Team

Dr Armin Shams
CEO
Dr Shams is a senior member of IEEE and a Senior Adviser at BCF research group at Newcastle Business School. He is also the Honorary Head of Holistic Enterprise Transformation & Architecture Group at SEERIO. He has 20 years of award winning and internationally recognised experience in software technology research and development, business consultancy and enterprise transformation worldwide (Iran, Europe, North America and Australia). He also has had collaboration both direct (via consortiums) and indirect (via contractor) with companies such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft and EMC. Dr Shams was an ACM/ICPC World Finalist in 2001.
Post-Doc, Sharif University of Technology, 2016
Senior Researcher, National University of Ireland, 2013
Post-Doc, University of Tehran, 2012
PhD, University of Manchester, 2010
a.shams@seerio.ir

Dr Hamed Shahidipour
Executive Manager
Director of FinTech Innovation & Venture Development, Director of IBL
Dr Shahidipour is a previous research scientist at Citibank and a former project manager at Vodafone UK. He is the founder and CEO of Femto Ltd., a London based technology consultancy firm with partners such as Accuris Networks, Vodafone and CDNetworks. He has also served as a consultant with the prestigious management consultancy firm L.E.K. Consulting.
PhD, University of Southampton, 2010
BSc, University of Liverpool, 2003
h.shahidi@seerio.ir

Eng Alireza Mehrabi
Head of SME Development Group
Mr. Mehrabi is a multifaceted technology entrepreneur and pioneer in BI, BPM, and CPM solutions. He brings over a decade’s experience in senior management and consulting roles whilst developing international partnerships with some of the world’s most renowned software houses. Mr. Mehrabi’s research focuses on SME growth models and assessment of objectives and barriers that influence their growth. Given his extensive experience in the private sector, he is also highly interested in applied solutions which can be utilised by SMEs in their growth path.
MSc, University of Portsmouth, 2011
a.mehrabi@seerio.ir

Eng Alireza Abdollah Zadeh
Director of Center for Policy and Development
Mr. Abdollah Zadeh is a policy entrepreneur and former country economist of The World Bank in Somalia. Since his return to Iran, he has been chief policy advisor to Ministry of Cooperative Labour and Social welfare and Tehran Chamber of Commerce. He is well experienced in evidence-based governance which includes design and implementation of Iran Unified Registry for Social Welfare Programmes, the study of Inclusive Growth in Iran and rigorous targeting and Impacts evaluation studies. Mr. Abdollah Zadeh is founder of CPD (Center for Policy and Development) which aims to spread evidence-based policy making in government and offers various consulting services and data-driven total solutions to the public and private sector.
MPA/ID, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2010
Msc, Sharif University of Technology, 2008
BEng, Sharif University of Technology
a.abdollahzadeh@seerio.ir

Eng Khashayar Jahanian
Head of Knowledge Management Group & Founder of KM Network of Consultants (KMNC)
Mr. Jahanian is an entrepreneur and pioneering Knowledge Management expert and consultant, and strives to create and implement ingenuous and innovative solutions that eliminate ineffective and repeatable processes. With over fifteen years of experience, he has authored five books and published more than ten papers in the KM domain. Mr. Jahanian is founder of KM Network of Consultants (KMNC), the nation's leading network of professional KM consultants.
MBA, Sharif University of Technology, 2004
BEng, Isfahan University of Technology, 2001
kh.jahanian@seerio.ir

Dr Hossein Sharif
Honorary Chairman of the Board
A Senior Lecturer with Newcastle Business School and a Fellow of British Computer Society, he is a prominent academic and a member of Centre for Development Informatics at the University of Manchester. A former member at GSME (aka Sharif Business School), before which he had also been a Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Dr Sharif has nearly two decades of experience in Technology Sector and Academia in Asia and Europe.
PhD, University of Manchester, 2008
BEng, University of Liverpool (Medal of Honor), 2003
h.sharif@seerio.ir

Roger Evernden
As architect of the Information FrameWork (IFW), Mr. Evernden pioneered many contemporary techniques, including the use of industry reference models, business capability analysis, and component-based building blocks. His work has been the basis for more than 400 business and IT architecture initiatives worldwide. Mr. Evernden has been an enterprise architect since 1984, specializing in the highly practical use of EA to manage organizational transformation. He acts as advisor, mentor, and coach on EA initiatives, leads training workshops, and writes regularly about strategy and architecture. Past clients include IBM, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Alcatel-Lucent, Allied Irish Banks, AstraZeneca, Bank Austria, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft, National Australia Bank, and Westpac. Mr. Evernden has written articles appearing in major publications and books, including the seminal article on IFW in IBM's Systems Journal. He is the author of two books about EA: Enterprise Architecture — The Eight Fundamental Factors and 101 Lessons from Enterprise Architecture.

Sangeet Paul Choudary
Mr. Sangeet Paul Choudary is the co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit at the MIT Media Labs. He is ranked among the top 30 emerging thinkers globally (2016) by Thinkers50 Radar, and his work on platforms has been selected by Harvard Business Review as one of the top 10 management ideas globally for the year 2017. He is a frequent keynote speaker and has been invited to speak at leading global forums including the World Economic Forum summits, World50 Summit, Mobile World Congress, and the G20 Summit 2014 events. He has also been a keynote speaker for leading global brands including Microsoft, GE and Accenture. Mr. Choudary is an executive educator with Harvard Business School Publishing. He is appointed to the Global Future Council on Platforms at the WEF and to the advisory council for the WEF’s initiative on Digital Transformation.

Dr Mehrdad Sepahvand
Dr Sepahvand has more than two decades of experience in the financial services and banking industry spanning investment strategy, corporate governance and risk management at senior management level. He serves major governmental and private Iranian banks as a senior advisor. Dr Sepahvand was director of foreign investment department of the NDFI, Iranian sovereign wealth fund with over $60 billion in assets. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Nottingham. His career began in England lecturing at both Nottingham Business School and Leeds Business School for several years. He occasionally lectures on Asset and Liability Management and Liquidity Management for bankers and financial managers.
PhD, The University of Nottingham, 2004
MA, Allameh University, 1998

Dr Taher Habibzadeh
Director of Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs
Dr Habibzadeh is the leading national expert on E-Commerce and ICT Law in Iran. His three volume publication on ICT Law in Iran published by the national parliament has won the national book award for the year 2014. He currently teaches E-Commerce Law to judiciary personnel, including judges and attorneys at the University of Judicial Sciences & Administrative Services in Tehran.
PhD, University of Manchester, 2012
MA, University of Manchester, 2008
BA, University of Judicial Sciences & Administrative Services, 2006
t.habibzadeh@seerio.ir

Dr Ali Naghieh
Director of Organisational Change Lab
Dr Naghieh is a Research Associate at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He is an expert in Change Management and his research focuses on examining the social and psychosocial processes of change to address challenges in systems and organisations. Ali has provided consultancy to transformation programmes focusing on multi-stakeholder system-level change for the UK private and public sectors including the NHS. Further, he has provided teaching and mentoring to executives of major companies in the field of Scenario Planning, including for Standard Chartered Bank, EY (Ernst & Young), and Scottish Water. Ali is currently collaborating with colleagues at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute to extend his participative change approach to tackling a multi-faceted environmental disaster in Iran with vast socio-economic consequences.
PhD, University of Oxford, 2015
MBA, University of Salford, 2008
MPharm, University of Sunderland, 2005
ali.naghieh@sbs.ox.ac.uk
a.naghieh@seerio.ir

Members

Senior External Associates

External Group Heads and Visiting Academics