زبير Bhatti

Applying my business and digital strategy planning and execution expertise, gained with global technology vendors and leading brands across UK, Europe, Asia and Middle East, to provide advisory and consultancy services such as digital strategy development, programme/project management, business analysis, AI and Cybersecurity work for high profile clients undergoing business, digital, AI and cybersecurity transformations. Feel free to reach out to me for a complementary consultation.

Development of Huaweis Smart Cities and Transportation industry solutions and technology partner ecosystem for Middle East smart city initiatives. Consulted on wide range of industry-specific digital ICT products, solutions, and services to support digital transformation strategies for city campuses and transportation nodes of all tiers. Delivered strategic direction at executive level to governments, airport, ports, rail, road and provincial smart cities on digital enablement, including consulting and delivery of digital roadmaps for Neom Mobility, KSA MoT, Abu Dhabi Airport, Abu Dhabi Ports, Dubai Smart World, Dubai DEWA, and Dubai RTA. Developed innovation-centric use cases in collaboration with ICT Vendors (Siemens), mobile carriers, power & utilities, and mobility partners to build and provide ICT-based smart and sustainable services enabling smarter decision-making, efficient operations, improved security, and enhanced guest experience.
• Evaluated and utilised industry 4.0 building management system and mobility infrastructure and technologies, such as LTE/5G, AI (object detection), Big Data, IoT, Cloud, Mobility, Drones and WiFi6/7, to plan and develop data-centric smart passenger, security, and operational solutions such as access control, wayfinding, and panoramic surveillance.
• Directed planning and delivery of digital strategy for Neom Airport (KSA) and Neom Air Mobility encompassing A-CDM, Smart Stand Allocation, Passenger Turnaround, AGL, Biometrics, Security, and Intelligent Operations Centre.
• Established digital partnerships with Siemens, Roads & Traffic Authority (RTA) and Dubai Electric & Water Authority (DEWA) to deliver IoT solutions for transportation infrastructure, connectivity and electrification requirements in Dubai.

Developed Huawei Transportations European airline and airport business and suppliers, from pre/post-sales support, CxO presentations, stakeholder engagement, and ecosystem development to representation at global events, such as MWC, HC, GITEX, ACI, and IATA strategic partner forums. Directed and monitored business development, sales, and technical teams in Europe and Middle East as official point of contact for passenger journeys, flight operations, security and safety, tender support documentation, and commercial negotiations.
• Contributed to delivery of IATA and ACIs joint flagship NEXTT programme (New Experience Travel Technologies) by developing whitepaper on Shenzhen Smart Airports digital enablement of passenger, operational, and security services powered by AI (NLP & ML), 5G and Cloud infrastructure.
• Developed and delivered smart airport digital strategies Abu Dhabi Airport on behalf of G42.
• Led transition planning from LTE to 5G at Heathrow Airport with Three (UKBB), SITA, and Heathrow

Introduced dangerous goods (DG) detection capability by using latest product screening technology and ML Ops to plan, design and deliver a groundbreaking agile screening technology programme. Directed engineering, development and training of algorithms and software rendering capabilities for digital imaging products in aviation baggage and parcel space. Led regional teams and third-party contractors to engineer, test, integrate and deploy secure state-of-the-art operational image and screening technology for airport clients at BRU, BHX, EMA, CGN, MXP, and ALG, resulting in enhancing baggage and passenger throughput while meeting ECAC Standard 3 security compliance for automatic detection of Dangerous Goods. Determined and reduced potential risks and enabled requirements to seamlessly resonate through project phases.
• Developed DG solution in cooperation with DHL DP to attract more than 20 EU commission representatives who witnessed live demo at Brussels Airport paving way for revision to ECAC regulation on detection equipment standards.
• Collaborated with one of big three suppliers of digital baggage hold and passenger screening systems to build first AI enabled digital detection of dangerous goods, such as flammable liquids, gas, and lithium batteries.
• Improved passenger and baggage screening systems by minimising false alarm scenarios and optimising range and quality of threat detection.
• Enhanced detection algorithm to meet ECAC security criteria, as well as developed computation and bandwidth capabilities for interfacing with security systems and power.

