About
I'm Haris Rehman. Companies bring me in when they want to launch or scale a new product, enter a new market or start using AI.
My current project is The Venue, a new exhibition hall in Riyadh run with Expo Code. Its 25,000 m² of covered space already make it the second largest venue in Riyadh city, and it will grow to about 63,000 m². The venue had no sales process for international clients, so I set one up from scratch. As its international partnerships lead, I'm now building relationships with the big international organisers, the ones that run several recurring shows every year.
AI is part of this work every day. Some of the tools are my own, such as The Daily Model, a daily paper on what changed in GenAI, written for solution architects.
At ESCP Berlin, more than 250 founders and students have gone through my venture building lectures and hackathons.
Before Riyadh, companies hired me through Rapid Venture Lab. A chemical manufacturer in Pakistan was spreading its R&D money too thin. After I moved that money onto the products that could sell, sales of that line grew 300 percent. A battery storage developer in Europe needed a way to finance a project and got a clear go or no-go decision in eight weeks. One marketplace never got built, because its supply and demand assumptions failed under testing.
FoundersLane and Creative Dock came before that. There I led new businesses for large companies in mobility, energy and industry. For a ride-sharing company in Saudi Arabia, the team built an enterprise offer from a blank page and found 100 million dollars in qualified pipeline in eight to ten weeks. My earlier roles were Chief Product Officer at greenbox and Chief Technology Officer at Smart Wins.
Availability
- I have worked across Europe, the UK, the Middle East and South Asia
- I hold full work authorisation in Germany. You would not need to sponsor a visa.
- I am based in Berlin and open to on-site, hybrid and remote work.
Teaching and speaking
- Guest Lecturer in venture building at ESCP Business School. More than 250 founders and students trained.
- AsiaBerlin Ambassador. Connecting startups, investors and policymakers across Asia and Berlin.
- Venture building hackathons and startup pitch juries.
- Mentoring through Westerwelle Foundation and enpact.
Career
- International Partnerships Lead, The Venue (Expo Code)
- Venture Builder and Product Lead, Rapid Venture Lab
- Guest Lecturer, ESCP Business School
- Venture Lead, FoundersLane, acquired by Creative Dock
- Senior Strategist, icon group
- Entrepreneur in Residence, Beam GmbH and Amplon Ventures
- Chief Product Officer, greenbox Global Holding
- Chief Technology Officer, Smart Wins Technologies
- Co-Founder and CEO, Elbowroom International
- MSc Renewable Energy Engineering, KTH Stockholm and UPC Barcelona
- BS Aerospace Engineering, Institute of Space Technology
Affiliations
ESCP Business School, Westerwelle Foundation, AsiaBerlin Forum e.V., enpact, FoundersLane, Rapid Venture Lab
Client work
Energy storage, Europe
Priced a market with no public price.
A developer hit a financing wall on battery storage. I mapped the specialty risk-transfer landscape, opened direct relationships with the counterparties who write these structures, built an interactive comparison tool on the client's real project numbers, and delivered an evidence-based go/no-go in eight weeks.
Chemical manufacturing
Sales up 300 percent after refocusing the portfolio.
R&D and product effort spread too thin. I built an evaluation framework, benchmarked the portfolio against the client's own best performers, and refocused R&D investment on what was working.
Marketplace validation
A clean no-go.
A venture was ready to build before anyone had tested its supply, trust and demand assumptions. I ran a structured validation sprint and aligned the stakeholders on the decision. Roughly 50K saved, plus the months a build would have taken.
Shared mobility, Saudi Arabia
Enterprise B2B from a blank page.
100M in qualified pipeline from an eight to ten week sprint. A ride-sharing company entered enterprise services with no B2B proposition. I led a cross-functional team through the sprint, owning discovery, use-case definition, commercial sizing, MVP scope and go-to-market.