Ali Adnan Haider Darwish is the founder and CEO of BHD Group, the Omani group that owns Arabian.CEO. He is also Head of Strategic Planning at ITHCA Group, Oman's sovereign technology fund. This profile sets out his current roles, his work in public service and the companies he has built. Arabian.CEO is a BHD Group company, so this is the newsroom's profile of its own founder.
Who he is
Ali Adnan Haider Darwish (علي عدنان حيدر درويش) is Omani and is based in Muscat. His full legal name is Ali Adnan Haider Darwish Al-Zaabi, and he is also known as Ali Al-Zaabi. His career began in 2017. His own website, alizaabi.om, holds his full record. Arabian.CEO keeps his executive profile at Ali Adnan Haider Darwish, with each role and its source.
ITHCA Group and DataOm
Since February 2025, he has been Head of Strategic Planning at ITHCA Group, Oman's sovereign technology fund. Since October 2023, he has also been Secretary to the Board of DataOm, the submarine cable company of ITHCA Group. Outside business, he has been a board member of the Oman Fencing Committee since 2023.
BHD Group
BHD Group is the trading name of Bin Haider Darwish LLC. It was founded in 1894 and carries the name of his grandfather. He leads it as founder and CEO. It started with BHD Printing & Designing in Muscat. Today it has 14 companies in printing, technology, software platforms and sovereign AI. They include BHD Printing & Designing, Hosn, Mithaq, Cardify, Dardasha, Paper & Pen, ReachScreens, Q+, Splitty and Arabian.CEO. He is also a co-founder of The Flower Bar.
Arabian.CEO is one of those companies. It publishes sourced profiles of executives and companies, leadership moves and editorial lists, in English and Arabic.
Public service at Oman Vision 2040
From November 2021 to June 2023, he was Head of Business Environment at the Oman Vision 2040 Office. In that role he built the Invest in Oman centre. He also worked on the National Investment Strategy, which narrowed 43 sectors to 8 priority sectors.
His earlier roles were at Oman Broadband, Oman Aviation Group, EY and the Central Bank of Oman.
Education
He is a doctoral candidate in Innovation and Management at the University of Central Lancashire. He holds an MSc in Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Design and a BSc in Economics and Management, both from Brunel University London. He earned the International Baccalaureate Diploma at The Sultan's School in Oman.
Recognition
In November 2025, he won the Next Generation Award of the Family Business Council Gulf. He is the first Omani to win it. The FBCG awards record lists him with BHD Printing and Designing, Oman.
His writing
He publishes essays on his website, in English and in Arabic. His background, in his own words, is on his about page.
A note on this profile
Arabian.CEO is part of BHD Group, which Ali Adnan Haider Darwish leads as founder and CEO. This profile uses only facts that he has published on his own website and the public records listed below. It contains no quotes, no figures and no claims that those sources do not support.