Dubai, United Arab Emirates
I am a strategy and transformation professional with a multidisciplinary background spanning corporate finance, information technology, and business operations, with experience across industries including aviation, finance, hospitality, logistics, manufacturing, and services. I have a mastery of the airline business as have served in different positions encompassing IT, Finance, Commercial, Revenue Optimisation, Cargo and Engineering. Over the past several years, I have worked closely with organizations to drive growth, efficiency, and turnaround initiatives by combining strategic thinking with execution rigor. My core focus areas include corporate strategy development, digital transformation, financial restructuring, and operational optimization—helping businesses unlock value and build sustainable competitive advantage. I bring hands-on experience in leading end-to-end transformation programs, including business process reengineering, ERP and IT strategy development, Business intelligence and analytics, and establishing data-driven decision-making capabilities in the AI age. I have also supported business-critical initiatives such as mergers & acquisitions, carry out due diligence, and business valuation, enabling informed investment and restructuring decisions. A key strength lies in aligning business and technology strategies—ensuring investments in digital, analytics, and innovation directly support commercial objectives while optimizing total cost of ownership. I have successfully negotiated technology contracts, driven cost efficiencies, and built strong partnerships that deliver long-term value. With a strong academic foundation (CFA, MBA, MSc in IT) and a continuous learning mindset, I stay current with evolving technologies, management practices, and market dynamics. Currently, I am following AI, Agentic AI and its becoming a game changer for business. I am equally passionate about people and stakeholder management—leading diverse teams and collaborating across cultures to deliver outcomes within scope, time, and budget. I am particularly interested in roles and engagements focused on: Business and corporate strategy Financial restructuring and value creation Mergers & acquisitions and business valuation Digital and IT transformation I welcome opportunities to collaborate with organizations seeking to transform, scale, or reposition for future growth.
Strategic aviation leader managing a high-value portfolio of airline partnerships such as United Airlines, South African Airways, and Kenya Airways. Responsible for driving revenue optimisation and financial performance with long-term value creation. Manage codeshare and interline agreements. Bring expertise in performance management, leveraging analytics and business intelligence to translate forward-looking and historical booking data into actionable commercial strategies. Lead financial evaluation of partnerships, ensuring SPA rates optimisation, and alignment with organisational revenue targets. Track combined sectors and POS. Proven track-record in identifying and executing growth opportunities through in-depth market analysis for Africa and China, continuously refining network strategy, origin-destination mix, and connectivity for competitiveness. Skilled in negotiating and regularly optimising SPAs to sustain margin performance in a dynamic market. Strong commercial acumen with a focus on competitive positioning, including continuous evaluation of market dynamics, schedule changes, connectivity and pricing between partners and competitor activity. Provide leadership across cross-functional operations, ensuring seamless customer experience and full system integration between partners. Manage Senior Stakeholders, working closely with various internal department Finance IT Legal Corporate Communications Customer Service and Commercial. Drive operational excellence by proactively managing disruptions, including complex crisis scenarios such as weather events and geopolitical challenges, safeguarding both revenue and customer satisfaction. Function as a trusted partner to senior leadership, delivering data-driven insights, performance reporting, and strategic recommendations. Play a key role in high-level negotiations and decision-making, ensuring partnerships deliver measurable impact across financial, commercial, operational, and product dimensions.
I am a strategic consulting leader focussed on Strategy, Finance, IT and Transformation for businesses operating in various industries: Aviation, Hospitality, Financial, IT and across Geographies. I was responsible for business origination, execution and disciplined delivery. My assignments include M&A, Due Diligence, Business Valuations,Financial Modeling , Business Transformation and Strategy. I am a trusted advisor to C-suite stakeholders, governments, investors, financial institutions. I have supported businesses through growth, disruption, and restructuring. Strategy: Uganda Airlines: Develop the Business Strategy Kenya Airways: Articulated the enterprise IT strategies and digital footprint to support overall Business operations and support strategy Private Jet & Regional Airline Ventures: Develop the business plans and fleet strategy. Develop demand revenue optimization and financial models. Business Transformation Hotels and SME: Help to redefine business strategy to raise finance post-COVID. Business and Capital restructuring and securing funding during periods of acute financial stress. Business Extension: Articulated a fully integrated business plan for Freeport activity within an airport ecosystem, combining logistics, trade facilitation, and regulatory frameworks. Merger of three listed Companies involved in Chemicals. Led end-to-end transaction advisory, including independent valuation, deal structuring, synergy assessment, and integration planning. Business Carve out for a Helicopter business from an Airline wishing to mitigate risk and focus on its core business. Fundraising Strategy Hospitality: Debt-equity optimization, funding strategies for improved liquidity. Textile : Trade financing and short-term debts. Fishing: Share Valuation for Shareholder and Management buyouts Transaction Advisory & Due Diligence Delivered independent due diligence and investment advisory for governments, banks and investors involved in financing.
