable of, and where it breaks under pressure.
➤ Vertical Integration Requires Operational Obsession: Almarai controls everything from the farm to the shelf. That model creates extraordinary quality consistency and margin control. It also creates extraordinary operational complexity. Fawaz has worked inside that complexity at every level, from workforce training to divisional P&L to strategic planning. He does not need to learn the system. He helped build it.

Almarai has produced strong leaders for two decades.

Follow The Gulf Magazine to stay updated on the visionary leaders shaping the future of the Middle East

Saudi Arabia generates over 15 million tonnes of solid waste every year.Less than 10% of it gets recycled.khaled alrashe...
06/06/2026

Saudi Arabia generates over 15 million tonnes of solid waste every year.

Less than 10% of it gets recycled.

khaled alrashed has spent 30 years building the infrastructure that changes that number.

Appointed as CEO of the Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC), Khalid steps into the Kingdom’s most strategically significant waste management role carrying credentials that no purely environmental operator could match. He built his career inside Saudi Arabia’s most complex energy infrastructure, serving as EVP of Strategic Planning and Business Development at Saudi Electricity Company, President and CEO of Electricity Projects Development Company, and Executive Director of Engineering and Power Generation Projects across a decade with SEC. Before that, he managed water and power business units at ABB Automation Saudi Arabia for five years.

He is not an environmentalist who learned business.

He is an engineer who built power grids, ran billion-riyal project portfolios, and now applies that same operational

In modern football, success is no longer defined only by what happens during ninety minutes of play. It is shaped by glo...
05/06/2026

In modern football, success is no longer defined only by what happens during ninety minutes of play. It is shaped by global strategy, partnerships, and the ability to connect markets, talent, and vision. Tarek EL Hajj has built his career at that intersection, redefining what leadership looks like in the global football industry.

From the Middle East to the international stage, Tarek’s journey reflects resilience, cultural identity, and long-term thinking. As Senior Director of Global Football at IMG, he operates within one of the world’s most influential sports organizations, contributing to the development of football ecosystems that extend far beyond the game itself.

His work focuses on building strategic partnerships, expanding global football presence, and aligning commercial vision with the evolving demands of the sport. In an industry where competition is constant and global reach defines success, Tarek’s leadership brings structure, direction, and purpose to how football organizations grow and collaborate.

For Tarek EL Hajj, football is not only played on the field. It is built through vision, discipline, and global impact. Read the full story in the comments below to see how Tarek EL Hajj is shaping the future of football through leadership, strategy, and international influence.

Engineer Mohammed Abufour didn’t build his career around titles. He built it around failure, understanding it, predictin...
05/06/2026

Engineer Mohammed Abufour didn’t build his career around titles.
He built it around failure, understanding it, predicting it, and preventing it.
That distinction matters.

For over 40 years, Abufour has worked in environments where reliability is not theoretical, but critical to safety, performance, and continuity. Long before asset integrity became a strategic priority, he was already deeply engaged in its fundamentals studying failure mechanisms, advancing inspection methods, and strengthening the systems industries depend on.

He didn’t inherit expertise. He engineered it.

Today, as Director of GCC & North Africa at evoSonic, he operates across a region where asset integrity is directly tied to economic stability. His role goes beyond leadership; it is about embedding advanced NDT technologies, elevating reliability practices, and enabling industries to shift from reactive maintenance to predictive intelligence.

His impact, however, extends beyond the field.

Abufour has been a key figure in the global NDT community.
As a founding contributor to the American Society of Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) Saudi Arabia Section, former Regional Director for Region 19, covering Saudi Arabia, India, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, and Iraq and a Board Member from 2015 to 2018, he has helped shape the profession at scale.
Today, as Chairman of the ASNT Saudi Arabia Section, he continues to drive knowledge, standards, and talent development.

This journey has built him a powerful international network spanning the Middle East, India, Europe, the United States, and Canada.

What defines him is not just longevity, but impact:

➤ 40+ years of experience translating into rare engineering instinct

➤ Leadership in advancing modern NDT and predictive inspection approaches

➤ Seven international awards recognizing sustained global impact

➤ More than 60 technical papers and over 100 presentations shaping industry knowledge

Saudi Arabia feeds 30,000 schools every single day.Someone has to make sure that works.Mubarak AL-Mubarak started his ca...
05/06/2026

Saudi Arabia feeds 30,000 schools every single day.

Someone has to make sure that works.

Mubarak AL-Mubarak started his career in 2004 as a hypermarket sales representative.

Twenty years later, he oversees SAR 30 billion in annual investments across the Kingdom’s government education and catering sector.

That gap is the story.

Now Director General at Milaf Global Food Company a Public Investment Fund entity, Mubarak runs the investment strategy for a sector that feeds millions of Saudi students daily. His mandate: 30,000+ school canteens, a portfolio of 15+ catering companies, and a supply chain that cannot fail because the people depending on it are children.

He did not get here through a straight line. He got here through 20 years of learning every layer of how food actually moves in Saudi Arabia. Hypermarkets. Wholesalers. Cash vans. Key accounts. Brand activation. National sales. E-commerce. He ran each one before he was asked to govern all of them.

At Alsaif Trading, he delivered 25% sales growth for three consecutive years leading a team of 45. At Wafra International, he brought in over 400 new wholesale customers while growing hypermarket revenue 20% annually. At Al Madinah Heritage Company under PIF, he built the e-commerce and sales architecture for one of the Kingdom’s most historically significant brands.

That is not a career that reads well on paper.

It is a career that works in practice.

What 20 years on the ground actually builds:
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is partly a food story. Local production. Reduced import dependency. Nutrition standards in public institutions.

