I am Raed, born in 1975, married and a father of three daughters who live with me and my wife in Saudi Arabia. I am from Jordan, where I was born and raised. Back in 1997, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science. In 1998, I moved to Saudi Arabia and started working as a senior software developer. I have a combined experience of 23 years diversified among technical, operational, and executive levels. I have spent half of my career at the C-level as a Chief Information Officer.

I have been thinking about getting an MBA degree for almost 5 years. In line with the nature of my profession, I believe that advanced managerial skills will enrich my experience and add more value to what I am doing. The proposal that came from UniAthena made it easy for me to achieve this dream because it is a short-term course and focused mainly on the management skills that I am looking for.

After completing almost 12 years at C-Level as Chief Officer in Information Technology. I believe I need to expose myself to a higher level of management that requires special skills in Risk Management and Mitigation, Finance Management, Marketing, and international business. These additional skills will definitely support my next career plans as Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director.

There are many factors that will make one a great teacher. I believe the most important factor would be years of experience. On the other hand, I think patience and knowledge can also add value to a teacher.

Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director.

The approach is different based on the severity of the problem, but in general I make sure not to exaggerate things and try to identify the root cause of that problem. I try to figure out if there is a previous instance of the same situation, this helps to quickly resolve the problem. 

If the problem is new, I first share it with my colleagues and try to check their feedback about possible causes and solutions. Sometimes I seek help from subject matter experts in the same domain or hire a consultant from a 3rd party firm to help in resolving the problem. 

Once a problem happens, the most important thing is to learn the lessons from the problem and try to update the procedures if needed to avoid having the same problem again.

In 2013, I was working as CIO for one of the companies in Riyadh. There was a massive fire in the building, a severe situation where everything was almost destroyed. The whole business was disrupted, and everything stopped. I still remember how difficult those moments were. I took the mission seriously and moved all servers and backup data to another showroom that we own. 

Some of the servers were not working, and some backups failed to be restored successfully. I remained persistent, called many colleagues and asked for help. I called different companies and ordered a set of 50 computers, a printer, and all the supplies we needed. Within 48 hours, my team was building a new network and preparing the computers for a new work environment. 

I successfully restored the data and informed the CEO that not only was the data restored, but a complete workspace was ready with 50 offices to run the business. We used that temporary place for almost one month before we moved to another permanent location.

It's time for me to quit smoking.

The last book I read was Zero to One (Peter Theil)

After working for a long time in different organizations, I still remember the early days when I started my first career as a programmer. I was dreaming of becoming a manager or chief officer and making a big success. 

On the contrary, I went through difficult times and many failures that made me feel sad and down. My CEO at that time told me one thing; don’t be discouraged because of consecutive failures; don’t stop trying if you make mistakes; keep trying and work hard with discipline to sustain success and achieve goals. I am using this lesson as a guiding principle in life.