Who is Prateek Saxena? Prateek Saxena is an Abu Dhabi-based business operator, builder and strategist. He serves as Group General Manager of Al Zaabi Group and works across the UAE's real economy, including healthcare, automotive, real estate, manufacturing, trading, e-commerce and education.
This page refers to Prateek Saxena, the Abu Dhabi-based Group General Manager of Al Zaabi Group, and not to other public figures who share the name.
His work sits between strategy and execution. The focus is practical: turn business direction into operating rhythm, financial discipline, technology adoption and repeatable scale.
Short bio
Prateek Saxena is a business operator based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is Group General Manager of Al Zaabi Group, a diversified UAE business group with interests across multiple real-economy sectors. A Purdue-trained industrial engineer with INSEAD executive education, Prateek writes about business operations, leadership, finance, technology and practical AI adoption in operating companies.
What Prateek works on
Prateek works on the operating layer of business: how companies actually run, scale and improve. His work includes:
- business strategy and execution
- operations across diversified business portfolios
- financial discipline and management reporting
- digital transformation and enterprise AI adoption
- leadership systems, governance and accountability
- practical ways to improve decision making across teams
The recurring question is simple: how does ambition become execution? A strategy only matters if teams can turn it into routines, numbers, decisions and follow-through.
Career path
Prateek began his career close to the operating floor, with early roles at John Deere and Bose Corporation in the United States. Those roles shaped his engineering-led view of work: understand the system, measure what matters, remove friction and improve the process.
He later worked in corporate strategy at Delma Emirates Group before joining Al Zaabi Group in Abu Dhabi. At Al Zaabi Group, his roles have included Operations and Strategy Manager, Group Deputy General Manager and Group General Manager.
That path, from manufacturing and operations into diversified group leadership, shapes the way he writes and works. The point of strategy is not the document. The point is what changes in the business after the document is written.
Education
Prateek studied Industrial Engineering at Purdue University and completed executive education at INSEAD, including a Certificate in Global Management and work on transforming businesses with AI. He is also pursuing the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) credential with the Institute of Management Accountants.
The combination is practical: engineering discipline, financial rigour and a management lens for scaling businesses.
Sectors
Prateek's work spans the UAE real economy, including:
- healthcare
- automotive
- real estate
- building materials
- contracting
- manufacturing
- trading
- retail
- e-commerce
- food and beverage
- education
The common thread is operations. Every sector has its own economics, but every operating business still needs clear ownership, reliable reporting, disciplined execution and leaders who can connect the numbers to the work.
AI and technology
Prateek writes about AI from an operator's point of view, not as a slogan. His current writing looks at how real businesses can use AI safely and usefully. The model is only one part of the system. Businesses also need context, tools, permissions, verification, memory, audit trails and human judgment. He refers to this operating layer as harness engineering: the system around an AI model that lets it act inside real work.
He also writes about Self-Improvement Protocols, or SIPs, for AI agents. A SIP is a disciplined loop for learning from outcomes, correcting mistakes and improving the system without removing human oversight. You can read the full argument in After the Prompt: The Operator's Harness.
Writing
Prateek writes on:
- business operations
- leadership
- UAE real-economy sectors
- digital transformation
- enterprise AI adoption
- harness engineering for AI agents
- finance and management discipline
Selected articles: Confessions of an Accidental Vibe Coder, on vibe coding in a suit, and After the Prompt: The Operator's Harness. More on the Journal, and key terms defined on the definitions page.
Quick facts
- Name Prateek Saxena
- Location Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Current role Group General Manager, Al Zaabi Group
- Education Purdue University, INSEAD executive education
- Core topics operations, strategy, finance, enterprise AI, UAE real economy
- Website https://prateeksaxena.me/
- LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateeksaxena-uae
Contact
For advisory, speaking, board or business conversations, use the contact route on the homepage or connect through LinkedIn.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Prateek Saxena?
Prateek Saxena is an Abu Dhabi-based business operator, builder and strategist. He serves as Group General Manager of Al Zaabi Group and works across multiple sectors of the UAE real economy.
What is Prateek Saxena known for?
Prateek is known for operations, strategy, diversified business leadership and practical enterprise AI adoption. His writing connects boardroom strategy with the operating systems needed to execute it.
Where is Prateek Saxena based?
Prateek Saxena is based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
What does Prateek Saxena write about?
He writes about business operations, leadership, finance, technology, the UAE economy and AI adoption inside real operating companies.
What is Prateek Saxena's role at Al Zaabi Group?
Prateek Saxena serves as Group General Manager of Al Zaabi Group. His work is focused on strategy, operations, execution discipline and transformation across a diversified business portfolio. Read more on the Al Zaabi Group role page.