An executive practice built on evidence.
I advise organisations on analytics and artificial intelligence, and I hold a doctorate in transport economics and airline finance. The combination is the point: strategy advice tested with the same rigour as peer-reviewed research.
Who I Am
Engineer by training.
Economist by research.
Analytics and AI leader by practice.
I trained as a civil engineer in Cairo and started out designing highways for a USD 5.4 billion motorway programme in Algeria. Two years in, I left a stable job for a scholarship in the United States and spent six years moving between research and industry: transport simulation, behavioural finance, healthcare analytics. The common thread was never the subject. It was whether the numbers held.
In 2015 I moved to Sydney for a doctorate at the University of Sydney Business School. The thesis asked an uncomfortable question about a widespread corporate practice: does hedging actually protect an airline? Across a hundred international carriers and a survey of sixty-two airlines, the answer was that financial hedging stabilises margins but carries collateral costs large enough to offset much of the benefit. The findings are now cited across the air transport economics literature.
I joined EY in Sydney in 2019 and moved from Senior Consultant to Associate Director in three years, leading health analytics for Oceania and validating Qantas’s USD 5.6 billion fleet investment case. From 2022 to 2024 I held the global development mandate for analytics and AI across EY’s strategy and transactions service line, setting strategy for twelve thousand practitioners and training eight thousand of them. Since late 2024 I have been seconded to the Middle East as the global expert establishing analytics and AI capability for sovereign and government clients.
What I Do
AI and analytics strategy
Define where AI can create value, prioritise the opportunities worth funding, and build the evaluation discipline needed to scale with confidence.
Economic and decision advisory
Bring analytics, forecasting and economic evidence to investment cases, transactions, public-sector programmes and other decisions that have to be defended.
Capability and executive education
Equip leaders and practitioners to evaluate models, use evidence well, and build capability that outlasts the engagement.
Healthcare analytics
Patient flow, capacity and footprint across Australian hospital systems, and whether the transformation actually delivered.
Evidence before assertion
Accepted practice does not always survive the evidence.
Research taught me that, consulting confirmed it, and I have tested for it ever since.
USD 5.6B
Investment case validated
12,000+
Practitioners in the global capability mandate
8,000+
Professionals completing Analytics for All
How I Work
Evidence before opinion
I would rather test a claim than assert it. If a recommendation cannot survive the data, it does not go in the report.
Decisions, not deliverables
The output is a decision someone can defend, not a deck. Everything is built backwards from the choice that has to be made.
Evaluate the output
AI, models, forecasts, programmes: none of them earn trust on the strength of a single result. Checking the answer is part of the work.
Capability, not dependency
The best engagements leave a team able to do the work without me. Training and enablement are built into delivery, not bolted on.
Career
Built across disciplines and regions.
Engineering, academic research, industry analytics and global advisory leadership.
2022 to present
EY, Global and Middle East
London · Sydney · Riyadh
Global Development Leader, Analytics and AI, Strategy and Transactions (August 2022 to October 2024)
Director and Analytics and Economics Lead, EY MENA, on secondment (October 2024 to present)
Held the global development mandate for analytics and AI across a 12,000-practitioner service line: strategy, market priorities, and a capability programme completed by more than 8,000 professionals.
Seconded to the Middle East as the global expert: sovereign AI strategy and model evaluation for HUMAIN, an economic intelligence platform for Dubai Government, and a federal study of AI and employee productivity.
2019 to 2022
EY Australia
Sydney
Senior Consultant, Analytics and Economics (February 2019)
Manager, Decision Support Analytics and Modelling (August 2019)
Associate Director, Analytics and Economics (July 2021 to August 2022)
Led health data analytics for Oceania: whole-of-hospital patient flow redesign, benefits realisation and capacity modelling across four Australian jurisdictions.
Validated Qantas’s USD 5.6 billion Project Sunrise investment case; transaction analytics on a USD 1.46 billion refinancing and an independent model review that released about USD 110 million in collateral.
2015 to 2021
The University of Sydney Business School
Sydney
Senior Research Analyst and Data Scientist, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (2015 to 2019)
Sessional Lecturer, MBA programme (2020 to 2021)
Doctoral research on hedging in international airlines: econometric models, historical-simulation Value at Risk, and a global survey of airline executives.
Taught Data Analytics and Economic Modelling on the MBA programme.
Earlier career
2013 to 2015
PharMerica Corporation
Louisville, Kentucky
Business Analytics Lead
Led customer-facing analytics for a major US institutional pharmacy serving long-term care and skilled nursing facilities.
A cost-containment programme covered 75 per cent of denied prescriptions and realised around USD 2 million in savings for one client.
2009 to 2011
North Carolina State University, ITRE
Raleigh, North Carolina
Research Analyst
Built a vehicle-to-vehicle communication model into a microscopic traffic simulator, calibrated against real-world emissions data collected in the field.
Second place, Best Research Poster, Southeastern Transportation Center, at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 2011.
2007 to 2009
Dar Al-Handasah
Cairo
Transportation Engineer
Highway design and planning for the Autoroute Est-Ouest programme in Algeria, a USD 5.4 billion motorway project.
Education
Research-trained. Practice-tested.
A multidisciplinary foundation spanning engineering, finance, economics and advanced analytics.
2015 to 2019
The University of Sydney Business School, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies
Doctor of Philosophy. Transport economics and airline finance.
Thesis: Financial Risk Management and Hedging Strategies in International Airlines: A Theoretical and Practical Perspective. University of Sydney Business School HDR Scholarship, 2015.
2011 to 2013
University of Louisville
Master of Business Administration. Business and finance.
Graduate assistantship. Research analyst in the College of Business; co-authored a peer-reviewed article on perceptions of wealth.
2009 to 2011
North Carolina State University
Master of Science. Transport engineering.
Graduate scholarship and research assistantship.
2002 to 2007
Cairo University
Bachelor of Science. Civil engineering.
First-class honours.
Recognition
AI Champion, EY-Parthenon, 2026
Higher Degree Research Scholarship, University of Sydney Business School, 2015
Second place, Best Research Poster, Southeastern Transportation Center, Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 2011
Publications
Four peer-reviewed articles in Transportation Research Part A, Transportation Research Part E, Transport Policy and the International Journal of Business and Social Research.
Technical
Python, R, SQL, Alteryx and STATA; Power BI and Tableau; Databricks and Azure AI. Econometrics, time-series forecasting, simulation, optimisation, geospatial and discrete choice analysis.
Languages
English and Arabic. Both used in delivery.
Biography
For introductions and media.
Third person. For speaker introductions and media use.
Dr Hassan Swidan advises organisations on analytics and artificial intelligence strategy, with a focus on where AI creates value and how to evaluate whether it did. He held the global development mandate for analytics and AI across EY’s strategy and transactions service line from 2022 to 2024, building capability for twelve thousand practitioners, and is currently seconded to the Middle East as the global expert establishing analytics and AI capability for sovereign and government clients. His practice was built in Australia, where he led health analytics for Oceania and delivered transaction and economic advisory, including the validation of a USD 5.6 billion airline investment case. He holds a PhD in transport economics and airline finance from the University of Sydney, has published in leading transport journals, and has worked across the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and the Middle East.
Turn a complex question into a decision you can defend.
For advisory, training and speaking enquiries, or a conversation about a decision you are weighing.