Ahmed Darwish, Head of Digital Banking Delivery

Ahmed Darwish

Head of Digital Banking Delivery

Bank Albilad

Location
Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
Education
Doctorate, Business Administration
Experience
31 years, 8 Months

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Work Experience

Total years of experience :31 years, 8 Months

Head of Digital Banking Delivery at Bank Albilad
  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
  • My current job since May 2019

Heading the delivery of the digital transformation and OmniChannel projects. In addition to this role, I am managing the Digital Payments and Self Services department.
I have developed and adopted our Disciplined Agile Delivery process (RASHEEQ) which resulted in a jump in the percentage of the project completion from 30% to 76%.

Products Manager at Alrajhi Bank
  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
  • May 2017 to April 2019

Since I was nominated by executives to start managing the Cash Management Products for Corporate Customers (CDM/BDM/Lock Box, Cash Collection, Payroll, and the Wages Protection System (WPS)) and we are overachieving the net income targets.
For CDM/Lock Box, have succeeded to change the cash operation model of our clients from one side while achieving the target of 300 up and running units by end of Oct 2018 (two months ahead the end of Y2017) from the other side. By mid of 2018, we have over 350 units running on customers locations making their life much easier and reducing their operational risk and cost.
Have also succeeded to complete the re-engineering and re-approval of the Cash Deposit 24 Card product by SAMA and currently working in a process re-engineering exercise for the Payroll/WPS product.

Sr. Project Manager at Alrajhi Bank
  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
  • July 2014 to April 2017

In continuation to the track record of sucessfull project and program management, have nominated by executives to manage the following Cash Management projects to sucess:
1. eCorporate (Internet Banking for Corporate) project. The project has a very specific nature in terms of the special business requirements, number of customer segments, and volume of customers to be migrated to the new platform.

2. Payroll Cards Migration (670, 000 cards from MAGStripe to EMV) project. Despite the challenges we have faced with the project scale and nature of card holdes (labour), we have successfully achieved the SAMA deadline without impacting the labours from getting their monthly salaries on time.

3. Lock Box (Cash Deposit Machine) project. Being the first bank to deploy the product in the middle east. We have deployed 100 units per year overachieving the target net profit.

4. CR Automation project (B2B integration with MCI for Corporate and Retail branches). We have been one of the first banks to achieve the integration with MCI and meeting the SAMA deadline. This B2B integration was actually a core change to the accounts opening and update process for corporate customers.

Program Manager at IBM
  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
  • June 2012 to May 2014

Joined this technology leader to manage the project managers and as a program manager for Mega projects/programs for our strategic accounts. Have successfully managed the design and build phases of a Data Center and Infrastructure program for MOI. Then, was promoted to manage Cloud & Managed Security projects for Mobily and MOE.

IT Support Head at Alinma Bank
  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
  • August 2009 to June 2012

• Succeeded with proven KPIs to start up and manage the technical support department responsible for providing L2 support for the following:
- 80+ banking applications,
- Oracle 11g RAC (clustered) & MS SQL databases,
- IBM p-series, HP Superdome and HP Blade servers,
- EMC storage,
- Symantec Netbackup and archiving, and
- HP Enterprise Service Management suite (Service Manager, OM, NNM, and BAC)

• Managing four direct reports and 30+ employees.
• The Problem Manager who analyze major incidents and work with all related teams to figure out the root cause and set and implement the fix plan to resolve it permanentently.
• Respond to critical customer situations decisively, coordinate with department managers to redirect resources as necessary.
• Maintain ownership of customer escalations until final resolution.
• A key player and initiative of infrastructure resources optimization and planning.
• Plan and manage the support budget including maintenance, upgrades, training and AdHok support services.
• Committed to the delivery of high available and outstanding service to different business units.
• Meet with the business to better understand service issues and proactively develop better service delivery plans and drives outreach programs.
• Focus on succession planning and the development of support group managers’ leadership capabilities.
• Encourage employees to self-develop core competencies and technical skills through career planning, coaching, training and creation of applicable development plans.
• Obtain team feedback to develop process improvement plans to improve productivity
• Prepare and deliver employee workplans and development plans.
• Plan and communicate performance appraisals, compensation increases, awards and recognition programs.
• Maintain high departmental morale and is focused on retaining talent.

Sr. Project Manager at Alinma Bank
  • Saudi Arabia
  • July 2008 to July 2009

Have the honour to be part of the team who shared the successful startup and establishment of Alinma Bank. I was the ATM programme manager who has successfully managed the deployment of the first 20 ATMS of the bank along with the NCR managed services of incidents and software distribution.

Sr. Projects Manager at Bank Albilad
  • Saudi Arabia
  • July 2007 to July 2008

I was the only IT project manager in the bank at that time, who was able to pull the following troubled projects into success:

1. EMV/SPAN2 Migration Program for Bank AlBilad.
2. Islamic Musharakah and Murabaha, LD, and Past Due on T24/GLOBUS core banking system for Bank AlBilad.
3. Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) - Phase 1 for Bank AlBilad.

Project Manager at Saudi Business Machines SBM
  • Saudi Arabia
  • June 2006 to June 2007

Had a great opportunity to be part of the SAMA PMO team who managed the successful transformation of Saudi Arabia from Magstripe to EMV/Mada technology.

