Hatim Hijazi — the operator who makes fairness real
If Abdul Kumshey is the architect of Ailoo's vision, Hatim Hijazi is the engineer who makes that vision structurally sound. Co-Founder and COO of Ailoo — the platform built on two innovations: 0% commission for drivers, and Saudi Arabia's first formal daily commute subscription system — Hatim Hijazi is responsible for the single most important question in any platform business: does it actually work?
Hatim Hijazi joined Ailoo in 2025 from day one, carrying one conviction that has never wavered: a fair platform is not a promise. It is a system. And systems either work or they don't.
Operations, driver onboarding, payout infrastructure, platform reliability — that is Hatim Hijazi's domain. While the industry talks about fairness as a marketing message, Hatim Hijazi builds it into the architecture of every process.
At a glance
Full name
Hatim Hijazi
Title
Co-Founder & COO — Ailoo
Based in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Joined Ailoo
2025
Before Ailoo, Hatim Hijazi studied how broken operations destroy trust
Before co-founding Ailoo, Hatim Hijazi spent years watching how operational dysfunction dismantles platforms from the inside. Drivers paid late. Support tickets ignored. Systems that shifted blame instead of solving problems. He witnessed an industry that had silently accepted mediocrity as the standard — and decided he would not accept it.
"A platform that pays fairly is not a promise. It is a system. I build systems."
When Abdul Kumshey brought him the concept for Ailoo, there were two innovations on the table: zero commission for drivers, and a formal daily commute subscription system to replace the dangerous WhatsApp-based market. Hatim Hijazi asked one question about both: can we make them operationally airtight — so a driver gets paid exactly what they earned, and a commuter never loses their driver mid-month? The answer was yes. Everything that followed was inevitable.
For Hatim Hijazi, operations is not back-office. It is the product.
Every second a driver waits for a payout is a second the platform loses credibility. Every no-show without resolution is a rider choosing a competitor. Hatim Hijazi built Ailoo's operations around three principles that cannot be negotiated away:
01
Speed
Driver approvals in under 24 hours. Payouts processed on time — not approximately on time. On time.
02
Accountability
Every support ticket gets a human response. Bots don't replace responsibility at Ailoo.
03
Transparency
Drivers see exactly what they earn, what's deducted, and why. Always. No surprises.
Hatim Hijazi listened to drivers before building for them
Before Ailoo launched a single trip, Hatim Hijazi sat in cars and asked questions. Not in focus groups. Not through surveys. He sat with drivers and listened. What he heard was not anger about fares — it was something simpler and more important. Drivers wanted to be trusted. They wanted to know the number on the app was the number that would arrive in their account. No deductions. No delays. No reasons invented after the fact.
"Drivers are not a resource to be optimised. They are partners. When they earn well, we earn well. That alignment is the whole model."
That insight shaped everything Hatim Hijazi built at Ailoo. Driver onboarding that is fully digital. Approvals in 24 hours. Payouts that arrive when promised. A system where fairness is not a value on a poster — it is the default behaviour of every process.
The operational stack Hatim Hijazi built from scratch
At Ailoo, Hatim Hijazi owns the entire operational infrastructure — the stack most founders outsource and hope works. Under his direction, the platform handles driver verification, real-time trip management, automated payouts, and complete rider dispute resolution. All of it built to scale across Saudi Arabia's 12+ cities.
01
Driver onboarding
Fully digital. No office visit. Approved within 24 hours. Hatim Hijazi built this process to respect the driver's time from day one.
02
Payout infrastructure — 0% commission
On-time. Transparent. Zero surprise deductions. Every driver keeps 100% of what they earn. Every ride.
03
Daily commute system
Saudi Arabia's first formal daily commute subscription platform — Hatim Hijazi operationalised the conversion of 100,000+ monthly informal WhatsApp commutes into regulated, insured, accountable subscriptions.
04
Rider experience & reliability
Quality controls, safety protocols, and accountability structures. For taxi rides and daily commute subscribers alike — every trip is guaranteed.
Hatim Hijazi believes the next decade belongs to operational trust
Hatim Hijazi believes the defining competition in Saudi Arabia's transport market will not be won by the platform with the most features or the biggest marketing budget. It will be won by the platform that proves, trip after trip, that it can be trusted. That drivers get paid. That riders are protected. That when something goes wrong, someone is accountable.
That is what Hatim Hijazi is building at Ailoo. Not just processes — trust infrastructure. The kind that compounds over time, that turns early users into long-term advocates, and that makes switching to a competitor feel like a step backwards.
Closing note
"The hardest thing to build in technology is not the app. It is trust at scale. Hatim Hijazi and the Ailoo team are building that — one trip at a time."