Hicham Aouda

Astute leader with a broad business mindset; recognized throughout career as a driving force that delivers sound guidance within complex settings that demand keen business, commercial, financial, and technology acumen to drive success. 20+ years of providing advisement to senior leadership teams and stakeholders, building high-performance teams, and implementing new processes, systems, and structures that increase efficiencies, profitability, and the bottom line. A resourceful visionary known for developing communication environments and providing a clear vision to identify and generate innovative solutions for complex business challenges.

Empowering communicator who effectively disseminates business, operations, and technology principles across all levels of personnel to drive optimal outcomes with a focus on “people” as the most valuable asset to an organization. Looking to leverage advanced education, extensive career experience, and technology expertise in the next phase of a rewarding career. Fluent in Arabic, English, and French.

Panda Retail Company, Jeddah, KSA 12/2017 to Present

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - Advisor Business Development, Chief Information Officer (CIO), VP of Supply Chain

Oversee daily direction and activities of a multi-functional team of Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, and IT teams to deliver critical and strategic transformations for the leading grocery retailer in Saudi Arabia with an operating network of 200+ Super Markets and Hyper Markets across KSA and Egypt, total revenue of 3B USD.

Highlighted projects and areas of value include:

• Successfully led a multi-functional team to deliver the transformation of the Supplier to Shelf process; tackled the assortment, planograms, automation of the replenishment, and built a capable and skilled supply planning and logistics organization. Achieved stellar results and significantly impacted Panda's top line and turnaround.
• Led recruitment of the IT team to integrate IT transformation; developed roadmap, secured funding, supplier agreements, and resources, and directed project management that fueled the growth of Panda.
• Executed stellar improvement in Shelf Availability (double digit) on Grocery Food and Non-Food categories. 
• Leverage experience in lean initiatives to reduce logistics costs on several hundred million of logistics spend.
• Consistently identify areas of opportunity and gaps, which led to the creation of a burning platform in IT and a roadmap that will bring IT to the next level once complete.

Danone Middle East, Riyadh, KSA 07/2014 to 11/2017

Director, Group Regional Supply Chain

Led overhaul of manufacturing and distribution operations for the leading multinational Food & Beverage company exceeding 22B €. Global brands included Activia, Evian, Danone, Danette, Bledina, and Nutricia.

• Provided skilled consultancy in diverse areas and successfully built two large semi-automated warehouses; restructured materials handling performance and inventory control to reduce materials losses and correct inventory control accuracy.
• Created and built the first Saudi female manufacturing operations, which improved workforce nationalization and female diversity across the company.
• Integrated diverse lean initiatives that reduced operating costs by 7% annually for three years with an OPEX of $60M and reduced headcount by 20% by simplifying the organizational structure.
• Implemented best-in-class IT solutions across operations: SAP, WMS, MRP, SD, BI, and Telematics.

STC Channels – Saudi Telecom Subsidiary, Riyadh, KSA 05/2008 to 06/2014

General Manager – Supply Chain

Served as a founding member of the leadership team for the largest Telecom Distributor and Retailer across the Middle East and Africa (at the time), exceeding 21B SAR in revenue. Brands included STC, Viva, Virgin Mobile, and Apple.

• Successfully delivered an omnichannel fulfilment operation covering 300+ retail stores and 25K point-of-sale and electronic commerce sites.
• Integral player in driving business from 14B SAR to 21B SAR over six years and developed regional top-up factories, which cut working capital by 120M SAR.
• Introduced Smart devices into the retail and enterprise sales divisions, growing top/bottom line by 8%.
• Developed company operations in Bahrain and Oman, increasing topline by 3%.
• Established 28 after-sale service centers for Smart Devices, which drove 98% client approval.

Proctor & Gamble, Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, Eastern Europe 09/1992 to 04/2008

Department Head – Supply Chain

Delivered outstanding service, dedication, and results during tenure with the organization. Held multiple positions with promotions and increased responsibilities for the consumer product giant that exceeded 71B USD in revenue. Led the transition of integrating two major acquisitions, Wella and Gillette.

• Effectively managed sourcing, new product launches, and large-scale logistics for $1.5B in business.
• Transformed workflow processes through the implementation of SAP ERP/APO systems, increasing efficiency and collaboration between functions.
• Led logistics and planning for seven markets with 1,600 SKUs, 15 distributors, and 30 factories; launched the Central Asian operations, including building the organization, planning, and logistics from the ground up.
• Achieved multiple awards and recognitions throughout career for outstanding cost reductions to restore subsidiary profitability, forecast accuracy results, resolve major restrictions following the Russian Crisis, and establish a one-day collection/exchange with City Bank.

Master’s Degree, Industrial Engineering | École Nationale Supérieure d’Électricité et de Mécanique, Nancy, France

Master's Degree, Computer Science | University of Nancy, Nancy, France

Professional Development

Integrated Business Planning | Danone

Advanced Project Management | Sale Advanced e-Commerce, Online Marketing | Lynda.com

Strategy Development | A.T. Kearney

Carrier Service Management | Apple

Retail Strategy | Booz Allen Hamilton

SAP APO, Demand Planning | P&G

Marketing, Brand Building Framework | P&G

Technology Proficiencies - MS Office, Tableau, Power BI, QLIK, MS SQL, SSIS, Pentaho, R, Python, QQIS, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, SAP ERP, Oracle Suite, NetSuite, SAP-Hybris, OpenCart, WordPress