David Pottinger, Managing Director

With over 20 years’ experience in international education management, David joined Obeikan Education from the position of Chief Executive of our partner Bell Educational Trust (UK). Qualified at Masters Level in Linguistics for English language teaching and Business Administration, his early career in English language education was followed by leadership positions in the British Council, Nord Anglia Education, and NCC (National Computer Centre) Education. David lived and worked in Europe, Latin America, Turkey, and South Asia before moving to the Middle East.

Nasser Al-Uwaishiq, PhD, Director - K-12 

Dr. Nasser is a specialist in Math Education with a focus on teachers' professional development. He has been with Obeikan Education since its inception in 2005. He joined the education field in 1988 as a Math teacher and educational supervisor in the schools of Saudi Arabia before becoming the Head of the Math Curriculum Department at Ministry of Education, where he co-authored more than 80 Math subject matter books. Dr Nasser leads all of Obeikan Education activities in the K-12 sector.

Khalil Elian, PhD, Director - Amman Office

Dr Khalil been involved over 25 years’ in education development in the areas of curriculum development, establishing educational standards, developing national tests, and assessment tools and systems for k-12. He has managed projects on behalf of ETS, EDC CTB, FTP, UNESCO and UNICEF. Upon joining Obeikan Education, he established Obeikan Amman Office and has been directing it since. Qualified to PhD level in educational Psychology (testing, assessment and evaluation) from Michigan state university, Dr Khalil has served as a science teacher, university professor, and international educational expert in Jordan, Yemen, KSA, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, Iraq, Kabul, and Kosovo.

Ahmed Rafea, PhD, Science Development Manager

After serving the Ministry of Education in Bahrain for 25 years in several positions, Dr Rafea joined Obeikan Education in May 2005. Has a Master degree in Science education, from McGill University, Canada and PhD. in Curriculum and Instruction (Science education) from the University of British Columbia (UBC). He taught science and physics at intermediate and secondary school levels. He also served as a science curriculum specialist and supervisor before becoming the head of the secondary science education department at the Directorate of Curricula. He was then given assumed his responsibilities as the Director of the Center for Measurement and Evaluation.

Atif Zaidi, M.Sc., Director - Business Performance

With over 15 years’ experience in delivering revenue and profit growth through astute strategic, project management and business process improvement in the USA, Atif joined Obeikan Education to lead the Business Performance Division. He is qualified at the Masters Level from the US and holds several certifications including PMP and ITIL. Among others companies, while working for The McGraw-Hill Companies and Educational Testing Service (ETS), Atif demonstrated expert analytical, organizational and leadership skills in implementing and leading Global Project Management Offices and Business Process organizations aimed at delivering cost effective and high quality customer focused solutions. Atif has been involved in managing multi-million dollar projects with specialized focus on the Education, Training and Assessment, and Publishing industries.

Aladdin Abu Rob, Director - Learning Technologies

Mr Abu Rob has provided, senior management business development, education development leadership and direction for the positions he worked in over the regional area of the Middle East and Arabic speaking countries. In addition to directly managing e-learning projects including business negotiations, recognizing and acting upon opportunities to promote the company's expertise, technology and successful past performance, establishing and maintaining client contacts and developing production strategy, Strengthening current business ties; coordinating meetings between clients/potential clients and technical or other key individuals, Keeping abreast of overall business and technology trends.

Ahmar Azam, Director - Finance & Operations

In April 2011, Ahmar Azam joined the leadership team of Obeikan Education to head finance and operations. Over the last 16+ years, Ahmar has strategically developed his career to acquire the required skills to be an effective leader in finance and risk management. He is also a trained executive in both strategy and professional practices. In his career to date, he has spent several years in public accounting, including 4 years with Deloitte, New York. In addition, he served as a Corporate Controller for a US publicly traded company, set up and headed the Internal Audit Department for a multi-billion real estate finance publicly traded company in New York, and headed the bank operations, CFO function and later the Enterprise Risk Management function as an Executive Vice President for an international bank in New York. Before joining Obeikan Education, he was a partner at a US based audit and risk management consultancy firm. Ahmar received his BSc. Honors (Accounting & Finance) from the London School of Economics & Political Science. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, England and Wales (ICAEW). He is also accredited to perform Quality Assessment Reviews by the Institute of Internal Auditors, USA. Ahmar has delivered whitepapers at many finance, risk management and banking forums. His articles have also been published in various well reputed periodicals.

Greg Hoile, Director 

Prior to joining Obeikan Education in 2011, Greg spent sixteen years with OISE, where he became Group Head of Operations. Working at board level, Greg’s responsibilities included operational management and financial performance of multi-site school operations across fourteen separate brands. His experience includes schools’ operations throughout the UK, as well as in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Spain and Ireland. In addition to the permanent schools comprising executive training centres, vocational training colleges and EFL schools, Greg has also worked extensively with young learners.  A qualified EFL teacher, Greg spent twelve years in Italy where he ran his own successful language business, and set up a retail sales network for a leading educational group. Greg’s role as Director of English Language Services at Obeikan Education includes developing the business with new projects in training, assessment, teacher development and publishing. Greg was educated at London College of Printing and Birkbeck College, University of London.