Syed Ahmed
Technology executive, board director, and advisor. Based in Sydney.
I’ve spent 25 years at the intersection of technology, strategy, and leadership in organisations that needed to change in ways they found genuinely difficult.
My career has moved between the technical and the executive - from software engineering and enterprise architecture through to Chief Digital Officer, CEO, and board director. The consistent thread has been complex transformation: inheriting broken systems, building commercial functions from nothing, leading organisations through crises while keeping the mission intact.
The work I’m most proud of was at Innowell, a clinical mental health technology platform I ran as CEO for five years. We transformed a government-funded research initiative into a commercially operating SaaS business with implementations across Australia and Canada. The platform enabled real-time clinical intervention in acute mental health crisis - allowing clinicians to act when previously they couldn’t. There are people alive today because of that.
I’m currently Deputy Chancellor of the University of Wollongong, where I also chair the Digital Technology & AI Advisory Committee overseeing major technology investment programmes across all university campuses globally. I also serve as a Non-Executive Director of the Westmead Hospital Foundation, and as an angel investor and advisor at Wholesum.
Through Momen Labs, I work with boards and executives on AI strategy, governance, and digital transformation - bringing a perspective shaped by having operated at both the technical and governance level across government, health, and enterprise.
I write about AI, transformation, and the gap between what boards decide and what organisations actually do. The LinkedIn posts are the teaser; the longer pieces are here.