About

Bandar Alhattab

بندر الحطاب

I trained as a psychologist and built a career in marketing, communication and strategy. Psychology and this work are closer than they look. Both start from the same question: why do people believe what they believe?

In telecom, and later in government, I learned that trust is not won by a campaign. It is built one experience at a time, and an institution says more through what it does than through anything it announces. Customers and citizens decide as people first, so how and when an idea arrives matters as much as the idea itself.

When I look at a piece of work, whether a campaign or a decision, I start with the person on the other end of it: the customer at the counter, the citizen in the queue, the employee who has to carry it out. I call myself a storyteller because that is how I work. I look for the plain story inside complicated work, and I tell it so people understand. The human comes first. The number follows.

Experience

My career began in banking and telecom. In 2017 I moved to state-owned and state-linked institutions, where I worked in investment, development finance, public spending and logistics. At the Social Development Bank, my audience was small business owners and families. Since June 2026, I have led marketing and communications at a national development fund.

SPL (Saudi Post): General Manager of Marketing, Research and Planning, 2024 to 2026
Government Expenditure and Projects Efficiency Authority (EXPRO): General Manager of Marketing, 2023 to 2024
Social Development Bank: Executive Director of Marketing and Communications, 2021 to 2023
Dussur (Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Company): Corporate Communications and Branding Director, 2017 to 2021
Zain KSA, 2007 to 2017: Corporate Communications Director (2015 to 2017), Strategy Execution Manager (2013 to 2015), Talent Management Manager (2011 to 2013), Organization Development Specialist (2010 to 2011), Independent Retailers Specialist (2007 to 2009)
Mobily: Key Account Manager, 2005 to 2007
National Commercial Bank (now the Saudi National Bank): Takaful Sales Specialist, 2003 to 2005

I served on the judging panels of CX Saudi, the customer experience association, from 2022 to 2023, and of the Pioneer Marketing Award from 2019 to 2020.

Education

I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from King Abdulaziz University, and in 2008 the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties certified me as a psychologist. Since then I have completed executive programs at Harvard University (2022), the Kellogg School of Management (2022 to 2023), Imperial College London (2024) and IMD (2025).

Writing

MaaalMarketeirsAl-HayatLinkedInX

My newspaper writing began in 2017 in Al-Hayat. I then wrote for Maaal from 2018 to 2019 and for Marketeirs from 2018 to 2024, and in English I wrote articles on LinkedIn from 2014 to 2019. These days my long pieces appear on X. The subjects keep coming back to the same places: how leaders rise and lose their way; why trust is the real product of marketing and the media; the Saudi as he is, among his own people and in the stories told about him; and, lately, the talking machine at work and what it magnifies in the person who uses it. Most of it is in Arabic, and you will find it here.

Read the essays

My book, The Magnifying Mirror, on governing artificial intelligence inside work teams, is complete. Its publication details will follow.

I write as Bandar Alhattab. My legal name is Bandar Alghamdi, so if you know me by that name, you are in the right place.

Invitations and professional inquiries reach me through the contact page, and I read every message myself.