One of GCC’s well-recognised stockists, Alkafaa Saudi Arabia (KLC), has witnessed a successful transformation over the past two years, having restructured into a lean, forward-focused company geared to achieve sustainable growth.

Steering the company through this transformation has been its chief executive officer Fahad S Almutlaq, who took on the challenge when he joined the company in early 2014.

Known for developing business rapport and proficient in organisational transformation and development including Greenfield projects, Almutlaq began by reorienting the company’s strategy and refining the business model.

"We set performance indicators on ourselves and recalibrated the organisation, resulting in substantial sales volume while optimising our services over the last two years, and we’re still going forward," he says.

A key strategy adopted by Almutlaq was "to be at the right organisational size while crating financial and non-financial values". Another side of the transformation was "to re-engineer the internal processes and eliminate single-point failures while following the industry best practice and learning from experience (LFE), which has helped Alkafaa achieve tangible goals while transforming "in a phased manner" and contributing to the local economy. Alkafaa finalised its planning for industrial business growth by mid-2015 and is now waiting for the right time to start execution and strongly enter the industrial market.

A resourceful executive with a drive to empower results through collaborative leadership, Almutlaq used his 16 years of experience and business acumen to bring about a sea-change in Alkafaa against the backdrop of a sluggish economy brought about by plummeting oil prices. He also tailored the company’s policies in such a way that they aligned with the Saudi 2030 vision.

AlMutlaq joined Alkafaa after an illustrious career with BAE Systems, first at its Preston office in the UK as project manager in 2008 heading a number Saudi/UK prospects and projects, and then in Saudi Arabia two years later. His first assignment with BAE Systems in the kingdom was a year’s stint as head of business development based in Riyadh, following which he was appointed as the general manager in Dhahran, where he provided leadership to one of the governmental strategic programmes. The programme, which includes several projects, was successfully delivered with some value increase and ahead of schedule, says Almutlaq.

Almutlaq, an MBA graduate from the University of Hull, UK, had earlier worked for the Saudi Electric Company (SEC, formerly SCECO), between 2000 and 2008, where he was in charge of providing project management support to the merger of the several electricity companies. He had also completed several programmes for SEC that contributed to the success of its merger and consolidation exercise.Almutlaq is also a member of several bodies including Private Equity M&A and Venture Capital Investments Group, Saudi Elite Executives (SEE), Strategic Management Forum (Global), Transformational Leadership Group (Front Runners) and InfraPPP Blogs.