Ahmed Ali Al-Sohaily has been group head of technology at Red Sea Global since September 2022.
Al-Sohaily has extensive professional experience in the field of technology. Before joining Red Sea Global, he served as chief technologist and chief adviser to the governor of the Communications and Information Technology Commission.
During his five-year tenure, he facilitated the development and launch of 5G services in the Kingdom, one of the fastest and highest-performing networks globally.
In addition, he also played a key role in the development of the commission’s National Spectrum Strategy 2025 to unlock the potential of radio spectrum in Saudi Arabia.
As part this initiative, under the “Spectrum Outlook for Commercial and Innovative Use 2021-2023,” he championed the launch of WiFi 6E and made Saudi Arabia the country with the largest amount of license-exempt spectrum globally.
Before joining the commission, Al-Sohaily was a senior member of the technology strategy team at Telus Corporation, where he contributed to the development of end-to-end technology vision that made the Telus network the fastest in North America and the world.
In conjunction with his role at Telus, he served as an adjunct professor and the assistant director of the Wireless Lab at the University of Toronto, where he led technical research, obtained three patents related to communication technologies and published over 20 academic and industrial papers.
Today, he continues to contribute to the research and innovation field as adjunct professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique at the University of Quebec in Canada, and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Al-Sohaily also contributed to the development of 5G requirements and standards at the International Telecommunications Union, 3rd Generation Partnership Project, and Next Generation Mobile Networks.
He is a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, Canada, and also has extensive leadership credentials that include the program for leadership development from Harvard University, the Stanford LEAD corporate innovation certificate and the executive certificate in management and leadership from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Al-Sohaily earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from King Saud University, and obtained his master’s in engineering and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
