Group Head, Engineering & Digital at AW Rostamani Group
From May 2019 to February 2022, Ciprian Spiridon served as Group Head, Engineering & Digital at AW Rostamani Group, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Joined as Head of Engineering, then promoted to Group Head as the mandate expanded into group-wide digital products, customer experience and transformation.
What the role required
Ciprian joined AW Rostamani Group in May 2019 to establish a central software engineering capability for a diversified group. In March 2021 he was promoted to Group Head, Engineering & Digital.
The expanded role brought engineering, product, customer experience and UI/UX into one digital mandate across multiple businesses. The work combined portfolio governance with hands-on creation of new customer and operating platforms.
This was transformation inside an established enterprise: building internal capability, aligning business leaders around shared platforms and turning opportunities in automotive, retail and shared services into software products that could operate across the group.
What I built and changed
- Built the group’s software engineering function from zero.Created a central department, brought delivery in-house across business units and established the people, practices and ownership model needed to build group platforms.
- Expanded engineering into a group-wide digital mandate.Earned promotion to Group Head and brought product, customer experience and UI/UX under the same accountable leadership as engineering.
- Created real-time automotive auction platforms.Launched B2B and B2C vehicle auctioning as new digital journeys, connecting inventory, buyers and operating teams through purpose-built products.
- Took three retail brands into e-commerce.Built the shared e-commerce foundations and brand experiences needed to launch online retail across three distinct businesses.
- Applied computer vision to live fleet operations.Deployed edge-based number-plate recognition from real-time video feeds, turning vehicle identification into an automated operating capability for the leasing business.
- Productized document intelligence across six companies.Introduced OCR, classification and structured extraction as a reusable group capability for moving paper-heavy processes into governed digital workflows.
- Built customer engagement and vehicle-ownership platforms.Launched new digital products for customer relationships and connected ownership experiences alongside the group’s e-commerce and auction portfolio.
- Established security standards across the portfolio.Owned information security and compliance for the digital estate, including the ISO 27001 practices applied to products built in-house and with partners.