Ali Al Baqali
Chief Executive Officer, Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba)
“We want to be Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) change we want to see in the world.”
Appointed as the CEO on 13 February 2020, Al Baqali has been part of the Alba family for more than 2-decades and brings years of thought leadership and honed experience from within the Company. Al Baqali joined Alba as a Purchasing Officer in 1998 then moved further up the ranks to become Manager for Procurement (2010), Chief Financial Officer (2013), Deputy CEO and Chief Supply Chain Officer (2017) and Acting CEO (2019). In his Executive Management roles, Al Baqali has been instrumental in Alba’s landmark Line 6 Expansion Project, especially in securing the US$3 billion financing for the Project and formulating the sourcing strategies for key raw materials.
As a Bahraini who grew from within Alba, Al Baqali believes that Alba’s growth and success depend heavily on the Company’s entrenched principles on Safety, Development of Human Capital, Social and Civic Responsibility as well as Community Development. Al Baqali places Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters at the top his priorities; his beliefs have translated into Alba establishing c.US$40 million first-of-its-kind Spent Pot Lining Treatment Plant Project, achieving the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Performance Certification, setting-up a Fish Farm at the Calciner & Marine Operations amongst many other initiatives.
Al Baqali was recognised as one of the top business leaders in the Forbes Top CEOs in the Middle East 2021, and his leadership skills has placed Alba as one of the top Bahraini companies in the Forbes Top 100 Companies in the Middle East 2021.
International Memberships& Positions
- Deputy Chairman of the International Aluminum Institute (IAI)
- Professional member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) –UK
- Member of theBoard, Gulf Aluminium Council (GAC)
Education
- MBA from the French Arabian Business School,ESSEC
- B.Sc. in Accounting from the University of Bahrain
Bahrain Memberships& Positions
- Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bahrain Polytechnic
- Member of the Board, INJAZ
- Member of the Board, Tenmou
Davide La Torre is Full Professor of Business Analytics and Quantitative Methods at PRISM Research Centre, Director of the SKEMA Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Head of the (Programme Grande Ecole) PGE L3-M1 Finance and Quants track at SKEMA Business School – Université Côte d’Azur, Sophia Antipolis Campus, France. He is also Adjunct Professor of Mathematical Imaging at the Department of Applied Mathematics of the University of Waterloo (Canada). His research and teaching interests include Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Business, Business Analytics, Economic Dynamics, Mathematical and Statistical Modelling, Operations Management, Operations Research, and Financial Portfolio Optimization. He holds a Master in Applied and Industrial Mathematics (1997, magna cum laude) and a PhD in Computational Mathematics and Operations Research (2002) both from the University of Milan, Milan, Italy and professional certificates in Big Data and Analytics (2017) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. In the past he held permanent and visiting university professor positions in Europe, Canada, Middle East, Central Asia, and Australia. He also served as Departmental Chair and Program Head at several universities. He has more than 150 publications in Scopus, most of them published in high IF journals.
