Sectors in which technology changes the rules, and in which the rules can determine the fate of a technology.
In these sectors I act as an advisor, and in two of them as a solution maker.
Financial regulation, approached by someone who has spent his career within regulated networks.
A fintech rarely fails on its product. It fails when a licence takes a year instead of three months, when a partner bank withdraws, or when the regulator reads the model differently from its founders. The right regulatory route is best chosen at the outset.
Comparative analysis of licensing regimes and sandbox programmes, notably in the Gulf, including Abu Dhabi Global Market and the Saudi Capital Market Authority FinTech Lab. Choice of the licence category that matches the activity actually performed, sequencing of the application and dialogue with the authority.
Regulatory qualification of the activity within the payment chain, partnerships with licensed payment and e-money institutions, closed-loop and multi-merchant models, B2B2C arrangements with banks, payment providers and telecom operators, and the approach to the central bank.
Mobile money, carrier billing and partnerships between banks and operators place a significant part of fintech on telecom infrastructure, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Having spent much of my career on the operator's side, I can often help both sides understand each other.
When knowledge becomes abundant, what still protects a legal practice?
AI is commoditising what once made law firms and legal educators hard to compete with: access to texts, the first draft, the standard answer. A barrier to entry that took a generation to build can now be crossed in an afternoon.
I have approached this question as a solution maker rather than an observer. With a small team of engineers and lawyers, I have designed solutions for the legal and education sectors that do not resist AI. They turn it into a new barrier to entry, built on what a general-purpose model cannot replicate.
They are being developed with academic and professional partners.
The question is no longer whether AI will reach your profession. It is what will still protect you once it has.
Details are shared in conversation, with institutions, firms and investors for whom the question has become pressing.
Alongside these solutions, I advise law firms, legal departments, bar associations, universities and legal technology companies on the design, deployment and governance of AI in the profession.
In hospitality, AI is levelling what used to differentiate.
Distribution, pricing, guest messaging, reputation: the tools that once set the best operators apart are becoming available to all, on the same terms. Differentiation is moving elsewhere, into the part of the operation that guests never see but always feel.
That is where I chose to build. Together with a seasoned hotel professional, I designed a solution that makes this hidden layer measurable, strengthens the teams who carry it, and accumulates over time an asset no competitor can buy off the shelf.
It is currently being piloted with partner hotels.
When every hotel has access to the same AI, the advantage belongs to those who own what AI cannot copy.
Details are shared in conversation, with operators and investors who hold that conviction.
I also advise hospitality and tourism ventures on intellectual property, integration agreements with property management systems, data protection, and the authorisation questions specific to heritage sites.