“There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do, and mostly Live”. – Dalai Lama XIV

The above quote serves as a guiding light for Mr. Ali Alasiri as it reminds him that every day comes with unique opportunities, waiting to be explored.

Mr. Alasiri has deep experience across the public and private sectors in the areas of digital transformation, strategic planning, and growth. Over a career spanning 22+ years, he has worked across the Middle East and North America with large corporates, start-ups, and government institutions to help them plan and execute mission-critical changes to their operating infrastructure and corporate strategy. Currently, he is leading Meila Digital for GovTech which is focused on creating next-generation platforms in government technologies. He is also the founder of FinxHub which is the incubator of FinTech startups supporting them in Digital Business Models and funding. Currently, it has 16 startups working on high-edge financial and Supply Chain services. He is also the co-founder of Blox Foods, a vegetarian company that produces a remarkable alternative to meat products with a Mediterranean Diet and is based in Spain.

Prior Experience

Mr. Alasiri is the former Director General of Yesser the eGovernment program and CEO of the National Digitization Unit in Saudi Arabia. He spearheads the Smart Government initiative – one of the cornerstones of the Saudi Arabian government’s priority to digitize the public sector. At Yesser and NDU, some of the key accomplishments he has overseen are:

· Planning and implementation of a digital strategy that eradicated the use of paper and transitioned to a fully digital ecosystem capable of providing 4000 services across 522 agencies.

· Conception and launch of the GovX Center – one of the nation’s premier innovation hubs that funds and scales emerging technologies created to promote citizen welfare.

· Enabled the government to adapt and react quickly to the COVID-19 public health crisis by moving its employees into remote working capabilities and students nationwide into distance learning facilities. Also, he led the launch of 8 National Digital Platforms with the private sector to enable critical mission services during the pandemic.

· Led the government Digital Economy file in policy making and regulation. Created a fair investment environment for entities and companies to be part of this national file.

Before Yesser, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Cloudbuilders Technology, where he headed all aspects of sales, P&L, growth, and operations for both companies that served to pilot digital transformations from legacy systems to the cloud, as well as provide other enterprise software and telecommunications solutions. Before his entrepreneurial ventures, Mr. Alasiri spent 10 years with Juniper Networks, Saudi Telecom Company, Cisco, and SNC-Lavalin, working in progressively senior capacities within engineering, project management, sales, and account management which culminated in the General Manager designation for all of Saudi Arabia at Juniper Networks.

Beyond his operating expertise, Mr. Alasiri is well-versed in matters of corporate and institutional governance and was a board member on the Boards of the National Centre for Health Information, General Authority for Statistics, Al Madinah Region for Development Authority, Tamkeen Technologies, National Centre for e-Learning and Saudi Center for Economical Business. He is also an active board member in the WEF Centre of the 4th Industrial Revolution in Saudi Arabia.

Leveraging the Transformational Power of Technology

Being in digitization for a long time created a solid journey on how Mr. Alasiri’s team at Meila Technology delivers its mission. It is about knowing the clients’ key business values and models. They are not just selling Software and Systems, but are creating a new business model that is digital by default. Moving from coding to business development is a key enabler in what they do today. This is what the 4th industrial revolution is all about, creating values and models that put the customer experience at the core. With the extensive experience they have in the public and private sectors, they managed to create an innovative business model that is digitally operated and partnered.

The team at Meila starts by putting the customer experience at the core of what they deliver. The new generation and the next one are aggressively digitized. Technology today is not a secondary option, it’s a mandatory step toward success. The technology space today is wide, and Data and AI are putting their rules on the ground. Decentralized Ledger like Blockchain is dominating platform engineering. Clients today are overwhelmed with the wide technology array in the market. Meila approaches them differently. They partner to solve a business problem, create value, and scale growth. Talking the language the client speaks is very important to build or develop a unique operating model that not only solves today’s challenges but builds a smart infrastructure for future growth. They work heavily in Digital Health Systems, Digital Finance Systems, Digital Trust and Identity, and Data and AI Technologies.

A Powerful Leader

Mr. Alasiri is a distinguished mentor and leader. Accountability comes after enablement and reflects in the files and decisions he leads. Listening is a key talent he holds which creates the focus he needs. The important metric he values in any mission is its impact. Creating and delivering this metric is very important.

Innovation, Uniqueness, and Untapped markets are the three things that are key for Mr. Alasiri when he seeks to invest and be a part of an emerging company. Startups give a good space in trying new stuff and managing unpredicted challenges. Breathing digital transformation is a solid background for me and hitting new businesses is always a target for me. “If you go to my vegetarian company, Blox Foods, has nothing to do with digital but it’s a key element in the green, plant-based, and healthy food business. I stepped in to be part of this ecosystem and being a digital person gave us the power to be innovative in how we operate and create products. Also go to incubator and VC, FinXhub, we mentor and be part from the establishment for great products in financial services,” he says.