Mubarak AL-Mubarak is the person making that story happen in 30,000 schools every morning.

Follow The Gulf Magazine to stay updated on the leaders shaping the future of the Middle East.

Riyadh is one of the fastest-growing cities on earth.Someone had to build the institutional infrastructure behind that g...
04/06/2026

Riyadh is one of the fastest-growing cities on earth.

Someone had to build the institutional infrastructure behind that growth before it could happen.

Abdullah Abudawood is that person.

Now CEO of Al Akaria, Saudi Real Estate Company, a Tadawul-listed PIF-backed entity established in 1976, Abdullah arrives carrying something most real estate executives don’t: he built a city’s development arm from nothing.

For six years as founding CEO of Remat Al-Riyadh Development Co., the development arm of Riyadh Municipality, he took an institution from concept to SAR 2 billion in annual revenues. He structured SAR 16 billion in PPP concessions. He launched the world’s largest city-wide outdoor advertising programme. He delivered one of MENA’s largest mobility BOT programmes 170,000+ managed spaces. He built five subsidiaries and scaled a team to 550 professionals. All from a blank page, appointed by H.H. the Mayor of Riyadh Region.

Before Remat: Advisor to the Mayor. Before that: Advisor to the Minister at HRSD during one of Vision 2030’s most complex institutional mergers, where he wrote the Ministry’s first unified corporate strategy and represented Saudi Arabia at the G20 Employment Working Group. Before that: VP at Channels by STC, turning the Oman subsidiary from loss to profit. And further back: KAEC Industrial Valley, Jazan Economic City, Ruwais Urban Regeneration SAR 35 billion in PPP redevelopment across Jeddah alone.

Twenty-five years. Every scale of institution. Every layer of the Kingdom’s development infrastructure.

What that background brings to a Tadawul-listed real estate company:

➤ He builds institutions, not just projects. Most real estate CEOs manage assets. Abdullah builds governance, performance, and accountability frameworks that make assets sustainable long after launch. At Remat, he built a national benchmark. That discipline now applies to Al Akaria’s diversified portfolio across development, leasing, and asset management.
Al Akaria has been part of Riyadh since 1976.

Abdullah Abudawood is building what it looks like for the next 50 years.

Follow The Gulf Magazine to stay updated on the leaders shaping the future of the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is building a domestic biopharmaceutical industry from the ground up.Most countries take decades to do that...
04/06/2026

Saudi Arabia is building a domestic biopharmaceutical industry from the ground up.

Most countries take decades to do that.

The Kingdom wants it done inside Vision 2030.

Fadi Al-Buhairan, PhD just became the person responsible for making it happen.

Appointed Group CEO of Lifera, the PIF-backed biopharmaceutical and life sciences group enabling Saudi Arabia’s National Biotechnology Strategy, Fadi arrives with a career that crosses more sectors than most executives touch in two lifetimes. Management consultant in North America. PwC executive. EY MENA Partner and General Manager of the KSA Consulting Practice. A decade in health informatics, including a director role at the National Guard Health Affairs and project management at Methodist Hospital of Southern California. Then logistics: Deputy CEO at SPL, Acting CEO at Naqel Express. Then Saudi Arabia’s first airport integrated logistics free trade zone as CEO of SILZ.

He also holds a PhD in Information Systems and Technology from Claremont Graduate University, two master’s degrees from Claremont and the University of Toronto, and completed executive programmes at Harvard Business School and IMD.

That is not a CV. That is a capability map.

And Lifera needs every part of it.

What his specific background actually prepares him for:

➤ Biopharmaceuticals sit at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and supply chain. Most executives own one of those three deeply. Fadi has operated at senior level across all three as a health informatics academic, a logistics transformation leader, and a management consultant who built practices in two continents. The convergence of those disciplines is exactly what building a national biotech capability requires.
Saudi Arabia currently imports the vast majority of its pharmaceutical needs.

The National Biotechnology Strategy exists to change that permanently.

Dr. Fadi Al-Buhairan just took the job of making that change real.

Follow The Gulf Magazine to stay updated on the leaders shaping the future of the Middle East.

Holding Alojaimi did not search outside for its next Executive Vice President.It looked at the person who had spent 17 y...
04/06/2026

Holding Alojaimi did not search outside for its next Executive Vice President.

It looked at the person who had spent 17 years mastering every financial layer of the business from the inside.

Faisal AlOjaimi is that person.

Appointed Executive Vice President in March 2026, Faisal brings 17 years built entirely within the same institution. He joined in November 2008 as Internal Auditor responsible for the financial controls and compliance architecture of the holding group before progressing to Chief Accountant in October 2012, where he oversaw cash flow management, cost management, and financial operations across the holding company’s portfolio for nearly fourteen consecutive years. Before Holding Alojaimi, he began his career in Customer Relationship at Bank Albilad, building the foundational understanding of how institutional finance operates at the client interface.

He did not join Holding Alojaimi to become its EVP.
He stayed long enough and built deep enough to earn it.

His framework for leading a holding company from the inside out:

➤ Internal audit before financial leadership changes how you see an organisation: Faisal did not arrive at the Chief Accountant role from accounting. He arrived from four years of auditing the same institution’s controls, processes, and financial integrity. That foundation gives him a view of Holding Alojaimi’s operational architecture that no external appointment can replicate.
Seventeen years. Three roles. One institution understood completely.
Holding Alojaimi did not promote a Chief Accountant. It recognised the executive who had already been doing the work.

Follow The Gulf Magazine to stay updated on the visionary leaders shaping the future of the Middle East.

Address

Dubai

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Gulf Magazine posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to The Gulf Magazine:

Shortcuts

Share

Category