Assaad Assaad

REAL ESTATE FACILITIES AND INVESTMENT COMPANY, Kuwait & KSA-Riyadh (Tass-hilat Group) 2008-2012
Real Estate Financing and Investment firm; Regulated by the Central Bank of Kuwait.
GENERAL MANAGER/CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Hired to setup and launch the operation for a Real Estate finance and investment firm, to structure and lead daily operations, to hire and train staff, to establish operational, risk, financial, and regulatory compliance metrics, to source investment deals and identify business expansion in GCC, to automate and deploy state-of-art Information systems & Technology.
 Operation Setup & Management: Reporting to the Board, established Real Estate Finance & Investment operation in Kuwait and KSA-Riyadh from ground up with full P&L accountability;
o Developed the business strategy and plan, all processes policies, procedures, and compliances.
o Hired and trained the right team, structured the pricing and product mix, created the brand identity and executed the strategic corporate branding plan.
o Established the corporate governance structure, Created the IS project team and led evaluation of new systems for front end and back data capture, data processing and integration, and reporting. Prototyped, selected, purchased, and implemented successfully a 4 months fully ERP integrated applications for Real Estate Mortgage financing, accounting, HR management, customer management, and analytical reporting tools for Kuwait and Riyadh operations. Standardized the Information Systems and Technology for less IT administration, cost of ownership, and support services. Streamlined the information presentation with online and timely view of the entire business in one place.
 Revenues & Investment Development: Generated a cumulative ROE of 22% over three fiscal years.
 Originated a 100M USD Real Estate loans portfolio by introducing lending sales to individuals and SMEs in Kuwait.
 Sourced, negotiated, and acquired 6 fixed income residential properties in Kuwait worth of $80 million with average gross yield of 9%. Developed in-house the fully operational asset management function.
 Led and performed financial, operational, and legal due diligence on strategic alliances for mortgage finance covering KSA, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait. Formulated a Joint Venture in Oman, Led negotiations, due diligence and completed a buyout deal in a retail/office property in Muscat, Oman, an income-generating deal topping a gross yield of 13%.
 Closed two long-term acquisition transactions in real estate development projects located in Bahrain and Oman projecting IRR of 20%.
 Expanded strategically the business of Islamic Real Estate mortgage finance to the Saudi market - Riyadh; partnered with regional a private equity firm for a private placement of 500 million SAR in KSA.
 Led the operational roll out plan in Riyadh from scratch after comprehensive market research and addressing market regulations.

CREDIT ONE HOLDING COMPANY, Kuwait (Al Sayer Group) 2005-2008
Automotive consumer financing firm.
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Sought after by the new CEO/Board as part of the change management direction to advise on restructuring the operational flow and infrastructure that systematize processes, eliminate redundancies, reduce cost, create corporate accountability, and developing the business.
 Organization Re-structure: Developed the strategic plan with the slogan “THE CREDIT ONE WAY”, engaged all teams at all levels in the execution phase, redesigned the organization functions and all processes, policies, procedures, and bylaws. Restructured and segmented the sales force by business segment in alignment with the collection teams, revamped the financials, introduced budgeting process, monthly reporting, KPIs, and new revenue streams. Focused on sales growth, loans portfolio diversification, cost reduction, customer service, talent development, compensation planning and compliance with central bank regulations.
 Operation Revitalization: Turned around operation performance through analysis of consumer finance industry, identification of business opportunities, and introduction of innovative strategic initiatives.
 Expanded the car retail finance across all main car agencies, increased outlets from 4 to 12 and introduced fleet and heavy equipment lending to SMEs. Achieved 250% healthy growth in loan origination within 3 years of operation. Loan portfolio increased by $120M USD and net profit increased 105%. Positioned the company to be ranked #1 in Kuwait for lending to fleet and heavy equipment SMEs.
 Reduced credit risk to 3%, the lowest in market, improved monthly collections from a historical rate of 65% to 96%.
 Revamped and led deployment of the state-of-art, fully integrated ERP systems for retail consumer lending and financials and HR operations.
o Established the corporate governance structure, revised the existing Information Systems and Technology Infrastructure. Assessed the high risk and gap of information scarcity and fragmentation between the front end systems for loans management and the back end accounting and HR systems.
o Created the IS project team and led evaluation of new systems for front end and back data capture, data cleaning and migration, data processing and integration. The BIG DATA cleaning, analysis, and migration was a key challenge.
o Prototyped, selected, purchased, and implemented successfully a 9 months fully ERP integrated applications for credit financing, accounting, HR management, customer management, and analytical reporting tools. Improved drastically speed of credit approvals processing and decision making. Reached out a fully centralized, integrated, migrated, safe, secured, and consistent business automation systems with highly improved, efficient, fast, and more profitable operational environment in originating higher volume of loans applications with online and timely view of the complete business picture.

UNITED REAL ESTATE COMPANY, Kuwait - Lebanon - Egypt (KIPCO Group) 1998-2005
Leader in regional Real Estate development and asset management. Listed on Kuwait Stock Exchange.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER: Reporting to the new CEO, hired to build, maintain, and govern the IT architecture across the enterprise and its subsidiaries, to develop and execute the corporate IT Strategy, to design and integrate all business processes across all functions, to align with and support the long term business strategy and culture. Involved in multi-million dollars business portfolio asset classes technical reviews and bidding of shopping malls, office towers, residential towers, and hotels.
 Information Systems & Technology Infrastructure Design: Built the IT department and the corporate IT infrastructure from scratch, assessed, negotiated and led implementation, automation, data warehousing and collaboration of the fully integrated international ERP systems including Oracle financials, real estate management, maintenance, marketing, and HRMS, budgeting, business intelligence, and business continuity. Redesigned all core businesses functions processes and led intensive training programs at the corporate level reaching IT oriented and process based corporate environment.
 Technology Innovation: Pioneered the design and implementation of the multi-tenants smart buildings and made United RE the most advanced real estate company in Kuwait with technology and smart buildings as differentiator and transformed the IT Department into revenue-generating profit center.
 Developed as part of the business restructuring the IT strategy and led the roll out plans for the deployment of technology and information systems for back/front office hospitality systems including POS micros, Fidelio, Opera reservation systems, SCALA ERP, Cisco solutions IP telephony, and online web booking for a subsidiary chain of 12 (5&4 stars) hotels covering Kuwait, Lebanon and Egypt.

• Led research, selection process, negotiations, and oversaw successful deployment of network management systems and UNIX platforms re-engineering to support the information platform of the refineries supply chain management systems.
• Revamped and improved significantly the daily operations policies and procedures of the IT division, which raised efficiency levels and reduced risk of failure.

• Systems Analyst (1992-1995) WOOD COMPLEX ENTERPRISE, NIGERIA;

• Software Developer (1991-1992) Procter & Gamble, LEBANON.