Oversaw infrastructure and operational readiness for new mega hub airport city in Dubai. Revamped phase one of master programme for Al Maktoum Intl Airport, planned to relive capacity at DXB by offering airspace, airfield, stands, and terminal facilities at Dubai World Central (DWC). Integrated airport infrastructure, planning, and delivery requirements to analyse scope, create WBS, and determine dependencies. Designed aggressive master programme schedule for entire scope of phase one work while encompassing delivery of secure infrastructure and operational readiness work streams. Executed ORAT principles for airport opening day one year earlier than scheduled on behest of airport owner. Led planning and review of building management systems, OT/IT systems, airport lounges, baggage handling systems, commercial areas, access roads, car parks, aircraft stands, gates, airfield aprons, Ground Services Equipment (GSE), staff offices, catering facilities, and critical support facilities, including but not limited to hangars, fire/police stations, duty-free, and customs warehouses.
• Restructured master plan for Dubais DWC airport from three years to two by engaging with DAEP, main contractor, Air Traffic Management, Airport tenants, DEWA, and RTA to identify critical dependencies and validate risk and impact.

Managed project planning delivery of Java-based UI/UX functionality to develop and deliver raft of new omni-channel customer value pools. Coordinated implementation of fare-branding functionality for multicity/open jaw flights on direct booking channels. Executed pilot project to explore the packaging of popular ancillary services through Emirates call center, website, and mobile platforms for a seamless customer experience across multiple channels. Oversaw deployment of JIRA for Emirates Holidays team, as well as centralised processes of categorising, reviewing, scheduling, and prioritising change requests and fixes for business applications based on industry best practices. Enforced NDC standards to enhance revenue management and distribution strategy, enabling display of onboard service information and promotion of ancillary offerings.
• Built governance and directed end-to-end matrix portfolio of strategic passenger service systems (PSS) projects as part of $100M incremental revenue campaign.
• Achieved GDS cost savings of over AED88M for next five years by supervising IT team and launching revenue document management control portal on time.
• Gained commercial benefits for airline sales channels and flight operations.

Based in Masdar Smart City, managed strategic IT portfolio of PSS, regulatory, operational, and commercially viable projects on behalf of senior business sponsors. Successfully led the planning, execution and testing of Etihad Airways PSS Data Migration, a critical part of the airlines PSS technology vendor systems transition from Amadeus to Sabre. Assumed accountability for the mapping, extract, transformation, migration and reconciliation of Airlines Reservation, Loyalty, DCS, Inventory, E-commerce and Financial data from Amadeus to Sabre.

Hosted data and infrastructure requirement workshops to develop transition strategy and playbook with PSS domains (Reservations, Sales, Departure Control Systems, Global Contact Centre), vendors and external suppliers. Responsible for managing the resolution of data integrity and migration issues with airline data (PNR, E-ticket/VCR and EMDs). Led EY IT & Infrastructure team to develop migration strategy for Etihad Data Warehouse, MIS, Business Objects and SQL Server.

Negotiated and implemented system changes to improve CRM and reservation data reporting capabilities. Ensured alignment of EY point of sale (PoS) functionality with EY CRM policy. Adhered to government regulations and IATA guidelines related to PNR bookings, electronic tickets (VCRs), and purging/historical data.

Led cross-functional development work streams with IT resource and SMEs from various departments, such as finance, inventory, reservations, guest experience, contact centre, GDS, e-commerce, and partner carriers, to map existing and desired processes for CRM and loyalty initiatives. Steered all facets of mapping, transformation, migration, and reconciliation of airlines entire reservation, DCS, inventory, ecommerce, and finance data from Amadeus to Sabre, while using Etihad data warehouse, business objects, and SQL server.
• Optimised functionality for both airline departments and passengers by leading transition of airlines booking and reservation system from Amadeus to Sabre.
• Introduced Miles as form of payment for airlines Loyalty members to accrue and redeem against fares.
• Led and delivered PMO PSS data migration for one of biggest ever technology upgrades in region worth more than $1B to switch existing Amadeus passenger services system to new IT platform provided by Sabre.

Excellent insight to data within key commercial and operational areas of the airline for route optimisation, profitability, business intelligence and financial modelling to enable advanced decision making. Emirates route profitability solution operates almost half of all A380s in service profitably where other airlines have struggled.

• Management Accounts POWER BI- A380 entry into Service- Led the requirements, design and delivery of Emirates Airlines Java-based route profitability system, based on an OLAP(OnLine Analytical Processing) architecture. A key assist for Executive Leadership team(ELT) decision-making and scenario planning. The solution modelled Emirates Groups Revenue, Variable and Fixed costs with data from ERP system (Oracle E-Business Suite), Emirates Groups General Ledger and operations (BI/Helix) to simulate and optimise scenarios for route forecasting, planning, and reconciliation. It enabled ELT team to evaluate impact of performance and allocation of routes and schedules on profitability for the airlines rapidly expanding fleet and network at a granular level by dimensions such as aircraft type, model, station, route and leg on a weekly basis. Excellent insight to data within key commercial and operational areas of the airline for route optimisation, profitability, business intelligence and financial modelling to enable advanced decision making. Emirates route profitability solution operates almost half of all A380s in service profitably where other airlines have struggled.

