Providing Better Leadership Through Evidence-Based Assessments

Few industries are as vital to securing the global economy as cybersecurity and telecommunications, especially in an increasingly interconnected world. Eng. Omar Alhawawi previously held roles within subsidiaries of the stc group, including cybersecurity expert and compliance and ethics ambassador, and he currently serves as cybersecurity consulting manager at the Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE).

Leading Successful Programs: Using Evidence to Assess Effectiveness, an executive education program at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), enabled Omar to develop a structured understanding of how evidence-based assessment programs are designed, implemented, measured, and evaluated, leveraging data-driven methods.

In Omar’s current role at SITE, which is responsible for conducting NCA-mandated cybersecurity assessments of entities and organizations across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this role, he applies a structured, step-by-step evidence-based assessment process covering design, implementation, impact measurement, and evaluation. These processes include the use of randomized experiments to assess the impact of cybersecurity programs, supported by both quantitative and qualitative data drawn from multiple and diverse sources.

Through an emphasis on interactive sessions with a global cohort—including performance measurement workshops, policy analysis programs, and monitoring and evaluation training—Leading Successful Programs encouraged a collaborative approach ideal for an interdependent industry such as telecommunications. In addition, all solutions are designed to work in the context of real-world limitations on budgets and timelines as well as political constraints.

Eng. Omar Alhawawi noted that through the program sessions, he gained valuable insights into the impact evaluation principles that could help leaders across organizations, communities and economies in diverse sectors such as energy, media, sport, health, telecommunications, finance, education, transportation and public services benchmark, analyze and reassess the performance of their programs and strategies against industries standards and best practices. This, in turn, could help create a stronger foundation for development, entrepreneurship, business growth and innovation within their organizations and communities.

In the end, Omar's motivation for attending Leading Successful Programs was deeply personal, as he takes pride in his efforts to enhance efficiency and develop national cadres within national-scale cybersecurity assessment practices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this role, his duties require engagement with policymakers and decision-makers to protect organizations by addressing cybersecurity compliance observation, risks and threats, as well as their potential consequences such as cyber vandalism, cyber warfare, operational disruptions, and privacy risks.

Omar’s approach is centered on bridging technology and policy at the intersection of technology diplomacy, advancing the digital economy and fostering collaboration at national and international levels.