Emarat Petroleum (via Sia Partners) · Embedded Product and Delivery Lead · 2023 to 2025
Delivered a UAE fuel loyalty super app within a four-month turnaround period.
Restructured a stalled Emarat Petroleum digital program, aligned more than 20 stakeholders and vendors across six integration tracks, and delivered EmCan on a fixed launch date.
Executive Snapshot
- Emarat Petroleum was four months from a fixed, government-linked launch of EmCan, its first consumer digital loyalty platform.
- The program was stalled. Six integration tracks progressed independently, lacking shared cadence, unified accountability, or an effective delivery model.
- I joined as the embedded delivery lead to reset operating governance, align more than 30 team members across Sia, Emarat, and external vendors, and ensure the launch date was met.
- I replaced parallel consulting workstreams with a single embedded product organization and implemented real-time decision escalation across all tracks.
- EmCan launched on schedule, reached #1 in the UAE App Store Lifestyle category within 30 days organically, and won Best Loyalty Program in the Retail Fuel Sector at ReFuel Forum MENA 2024.
The Challenge
Emarat Petroleum engaged Sia Partners to run a digital transformation with EmCan as its most commercially visible output: a fuel loyalty super app tied to a public commitment with no room to negotiate the date.
Four months before launch, the program lacked convergence. Six integration tracks, each complex enough to be a standalone project, progressed without shared visibility or decision governance. POS, CRM, ERP, loyalty, fraud, and audit teams met separately. Trade-offs were addressed at the track level rather than at the program level.
The constraints were clear: a team of more than 30 people across three organizations that had gaps working together, six tracks each with independent schedule risk, and a client environment with fragile executive confidence.
My Mandate
- Reset delivery governance by replacing parallel workstreams with a single embedded operating rhythm.
- Align business, technology, vendors, and Emarat leadership on shared priorities and decision rights.
- Protect launch scope by identifying essential tasks and deferring non-critical items.
- Lead the steering committee and translate trade-off decisions into explanations that build executive trust.
- Co-own the product roadmap end-to-end while the delivery model was rebuilt underneath it.
What I Changed
Established a single operating layer.
Replaced the consulting workstream structure with an embedded product organization within Emarat's daily operations. Shared standups, incident channels, and accountability for the launch date replaced the previous model where Sia and Emarat coordinated remotely.
Anchored every decision to the core promise.
Real-time earn-and-burn, where loyalty balances update within seconds of a fuel transaction, became the non-negotiable standard for all scope, vendor, and integration decisions. Features that did not support this standard were cut or deferred.
Built the data platform beneath the loyalty interface.
While EmCan appears to be a loyalty app, it is fundamentally a customer data platform that assigns identities to previously anonymous fuel transactions. This foundation enabled the fraud detection engine, personalization layer, and subsequent CRM initiatives.
Transformed the steering committee into a decision-making forum.
Every trade-off was explained to the Emarat executive sponsor in educational terms rather than as status updates. This approach built trust during the most challenging period and maintained engagement in the final month.
Key Decisions and Tradeoffs
Embedded delivery as the operating model.
Replaced parallel workstreams with a shared daily rhythm across all three organizations, ensuring a unified cadence.
Tradeoff: Increased daily resource and senior presence costs from Sia.
Executive signal: I identified the operating model as the primary bottleneck, rather than delivery speed or technical capability.
Real-time earn-and-burn as the protected core.
In the UAE fuel loyalty market, delayed point settlement was standard. Building around real-time settlement provided significant market differentiation and a clear decision filter for the entire project.
Tradeoff: Increased complexity from direct POS integration instead of standard batch reconciliation.
Executive signal: I prioritized customer trust and market differentiation over delivery simplicity.
CDP investment under time pressure.
Building the customer data platform alongside the loyalty interface increased complexity within an already constrained timeline. The alternative would have been launching without an intelligence foundation and incurring higher costs to rebuild later.
Tradeoff: Greater integration complexity during the most constrained phase.
Executive signal: I made a deliberate long-term infrastructure investment despite short-term pressures.
Results and Validation
- Launched on schedule, April 26, 2024
- #1 in the UAE App Store Lifestyle category within 30 days, organically, no paid acquisition
- 100,000 users in the first month
- +30% revenue uplift across all stations vs. the same period 12 months prior
- -25% cash transactions in the first year, from 40% to 30% of all transactions
- -80% reduction in loyalty fraud through the ML-driven engine built on the CDP
- Engagement extended into multi-year work
- Performance metrics are based on internal program reporting and post-launch business tracking
Best Loyalty Program in the Retail Fuel Sector 2024, ReFuel Forum MENA
Press Releases
- Consultancy ME: Consultancies help Emarat develop and launch EmCan loyalty program
- Mid-East Info: Emirates General Petroleum wins Best Customer Loyalty Program award
- Zawya: Etihad and Emarat formalise strategic collaboration through EmCan
- Emirates Media Centre: Emirates Skywards Everyday partners with EmCan
- Biz Today: Al-Futtaim Blue partners with EmCan loyalty program
What This Proves
This case demonstrates the ability to enter a distressed GCC program with a public deadline, diagnose the operating failure, restructure delivery governance, align a cross-organizational team of more than 30 people, and deliver a consumer platform that achieves both market recognition and institutional awards. The decision-making discipline, stakeholder management under pressure, and trade-off governance are directly transferable to any senior AI transformation or digital delivery mandate in the region.
Lessons Learned
- The engagement model is a critical product decision. Standard consulting workstreams cannot deliver a complex integrated platform in four months. Selecting the appropriate delivery structure is a matter of product leadership, not just program management.
- Loyalty is the visible layer; the data platform is the true product. All subsequent AI use cases were enabled by the data foundation established under pressure.
- Explaining trade-offs in educational terms builds more trust than providing status updates. Clearly communicating the rationale behind decisions to the steering committee maintained engagement during the final month.