Omer Saleem

Could you provide an overview of Proven and the latest achievements of the company?

We help companies that come into Saudi Arabia get incorporated, complete their post-incorporation, and manage everything after that in terms of government relations, management, employee affairs, HR, payroll, accounting, and so on. Our approach has always been to partner with our clients rather than just provide services. That has differentiated us from many other firms and consultants providing such services in the market. 2022 was exciting for Proven because we announced a deal with the TMF Group, a leading global corporate services provider. As a brand, we are heavily focused on corporate immigration and managed services from an HR perspective and were struggling somewhat in terms of corporate services. Corporate immigration itself is an extremely niche space. We sought to grow the business into higher-value additional corporate services spectrum, which was challenging for a boutique firm like us. It not only requires a great deal of investment, which we are willing to do, but also extensive subject matter experts. Accordingly, we have been working with TMF for the better part of two years, and we subsequently entered into an acquisition agreement where our corporate services business will move over to its platform while the human experience management (HXM) business stays within the Proven Saudi Arabia portfolio. We will also rebrand the corporate services offerings as TMF KSA. This is an exciting development because TMF has 88 offices globally and is in 120 countries. That network will subsequently become available to us and will augment everything we are doing. This in itself is a major boost to us, our reach, and what we can do. Furthermore, TMF works in all the higher value corporate services, which can subsequently be added to our portfolio and service offerings as well. The mandate is to double our business by summer 2024. In terms of the resources under management, we have about 200, and the goal is to double that in one year’s time. We are also on track to add many more technology elements. We currently have client relationship managers working one-on-one with clients, though we plan to add significantly more dashboards, self-service portals, and reporting that is easily available to clients on the HXM side. We will also be back in terms of HR advisory. We had previously spun off the recruitment business into standalone entities that offer recruitment services in Saudi as well as other English-speaking markets now. In addition, in 2022 we divested Proven 360, the marketing division, which has since become a successful digital marketing agency that serves both Proven and outside clients.

The company has a consolidated presence in KSA, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Kuwait. How are you working to cement your presence within the GCC region?

We have teams in Saudi, which is our HQ and the core knowledge base. In addition, we have a team of 15-20 people in the UAE, about 40 people in India, 30 in Egypt, five or six in South Africa, and others scattered globally. All these offices currently serve the Saudi market. It is a distributed team model with no back office or processing house. This year, our goal is to expand regionally, especially in HXM services. As of 1Q2023, we started offering similar HXM services in every location that we are in. Our recruitment team works globally and has engagements in five or six different countries. We also launched an affiliate program where affiliates can partner with us and, bring in leads, and earn a share of the profits. In a nutshell, this strategy is aimed at expanding our global footprint when it comes to HXM Services. On the corporate services side, our expansion plans are already in the works with TMF. Once that goes on, we will have a global platform to work off.

What are your main priorities and objectives?

The team is growing, which necessitates a real focus internally on providing a better and improved culture. We had a positive culture within the Saudi and UAE offices and subsequently expanded to India, Egypt, South Africa, and Eastern Europe; however, amid that expansion, the pandemic hit, which was a major challenge for us in terms of building the right team culture. The major focus in 2023 and moving forward will be to enhance the quality of our team’s lives and build systems and processes around them so they can do more. We will also focus on expanding our service lines. It will not only help the business, but also allow our team to expand their career paths and move from just doing augmentation to compliance, structuring, and even working on legal frameworks. It is vital for us to ensure our team members can grow into that space and further expand their capabilities.