Kris Wadia is a Board Director and C-Level Advisor on mission-critical launches, growth and transformation, with focus areas spanning Board Governance of Cyber Security, Human Capital and the adoption of transformative technologies. Operating globally from his base in Dubai, his clients include multinationals, sovereign wealth funds, governments and start-ups, all of whom benefit from a proven track record of revenue acceleration and EBIT improvement at speed and scale across multiple industries and technologies.
Kris is the Founder of Tech Emirates Advocates (UAE), part of the 40,000-member Global Tech Advocates network, bringing together start-ups, scaleups, corporates, policymakers and academics to advance the UAE and global tech sectors. As a Senior Executive Influencer, he represents the business interests of reputable entities in the Middle East, Central Asia and Sri Lanka, with a special focus on the Governance of Cybersecurity to mitigate directors’ personal risk. He also serves as Board Director and C-Level Advisor at Value RoI, and as Senior International Advisor to Oxford Insights, the premier AI and Data Advisory firm serving sovereign nations behind the flagship AI Readiness Index.
Kris holds Advisory Board positions at Skyfer Capital (Private Equity for Central and Eastern European founders), TCAE MENA (Regulatory Compliance across the Middle East and North Africa), and The ESG Institute, awarded Startup of 2025 in Singapore. He serves as Independent Non-Executive Director of Gestetner of Ceylon PLC (Colombo Stock Exchange: GEST.N0000:CSE), supporting macro-economic risk management and growth initiatives, and as Senior Mentor to CyberE71 (the UAE’s flagship cybersecurity incubator led by the UAE Cybersecurity Council) and Intelak Hub (the leading incubator for aviation, travel and tourism in the Middle East). He is also a Senior Independent Advisor to Army HQ on Future Ways of Working.
Kris was previously Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Humanized Leadership (2021–2024) and Chief Executive Officer, Middle East & Africa at Sullivan & Stanley (2024–2025), supporting nation-building programmes across sovereign wealth funds and government-backed infrastructure giants in the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Earlier, in Singapore during 2020–2021, he was seconded by Protiviti as Chief Transformation & Culture Officer (Interim) at Infosys Compaz, a joint venture between Temasek Holdings and Infosys Limited. In Yangon, Myanmar, he served as Interim Chief Operating Officer of KBZ Bank in 2019, launching its Digital Professional Services Division with a nationwide, digitally-enabled workforce of 4,200 employees across 550 branches.
From 2015 to 2017, Kris was Senior Vice President and President, Global Delivery Network at Quintiles (now IQVIA), a Fortune 500 clinical trials outsourcer, where he built the world’s first Clinical Life Sciences Global Delivery Network in just 18 months across 5 countries with 7,000+ employees. Prior to Quintiles, he served a 16-year career as Partner with Accenture UK, as a core member of the team that founded and grew the firm’s Global Delivery Network of digital technologists to 78,000 employees in 27 countries in just 12 years, delivering technology-enabled Sales wins of over US$2.4 billion. Trust-based C-suite relationships across this era included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, American Express, Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, Nokia, Miller Breweries, Best Buy and the Rural Payments Agency. He began his career at Pearson and OCBC Bank, where between 1997 and 1998 he served as OCBC’s first Global Head of Database and Direct Marketing.
A Business School Lecturer and Professional Speaker, Kris has been interviewed at the World Economic Forum and is regularly quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times and CNN as a media thought leader. He is the author of five books on subjects ranging from financial management to e-Brand Optimisation, and a frequent keynote speaker at global conferences including AI Everything MEA Egypt, GITEX AI Kazakhstan, GISEC, HRM TechFest Singapore and the Thomson Reuters Synergy event. He has led business education modules at Oman’s Royal Academy of Management, De Montfort University in the UK, and CyberE71. Kris is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant (FCCA), a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing (F-IDM), and has recently completed the London School of Cybersecurity’s Board Governance of Cyber Security programme.
