OPEX First Saudi 2026
About the event
OPEX First Saudi 2026 is a one-day operational excellence summit held on 25 November 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya in Riyadh, under the theme "Vision to Value: Merging AI and Process Excellence". It looks at the Kingdom's shift from planning transformation to delivering it and measuring operational performance.
The programme is built around eight focus areas: strategy-to-execution governance, AI and intelligent automation in operations, process mining and enterprise control towers, digital governance and KPI accountability, enterprise architecture, compliance automation and regulatory digitisation, real-time performance control towers, and autonomous enterprise models. It combines keynotes, leadership panels and technology presentations, and closes with the OPEX awards ceremony across five categories. Attendees earn CPD certification of up to seven hours.
The summit is aimed at senior leaders responsible for operations, transformation, strategy and technology in government, energy, banking, aviation, telecom, manufacturing, retail and giga-projects. Attendance is by invitation and free for qualified delegates: applicants register through the form on the event page and the organiser confirms eligibility. More than 220 delegates are expected.
Agenda
15- 08:00–09:00Registration
- 09:10–09:15Welcome Remarks
- 09:15–09:20National Anthem and Opening Ceremony
- 09:20–09:35Keynote: The Execution Decade: The Kingdom's Shift from Transformation to Execution
- 09:35–09:50Keynote: Leading Institutions Through the Execution Decade
- 09:50–10:30Leadership Panel: The Governance Gap - Turning Vision 2030 Mandates into Measurable Institutional Performance
- 10:30–10:45Keynote Presentation (topic to be announced)
- 10:45–11:00Keynote Presentation: AI Ready Processes, Why Your AI Strategy Starts with Process Context
- 11:45–12:20Panel Discussion: Beyond the Pilot Wall - Scaling Agentic AI & Governed Automation Across Operations
- 12:20–12:35Technology Presentation: Sovereign AI Isn't Sovereign Unless It's Secure, and Ops Is the Front Line
- 12:35–12:50Technology Presentation (topic to be announced)
- 13:15–13:50Panel Discussion: From Hindsight to Foresight - Process Mining, Control Towers & the Self-Optimising Enterprise
- 13:50–14:05Technology Presentation
- 14:05–14:40Panel Discussion: Compliance by Discipline - Regulatory Digitisation, Enterprise Architecture & Operations
- 14:40–15:00OPEX First Award Ceremony & Raffle Draw