As they are digital by default so stepping in with a strong digital experience gives an advantage in what they deliver. In summary, 3 things are key to him being part of a start-up:

1- Talent is key. People who lead this needs to be one team focused on one mission.

2- Products need to be disruptive by creating something new to the market or maximizing growth exponentially.

Metaverse is here to Disrupt Marketing

Metaverse, predicts Mr. Alasiri, will be a disruptive technology that will change everything. The new generation’s background is all about gaming. Replicating real life with a virtual world will click aggressively on what they are living with. Metaverse is unlike any other marketing strategy. It allows you to create a world specifically for a product or service and take your customers through an immersive experience. However, it is also essential to note that immersive marketing campaigns require time, effort, and large capital. Thus, marketing in the metaverse should focus on creating an experience that is right for your brand and target segment.

According to Gartner, 25% of people are expected to spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media, and entertainment by 2026. Metaverse offers exceptional opportunities for marketers to immerse and engage consumers in a 3D digital experience integrating virtual and augmented reality. With the help of the metaverse, brands can create their own world dedicated to a product or service, where consumers can explore, interact, and make purchases through their avatars. Metaverse primarily focuses on marketing to Gen Z and millennials. While bringing digitally savvy new customers is essential for your business to expand, it is equally important to keep your existing customers interested in your brand. Engaging your existing communities will help launch new marketing campaigns and allow you to maintain brand trust and reputation.

Digital collectibles use blockchain technology to create Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs). These digital collectibles are one-of-a-kind, limited digital commodities that allow the distribution and transfer of collectibles. You can offer branded collectibles such as video clips, digital art, digital trading cards, and other digital products that cannot be copied but transferred from one owner to another. Marketing in the metaverse is not a replacement but an addition to other marketing strategies. Creating metaverse marketing campaigns by incorporating real-life experiences or parallelling what your brand is already doing in the real world can result in huge marketing success. Since the metaverse is largely conceptual, best marketing practices are still being established. However, while exploring marketing in the metaverse, marketers should remember the following:

· Establish brand goals and objectives for the metaverse

· Determine the target audience for the Metaverse

· Incorporate other marketing strategies along with metaverse marketing

· Make use of existing metaverse platforms

· Keep experimenting to find the right metaverse marketing for your brand

Challenges en route Digital Transformation

Mr. Alasiri believes that Leadership and talent are two key challenges hindering the digital transformation of a company. Technology is not to blame for any transformations, change management is the scary part of the journey. Building the right talent and creating an

accommodating corporate culture for transformation is the key to any success, he feels. Strong leadership with wise decision-making will be a great enabler to making it happen. There are objectives the leadership needs to take care of during this:

· Accept mistakes and create learned lessons to avoid and solve.

· Innovation in every organizational layer to push new disruptive ideas in what the company delivers.

· Take risk! Without taking a risk you are losing the results you are targeting and the indices you are trying to catch

As a Mentor to Budding Entrepreneurs

Mr. Alasiri has witnessed many startups rise, grow, and succeed or fail. As someone interacting with young leaders, he advises:

Three pillars need to be always at the top:

– Talent, Talent, and Talent. Normal people are good for routine. Talented people are good for elevation and innovation. Make a culture that enables them and stay at the company.

– Financial Management. String finance skills are key to any success because it keeps everyone safe and reliable.

– Unlocking new Businesses. Speake the customer language! More meetings with them. More workshops with them. More interaction with the challenges they face. This will push your agenda and gives you the right reasons to change.

Coming up @Meila

As we conclude the interview, Mr. Alasiri shares his vision for his companies in the coming few years. He says:

We are heavily focused on four domains:

1- Digital Health: We are innovating in Health Information Systems and IOT by putting AI and Data key to the systems and customer experience at the core

2- Digital Finance: For Government and Enterprises, finance is a large complex, and stretched domain that we focus on and add the edge services to the core engine.

3- Digital Trust and Identity. Moving to the metaverse and new business models in all sectors and IoTs is pushing more demand on trusted identity management products which we invested a lot of talent and budget to accommodate.

What’s next: Being a key player in AI, Data, and Blockchain opened the door to analyzing more business models and introducing creative solutions in Smart Cities, Cognitive Government, Intelligent Manufacturing, and Supply Chains. The healthy food initiative we started came out of the innovation we created in digital health. Building these muscles opened the door for us to be part of any business sector that wants to be in the future