Ali Asif

Chicago and Al Khobar

I’m at Kellogg, Class of 2027, and I run an aviation infrastructure company in Saudi Arabia on AI agents.

I’m general manager of Northlane Solutions in Al Khobar and I own Procul Solutions. The agents do the reading, sourcing and estimating. A person signs off every price before it leaves the building.

Ali Asif in a grey three-piece suit walking through an event hall, chandeliers overhead
March 2026

The short version

I ran my first business, an online shop in Saudi Arabia, from 2017 to 2022, then sold it to focus on a corporate career. I studied for ACCA and finished a BSc in Applied Accounting at Oxford Brookes while working full time. I started at Marafie Consultancy in Riyadh, moved to PKF in Dhahran, then spent three years at PwC in Al Khobar and was promoted to assistant manager. I'm a CPA, an ACCA member and a CFA Level I candidate.

I don't hand-write code. I design these systems, direct AI tooling to build them, and test them until I trust them.

In March 2026 I set up Northlane Solutions, an aviation infrastructure company in Al Khobar that bids on airfield lighting and helipad work. I run it on a set of AI agents, with a person approving every price and every outbound document. That operating model, and my years in audit, pointed me at the bigger problem: Saudi companies still close their books by hand. Through Procul Solutions, the Saudi company I own, I'm building ProCul, an agent-native accounting product where agents post, reconcile and prepare the close and an accountant approves. It's the kind of AI-native ledger Rillet is building in the US, made for ZATCA and Zakat.

I'm at Kellogg now (MBA, Class of 2027, Finance and Strategy) and spend the school year in Chicago. I don't hand-write code. I design these systems, direct AI tooling to build them, and test them until I trust them. I also read model cards, repos and papers every day, and the AI radar on this site is the log of that. I'm building the link between US venture and Saudi capital, open to venture partner, scout and advisor seats, and founders and funds are welcome to write.

The longer version, with everything I’ve done

Evanston, 2026

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Full-Time MBA, Class of 2027

Finance and Strategy. Second year, October 2026.

I came to Kellogg while still running Northlane. The MBA is where I test the operator instincts against people who have built at a different scale, and where the US side of my work lives.

At Kellogg

  • Member, Kellogg AI Club
  • Member, Consulting Club
  • Member, Venture Capital Lab
  • Asset Management Practicum (FINC-457): weekly equity position reviews for the student-run fund

Before it

  • BSc Applied Accounting, Oxford Brookes University
  • CPA and ACCA member
  • PwC, Al Khobar
KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT · EVANSTON ·Class of2027year two

Al Khobar, since 2026

What I’m building

General manager, Operating

Northlane Solutions

Northlane is an aviation infrastructure company in Al Khobar. It bids on airfield lighting, helipad and obstruction-lighting packages for Saudi clients and works to GACA, ICAO Annex 14 and FAA standards. I built its operating model: AI agents handle the reading, sourcing and estimating, and a person approves every price. It has priced government aviation bids and reached the final four of 30 bidders on a multimillion-dollar helideck package for a giga-project. It also holds an exclusive Saudi agency for an Italian airfield-lighting manufacturer, and I lead a team of seven.

An elevated helideck, the kind of package Northlane bids and builds. Drag to look around.
Fresh yellow and white helipad markings painted on an apron, buses parked in the background
Helipad markings, 2026

Founder and owner, Operating, early stage

Procul Solutions

Procul Solutions is my Saudi company in Al Khobar, holder of a MISA investment registration issued in July 2026, and I own it outright. It sells AI systems to Saudi companies (the first client is a 400-person engineering group, in daily use by 17 estimators). It is also the home of ProCul, the accounting product I'm building: an agent-native ledger for Saudi companies, the kind of AI-native ledger Rillet is building in the US, with ZATCA e-invoicing, Zakat and a monthly close that agents prepare and an accountant approves. It is early, and I haven't proven yet that companies will pay for it.

Originator, Scoped, not in build

Mizan

Mizan is the scoped version of agentic accounting, tax, Zakat and audit testing for Saudi firms, with a licensed human as signer of record. A 44-agent research run in June 2026 rated it a strong build. I haven't built it. The accounting product I'm building now, ProCul, runs through Procul Solutions.

The systems behind them, with numbers and sources

Since September 2025

The AI log

primary sources only

What shipped in AI, linked to the model card, the repo or the paper, and what I make of it.

Gemini 4 Argon lands, Run:ai goes open source

Google ships Gemini 4 Argon with self-reported results, Liquid AI releases a 24B on-device model, NVIDIA opens Run:ai, plus Molmo2Fish and ComfyUI VFX.

“Argon is the headline, but most of its numbers come from Google's own teams and I want outside reruns before I repeat them.”

Read all 6, and my take

The log runs back to September 2025, one roundup for every week.

Browse the whole archive

Saudi deals in 60 seconds, every Sunday: the week's venture, private equity, M&A and listings moves, with sources.

 

One email a week. No other use of your address. Privacy.

What I publish

Everything, shelf by shelf

Chicago and Al Khobar

CHICAGOAL KHOBAR
Between Chicago and Al Khobar.

Write to me

Building something in the Gulf, or looking at it?

Founders, funds and operators write to me here. If it is a deal, a partnership or a build, say so in one line and I will answer.