Dr Ammar Hamadien

Ammar has 27 years’ experience working in ICT and TMT management, strategy, public policy, tech policy development and government and regulatory affairs across the Middle East and Africa region. He has been involved with many global, regional and local organisations such as ITU, UNDP, AREGNET, The World Bank, The African Union and The Arab League on different programmes and thought leadership initiatives, government outreach and stakeholder engagement efforts.

Most recently, Ammar was the Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization. Prior to that, he was the Director General of the National Information Center and the Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister on Digital Transformation, where he was responsible for designing and executing the national digital transformation strategy for the Republic of Sudan.

Prior to this, Ammar was Head of Strategic Engagement, Government and Regulatory Affairs at the GSMA, covering 25 countries in the Middle East & North Africa. He was CEO and Managing Director of Chinguitel, the second mobile operator in Mauritania. For the nine years prior to that, Ammar was Director of Products and Services at Zain Group, where he worked in the group’s offices in Sudan, Bahrain and Kuwait. He also worked for Etisalat in UAE, Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard in the US.

Ammar was awarded the Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Bradford (UK) for his research on technology diffusion, tech policy, and fintech in the GCC region. He holds a Master in Laws (LLM) in technology, media, and telecommunications law from Queen Mary University (UK), an MBA in telecommunications management from Imperial College (UK) and a BSc in management information systems from The California State University.

He recently completed executive education programmes at Saiid Business School, Oxford University, The Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and The Wharton School. Ammar is a Fellow in Privacy (FIP) at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, having obtained the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) certifications.