Meet our panelists
Mehdi Ghissassi - Chief Product & Technology Officer, Ai71
Mehdi is CPTO at Ai71 where he leads the product and engineering team applying research into products and services that bring the benefits of AI to enterprises. He joined Ai 71 in 2024. Before that, he was Director and Head of Product at DeepMind and Google Brain. Mehdi holds a M.S. in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, a M.S. in International Affairs from Sciences-Po Paris and an MBA from Columbia University.
Rami Khoury - CEO, auxi
Rami Khoury is the Founder and CEO of auxi, an AI-powered PowerPoint platform redefining how consultants and investment bankers build presentations. With a background in both engineering and consulting, Rami saw firsthand how much time high-performance teams spend building and formatting decks and set out to fundamentally rethink that workflow using AI. Today, auxi is helping global firms build smarter, faster, and more polished presentations, serving as a true productivity layer for modern knowledge workers. Rami is passionate about practical AI that augments how professionals work every day not just in theory, but in real workflows that drive impact.
Faisal Alhajj - Head of MENA, BNVT Capital
Faisal is the Head of MENA at BNVT Capital, a multi-stage fund based in London, with offices in New York and Riyadh, with a thesis to invest in technologies solving humankind's biggest problems. To date, he has led investments into Hala, COGNNA, BRKZ, and Wafeq. Faisal started his career at Bain & Company, where he advised high-profile GCC-based clients on strategy, market entry, M&A and transformation across Financial Services, Energy and Private Equity practices. He later joined Moonfire Ventures, an early-stage venture fund based in London, where he focused on Fintech and Healthtech investments. Faisal holds an MBA from London Business School and sits on the board of COGNNA and Wafeq.
Fouad Jeryes - President and Co-Founder, Maqsam
Fouad is the President and Co-Founder of Maqsam and a veteran builder in the US and MENA tech ecosystems. He has led and advised high-growth ventures and consulted for global companies including Google, Microsoft, and Verizon. A founding architect of Jordan’s startup ecosystem, Fouad helped launch Oasis 500, the region’s first technology accelerator, and has spent over a decade breaking down barriers for founders and engineers across the region. An entrepreneur at heart, he has launched and scaled multiple ventures across data, e-commerce, and platform technology, earning international recognition along the way. Fouad brings an operator’s edge and a challenger mindset to redefining how emerging markets build and adopt technology.