Watan First Team

Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Watan First Training and Consulting, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Reinsurance Company Saudi RE, as well as former Deputy Managing Director of the Arab National Bank ANB and a member of many boards of joint-stock companies and government bodies.

He is the driving force behind Watan First Institute’s mission to transform professional training. With over a decade long experience in the tech startup environment, his name has become synonymous with entrepreneurship and innovation in Saudi Arabia's tech ecosystem.

A visionary leader, Abdullah has successfully built and managed a leading digital ticketing company from the ground up. His entrepreneurial journey is a testament to his remarkable ability to seize opportunities and his steadfast commitment to bringing transformational change in the way people interact with businesses.

Abdullah's comprehensive understanding of the tech startup landscape, coupled with his forward-thinking approach, has enabled him to navigate the challenges of the evolving training industry.

With over 23 years of experience in the tech startup environment in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Haytham's expertise lies in various areas, including software development, technology infrastructure, cyber security, and customer intelligence. He has a proven track record of successfully building and managing software development teams driving growth and innovation within organizations.

Driving our digital transformation from a conventional training institute to a digital learning and development platform, that would solve the growing demand for professional development in the Middle East.

Currently also serving as the Vice-Chairman of the Board for Watan First Digital Egypt, Haytham has played a key role in the development and implementation of strategic initiatives that have helped the organization achieve its technological goals. His ability to navigate complex challenges and develop effective solutions has earned him a reputation as a highly respected leader in the industry.

Throughout his decade long career in the tech-startup environment of Saudi Arabia, Saad has demonstrated a passion for driving innovation and growth in the technology sector. He has been instrumental in the successful launch and management of several tech startups, leveraging his skills to develop cutting-edge products and services that meet the needs of customers.

Saad is driving our vision of establishing an ecosystem for human capital development and management in the middle east. Leading our organizational transformation to optimize training operations, improve our customers’ experience and enrich our offerings to achieve efficiency, transparency, and quality.

He also serves as the Chief Operations Officer of the Watan First Digital, playing a key role in the product management and thriving to build customer centric digital solutions.

With over 18 years of experience in the training and education sector in Saudi Arabia, Riyad manages the portfolio of programs that are selected, researched, crafted, and updated under his direct supervision. He has been maturing our organization for the past 6 years by implementing the internal protocols, policies and procedures, to enable the institute to run on the best practices that ensure highest quality of learning experience.

He is driving our content transformation, from creation to moderation to digitalization of the content. His focus is always towards the changing dynamics of different domains, identifying and addressing the development gaps in the different industries that we serve, and quality content creation to deliver the best quality, ensuring successful development of the professionals.

With over a decade long career, Haifa has been associated with universities in both Saudi Arabia and the United States of America and has worked extensively in event management with the media channels in Saudi Arabia.

Driving our strategic partnerships to boost our offerings and expand our portfolio of professional accreditations and business collaborations, while also representing our institute on local and international forums, Haifa is truly the face of our Institute.

She holds two Master’s degrees from George Washington University and Howard University, and has been a visiting lecturer at the King Saud University for over 6 years.

He is a seasoned finance professional with over a decade of experience in investment management and software development industries across Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
With his extensive expertise in Investment Management and Financial Planning & Analysis, Ayman has been driving our financial transformation, enabling trust among our customers, while also facilitating our customers with Buy-Now-Pay-Later platform integrations, and easy payment channels for safe and secure online payments.

A Cert-IFR, Ayman also serves as the Finance Manager of Watan First Digital, where he is responsible for overseeing the financial operations of the company.

With over 4 years of professional experience and being an Associate CIPD, Abdullatif is a young and passionate Human Capital leader of our organization.
Through his focus on best practices in human capital and being a part of the new generation, he is driving our Human Capital transformation to ensure the best working experience possible for all the employees.