Omar Najjar is a business leader with extensive experience in business management and transformation. In 2019, he was appointed as the CEO of Misk Initiatives Center.
Najjar started his career in 1994 with Saudi Aramco having had successfully completed the company’s professional development program. In 1997, he joined Saudi Arabian Airlines and handled several business improvement projects around the world.
He moved to Unilever in early 2001 as head of administration for the group in the GCC and soon after switched to the human resources department to focus on group training, recruitment, and management development for the GCC, Yemen, and Iran. In 2006 he was appointed regional HR director for Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, a region with more than 40,000 employees, based at Unilever’s regional office in Durban, South Africa.
In October 2008, he was attracted by the ambitious King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) project and became head of the education business unit at Emaar.
Najjar joined chemicals firm Cristal in 2010 to lead its transformation from a local operator into a global industry leader. He led the development and deployment of the company’s operating model that integrated its units around the world into Cristal Global.
In 2017, Najjar was appointed as the CEO for Saudi Ground Services (SGS), a company serving more than 80 million passengers a year and 100 airlines in 27 airports with more than 11,000 staff.
In 2015, he joined industrial company Tasnee’s executive management team as vice president and head of downstream business.
Najjar gained a master’s degree with London Business School and has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in industrial and systems engineering.
