Aziz Almuhawwis is an associate director at the Diriyah Foundation. An intuitive, collaborative, and enthusiastic engineering professional with extensive experience, knowledge and education in systems engineering, project management, robotics, IoT and smart systems and industry, Almuhawwis’s demonstrable track record includes effective management and team leadership in multi-product and multi-vendor environments requiring lean thinking methods. He was promoted as an associate director at the Diriyah Gate Development Authority in January 2022. Before that he worked as a senior manager from November 2020. Prior to that, he worked as a program management office manager at The Helicopter Co. from October 2019 to November 2020, where he worked with the CEO to drive key strategic decisions. Almuhawwis worked with TAQNIA for Robotics and Smart Systems as PMO and engineering department manager from August 2017 to October 2019. His key responsibilities in the role included leading and managing the engineering departments made up of research and development, pre-sales, and professional services engineers, and leading two high-impact business initiatives — industrial and logistics, automation and IoT and smart systems — which involved developing a long-term strategic plan aligned with overall company objectives, partnering with third party vendors and developing a synergy plan and hiring, training, and mentoring teams from the ground. Before that he worked with Sonus as a system engineer from October 2014 to June 2017 and managed projects in the US, Central America, and Canada. He was also responsible for training the development staff in processes and applications to increase productivity, and reducing costs, applying systems analysis techniques and procedures, consulting with users and determining hardware, software and system function specifications. Prior to that, Almuhawwis worked with the Saudi Central Bank previously known as the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. He worked as a project management associate at SAMA from June 2008 to August 2008, and as a management training associate from June 2006 to August 2006. He joined SAMA as an intern in June 2005. Almuhawwis obtained a master’s degree in systems engineering and leadership (January 2013-December 2014) from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering (2003-2007) from King Saud University in Riyadh.