Project Manager/Services Delivery Manager at Fujitsu
  • Egypt - Cairo
  • April 1999 to May 2006

Throughout this role, I have managed more than (15) projects and (9) accounts. I have also built a high level of top management trust and confidence in my personal projects & services management skills and capabilities. The following are the remarkable successes I have achieved throughout this role:
• Nominated as the owner/designer of the Project Management process.
• Developing the following standard (Customizable, Simple, Scalable and Modular) customer interface documents for Fujitsu Services Egypt:
 Services Catalogue.
 Service Level Agreement (SLA).
 Acceptance Criteria.
Responsibilities:
• Provides the primary customer interface for projects & services delivery.
• Planning and managing the project execution till closure to ensure working within the budget, meeting the project schedule, and the agreed scope.
• Produce project performance reports on monthly basis.
• Support Pre-Sales & BID Team in developing proposals and presenting the technical solution to the customer. That was ended up with me functioning as a Bid Manager.
• Negotiating and managing service contracts with both customers and suppliers.
• Regularly reviewing (using score cards) & improving the level of customer satisfaction.
• Plan & manage the delivery of account enhancements and configuration management.

Systems Engineer/Team Leader (TL) at Fujitsu
  • Egypt - Cairo
  • September 1996 to March 1999

• Managing services support team to assure meeting Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of service delivery.
• Supporting SABRE Travel Information System in AMERICAN EXPRESS Travel Co., Gulf Air and Egypt Air (18 sites covering Cairo, Al-Arish, Luxor and Aswan)
• Delivery of Installation, Configuration, Break-fix and Warranty Services for different O/S, Servers, SAN storage, Tape Libraries and Basic S/W.

SW Developer at Egytech Telecom Cables Alsewedy Siemens JV
  • Egypt
  • June 1995 to July 1996

Have quickly learned the Fox pro and used it to develop a Purchase Order module as part of the Egytech Integrated Manufacture Control System (IMCS).  I have also developed several enhancements to the Payroll system for HR.

Capitalized on my telecommunications and computer engineering experience, being the only one in MIS department who was capable to perform the following activities :
• Novell 3.12 network installation, configuration and administration 
• System administration, planning and troubleshooting 
• Troubleshooting and first line support for LAN, H/W and O/S.

S/W Developer at MIPS (Management & Information Processing Services Co.)
  • Egypt - Cairo
  • August 1992 to July 1995

Performing the design & implementation of the following systems:
• Electronic Mail (Novell networks)
• Terminate & Stay Resident (TSR) utilities
• Signature Verification System (with IBM 3119 page Scanner)
• Image Data Compression
• Data Communications
• Graphics & Image Formatting
• Geographic Information System (G.I.S)

Education

Doctorate, Business Administration
  • at Newcastle Business School
  • April 2021

Digital Government/Information Systems

Diploma, ITIL V3 Intermediate Qualifications - Planning Protection & Optimization Certificate (PPO, 4 credit)
  • at Exin
  • October 2011
Diploma, ITIL V3 Intermediate Qualifications - Operational Support and Analysis Certificate (OSA, 4 Credits)
  • at EXIN
  • July 2011
Diploma, ITIL V3 Intermediate Qualifications - Service Operation Certificate (SO, 3 credits)
  • at EXIN
  • July 2011
Diploma, Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)
  • at ISACA
  • December 2010
Diploma, ITIL Foundation V3
  • at ISEB
  • May 2010
Diploma, Professional Program in Project Management
  • at American University In Cairo (AUC)
  • January 2001

GPA = 3.88 Subject / Grade Project Planning and Control Techniques / A Management Of Project Resources / B+ Project Budgeting and Financial Control / A Project Management Information Systems / A Projects Feasibility Studies / A Project, Bids and Contracts / A-

Master's degree, Image Processing (Fractal Image Compression)
  • at Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University
  • April 1999

We have focused on speeding up the encoding process of Fractal Image Compression. The following is a brief of the steps toward acquiring the degree: 1. We have developed a block classification method based on the central moments features. 2. Then, we have combined it with a tree search algorithm, which was developed in a previous research in the same field. 3. Finally, we show that a speeding up ranges from 3 to 8 times tree search algorithm speed is obtained, with decoded images of the same quality order. A paper introducing the obtained results was published in the Journal of Engineering and Applied Science, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Volume 46 – No. 1 (Feb. 1999).

Bachelor's degree, Electronics & Communications Engineering
  • at Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University
  • July 1992

Grade: Distinction Graduation project: 2D Automatic Target Recognition (A.T.R) Grade Distinction Graduation Project Brief: The project consists of 3 main parts designed/developed and implemented by the project team: 1. Image Grabbing PCB (installed in a controlling PC) 2. A controlling 2D ATR program (mixed Assembly and C language coding) 3. Stepper Motor’s Control Circuit.

Specialties & Skills

E government
Service Management
Project Management
Services Management
Program Management
PMO Consultant

Languages

English
Expert
Arabic
Expert

Memberships

PMI
  • Member
  • January 2004
Egyptian Engineers Syndicate
  • Member
  • August 1992
Saudi Council of Engineers
  • Computer Engineer
  • August 2012

Training and Certifications

Certified Baseline PMO Consultant (Certificate)
Date Attended:
November 2021
PMO Planning and Implementation Course (Certificate)
Date Attended:
July 2009
Valid Until:
July 2009
PMP (Certificate)
Date Attended:
January 2005
Valid Until:
January 2018
ITIL V3 Intermediate Qualifications - Planning Protection & Optimization Certificate (Certificate)
Date Attended:
October 2011
Valid Until:
October 2011
Professional Program in Project Management (Certificate)
Date Attended:
September 1999
Valid Until:
May 2001

Hobbies

  • Travel and Sports.