KPMG has announced the judging panel for the Saudi Arabia round of its third annual Global Tech Innovator competition – the winner of which will go on to represent Saudi Arabia competing with other countries and jurisdictions in the global final during Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal in November. The local finals will take place in Riyadh on 6 September 2023.
The judges
Saud AlSabhan
Saud AlSabhan is an experienced entrepreneurship advocate and government official with a background in marketing and business development. After obtaining his master's degree in Business Administration from Seattle University, he worked in multiple private sector entities and was later appointed to several key positions within the government. In 2021, he was appointed as the Vice Governor of the SME Authority (Monsha'at), where he has been instrumental in implementing policies and initiatives aimed at empowering small and medium-sized enterprises. He has established a comprehensive SME support ecosystem, promoted digital transformation, encouraged global partnerships, and advocated for women in business. AlSabhan is also dedicated to philanthropy, particularly in the areas of education, healthcare, and women's empowerment.
Athary Almubarak
Athary Almubarak is a private investor with a career spanning over sixteen years in multiple industries including Private Equity, Venture Capital and Technology. Athary is currently a Director of Investments at Jada Fund of Funds, and also established and led the strategy and Market Development at Jada. Prior to joining Jada, Athary was a consultant at McKinsey & Company where she led project teams advising major companies and government institutions in the GCC, with a particular focus on financial services, strategy, business technology, and organization. Earlier in her career, she worked as an associate in a private equity firm Amwal AlKhaleej. She obtained her MBA from IESE Business school in Barcelona, Spain.
Omar Al-Shabaan
Omar Al-Shabaan is an entrepreneur, business developer, and a consultant with over fifteen years of work experience. He is the co-founder and CEO of The Space, an organization company focused on developing and operating coworking spaces, incubators, and accelerators.. He was the Partnership director at MiSK Innovation, a subsidiary of MiSK Foundation, and served as a short-term consultant with the World Bank Group on innovation and entrepreneurship and was an advisor for the National Digitization Unit.
Dr. Samer M. Abdallah
Dr. Samer has over 25 years of professional and consulting experience, spanning a range of industries and geographies. He serves as Global Lead Partner and the Head of ICT Sector. He is a renowned expert at major transformational projects, from strategic development to execution. His current focus is on digital transformation and emerging technologies. He has been a trusted adviser to CEOs, senior government officials, and board of directors of leading organizations.
Robert Ptaszynski
Robert Ptaszynski is Head of Digital & Innovation at KPMG and brings extensive international experience in digital business transformation and building strategic alliances. He served as Head of Digital Global Industries and Geographical Lead for Accenture Digital Practice across Western Europe, cross industry, with key account responsibility within financial services, manufacturing and communications. He has broad practical expertise in software development, cloud migration, data & AI projects, customer experience transformation, and smart devices at global tech companies.
Maz Hussain
Maz Hussain is focused on digital value creation and helps enterprises design answers to big problems and integrates people across multi-disciplinary teams to transform business value. Before coming to Saudi Arabia, he led the Digital Innovation practice for KPMG in the UK. He brings a total of twenty years' industry experience, out of which the last ten have been focused on digital and innovation. His expertise ranges from creating a compelling vision, developing strategy and high-impact solutions to securing stakeholder buy-in and improving operational effectiveness. He is curious in understanding how the data that we collect can accelerate decision making abilities and drive increased business performance in a disrupted digital economy.