• Revenue Accounting & Corporate Payment Gateway- Supported DSVP Finance teams as IT lead for RFI, POCs, vendor evaluation and selection process for bank acquirers (NBAD, Deutsche, WorldPay, Citibank, Network International) with competitive card acquiring, interchange, billing and settlement services for EK sales revenue from global Emirates and DNATA web storefronts, call centers and global agencies. Evaluated merchandisers on interoperability, scalability, integration, security, technical performance, PCI DSS and Digital IT best practice standards.

• Accounts Payable- Led requirements, tenders, technology evaluation strategy and solution definition for Emirates groups Authorities Manual initiative to consolidate and automate scanning, indexing, assignment and approval of Outstation and Head Office invoices using Kofaxs DMS AI software to utilize digital Optical Character Recognition(OCR) capture and SharePoint workflow technologies to automate the indexing and expedite approvals for priority payments
such as energy invoice. New approval workflows were interfaced with ERP system to register invoice values, validate the input against Oracles master library for automated reconciliation of invoice rates with those listed for them in Oracles Purchasing module.

• Finance- Represented IT in Payment acquirer tender. Formed weighting criteria and evaluated IT functionality of bidders such as Farelogix, RBS Worldpay and First Data and documented RFT and booking systems and data flows for Corporate Payment Gateway and interfacing systems.

Motivation: Engaged with all BG business departments and application teams to migrate BG data on Oracle and SQL Server Applications to a standardized, resilient and cost effective Next Generation Cluster/RAC platform.
• Liaised with IBM, SAP, Accenture, Oracle, Microsoft, DBA, and Citrix teams to define and execute the migration approach, downtime and testing strategy of each operational application. Liaised with BG Legal and Security to ensure third party application support vendors (Schlumberger, Petrotech, EMC, SAP, SunGard, Wirpro) particularly the small enterprise partners provided OT/IT assurance of their contracted level of application support once upgraded and migrated to the new BG platform.

Motivation: To understand the design, architecture, security, implementation and data migration requirements for onboarding critical applications to Cloud in response to the largest oil spill in the history of marine oil drilling operations, I led the requirements and design for the transition of BPs Environmental Management System and Global Learning Operations data away from offline legacy VB systems to a relational web-based content management system hosted on Amazon Cloud in what was one of the first adoptions of cloud in the industry under intensive international media coverage.

Motivation: Plan, design and deliver IT outsourcing and BPO operating model facilitating the offshoring of work for benefit realization.
• Led multi-million pound organizational transformation of administrative processes away from 100% onshore to a 35% offshore operating model. Led IT PMs and BAs to map manual business processes to achieve automation, standardization and leaner operating model, ultimately realizing ROI of USDXXM
• Developed joint customer/supplier taskforce to develop process-orientated operating models with metrics and KPIs embedded in workflows to measure quality assurance, performance and identify training requirements.
• Offshored solution: Java-based Financial Services administration workflow and interfacing environments encompassed doing of various processes only- Checking, scanning, printing and helpdesk retained onshore. Benefit realization achieved.

Motivation: Various In-house IT roles with airline leader provided excellent insight into end to end systems development lifecycle phases from requirements and programming to implementation, testing and ongoing maintenance of application, website front end and data interfaces, culminating with a lead role for the transition from legacy in-house airline systems to commercial off the shelf (COTS) web-based workflow applications with an underlying ORACLE database, imaging, user workflow and JAVA internet, enabling self-service. PL/SQL development for data integrity and business intelligence.

Motivation: The risks posed by last centurys Millennium bug generated an industry-wide requirement for the recalibration of hardware and software particularly in the financial services industry providing an excellent insight into a global IT vendors Project lifecycle and technology transformation
• Led project to plan, configure, and execute the rollout of Year 2K-compliant hardware and software projects for IBMs portfolio of outsourced Insurance and reinsurance clients in London and Southern England.
• Quality Assurance Adherence: Reviewed IBM project accounts in relation to asset management, bid and renewal engagement processes and projects.