Strazen Ltd, a boutique consultancy,provide strategic advisory and execution support across business, marketing, corporate strategy, IT strategy, and revenue optimisation. The firm combines strong strategic insight with delivery capabilities, supporting organisations through end‑to‑end business transformation. Our expertise spans program and project management, including product launches, partnership development, and complex IT implementations such as ERP, CRM, and aviation-specific systems (Airline MRO). We also bring financial capability in business valuation, restructuring, re-engineering, helping clients enhance performance and unlock value. I have supported organisations in entering and expanding across the Middle East and Africa region Roles& responsibilites Strategy Business Strategy for Uganda Airlines and Corail Helicopters (Mauritius) Business plans for Mauriwings (regional low-cost carrier) and a private jet operation in the Indian Ocean Project Management and Execution Delivered Uganda Airlines’ IT roadmap, including implementation of Amadeus Passenger Service System and Oracle ERP Project-managed the setup of Corail Helicopters, including securing the Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) and aligning regulatory, operational, and commercial requirements Business Development In business development, I supported Indian IT firms (BPO, contact centres, ERP) in expanding into Mauritius and Africa, enabling partnerships and market positioning. Business Valuation Financial Modeling for a boutique hotel to raise finance for expansion Prepare all documents for Expression of Interest, prepare tensder documents and evaluate offers. Supported SME impacted by Covid to prepare finacial projections and request for financing help. Due Diligence Supported Financing institutions in due diligence SME impacted by Covid My work reflects a strong blend of strategy, execution, and cross-border market development, focused on delivering impact in aviation and technology sectors.
Led strategic solution design with a strong emphasis on innovation-driven transformation, delivering future-ready capabilities across Cargo, MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul), Operation compliance, Commercial and Finance domains. Positioned innovation at the heart of solution strategy to ensure scalability, resilience, and long-term product relevance in a rapidly evolving aviation and technology environment. Partnered with senior business leaders to translate complex business needs into differentiated technology solutions, while collaborating with architecture, engineering, infrastructure, and security teams to design integrated, enterprise-grade systems. Championed practical, business-aligned innovation through several key initiatives: Reimagined cargo handling operations through contributions to the dnata Unified Cargo Handling System, embedding process automation, end-to-end visibility, and scalability to support global cargo growth. Addressed evolving cool chain regulations by incorporating enhanced tracking, compliance controls ensuring integrity of temperature-sensitive logistics. Enabled next-generation MRO processes by adapting solution designs to support new aircraft technologies, driving improvements in maintenance planning, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance. Introduced modern integration frameworks and ecosystem thinking, defining robust interfaces across enterprise systems to improve data flow and enhance decision-making. Defining non-functional requirements: performance, scalability, and security Managed the full solution lifecycle—from high-level design through detailed requirements, system integration, and user acceptance—ensuring alignment with strategic business objectives. Led and mentored cross-functional teams and business analysts. Recognized for strong executive communication and stakeholder influence, effectively engaging senior leadership, navigating complex negotiations, and driving alignment across diverse teams.
Led strategic partnerships and acquisition initiatives to drive innovation and expand the technology portfolio within the Emirates Group’s IT division and its commercial arm, Mercator. In this dual-focused role, I was responsible for identifying and cultivating partnerships with universities, start-ups, and global technology vendors to bring cutting-edge innovation into the aviation ecosystem, as well as evaluating strategic alliances and acquisition opportunities to strengthen Mercator’s product offerings. On the innovation front, I established high-impact collaborations with institutions such as Carnegie Mellon and the University of Oxford, exploring advanced capabilities in data science, artificial intelligence, customer experience, and optimisation. I also worked closely with leading technology vendors like SAP to pilot emerging solutions (e.g., HANA in-memory platform) on aviation-specific use cases—enabling early adoption and experimentation even before market release. We conducted several Proof of Concept (POC) On the strategic partnerships and acquisition side, I facilitated the evaluation of potential collaboration with global distribution system leaders like SABRE and Amadeus for a potential outsourcing of all Passenger/Commercial systems and an acquisition of Mercator. I had to manage senior stakeholder and a group of several resources from various department to conduct the detailed evaluation. Emirates chose the In-house option for it own operation and carved out the Mercator part that was sold Private Equity firm Warburg Pincus This role gave me an interesting opportunity to see how start- ups were leveraging on emerging technology (Analytics, Robotics, AI) to bring Niche solution for Aviation and transforming the Landscape.