Yasmine Rifai

Biography

Professional biography

Yasmine Rifai is a founder, AI and public sector leader, speaker, and author who has spent more than 15 years shaping how governments and enterprises across the GCC adopt AI, build digital infrastructure, and lead through transformation. As CTO for the Public Sector at Microsoft Kuwait, she led the largest government technology agreement Microsoft has ever executed globally, and authored Kuwait’s National AI Strategic Framework, a document that became a reference point within Microsoft worldwide and the foundation for the country’s national AI strategy. She is the author of Unapologetically Alpha, built around her ALPHA Compass framework, and Mindset Decoded, and hosts a podcast featuring leaders from across GCC government and industry. Her contributions have earned Microsoft’s Platinum Club Award and the Be the Change Award, and she has been a featured speaker at World Summit AI, Reuters Events, Bloomberg NEF, DCD Connect, and more than a dozen other global conferences. Lebanese by nationality and based in Kuwait, Yasmine writes in both English and Arabic. Her work is shaped by resilience learned early in life, and guided by a simple conviction.