Richie Santosdiaz is mainly an economic development advisor in the management consulting realm with a focus and passion towards internationalisation, inclusion and globalization. He has led and advised on projects with mostly public sector clients across strategy and implementation in Europe, the Americas and now the Middle East and Africa.... Read more
Richie Santosdiaz is mainly an economic development advisor in the management consulting realm with a focus and passion towards internationalisation, inclusion and globalization. He has led and advised on projects with mostly public sector clients across strategy and implementation in Europe, the Americas and now the Middle East and Africa. Richie also discusses across different platforms about his experience, which in recent times has been much around topics notably financial inclusion, fintech and digitalization.
He is passionate around emerging markets as well as sectors such as fintech, agriculture, tourism education, creative industries, and wider tech as a whole. Digital and disruption has played a key part in Richie’s cross-sectoral experience.
The bulk of Richie’s experience has been gained outside of his native USA, where in his nearly 20 years of experience we worked for many years in London and, since 2019, has been based mainly in Dubai. Richie’s last full-time job was the Head of Strategy for a niche consulting firm as part of the executive management team. Since 2021 Richie has been an independent and in 2024 set up his own company.
Richie’s external non-consulting experience is visible across two fronts:
First, Richie has been commenting about his experience and passions across a wide range of challenges. These include writing columns and/or opinion-editorials on topics such as international trade and FDI for the likes of World Economic Forum (WEF), Forbes Magazine – to name a few. Also, he has been invited as well to speak at various events pertaining to different aspects of economic development and globalization; this in addition includes conducting bespoke workshops and adjunct lecturing opportunities.
Second, Richie’s entry into the fintech space started mainly when he brought one of the world’s leading financial technologies publications to the Middle East and Africa – The Fintech Times. This gave Richie a strong familiarity of the fintech sector, especially in emerging markets notably in MEA and, later, in others such as Asia and Latin America. Through this involvement, Richie has been invited to give keynotes, moderate and even be master of ceremonies (MC) at conferences and private events around world. He is particularly passionate about the topic of financial and digital inclusion, as well as youth empowerment. Richie still is involved with The Fintech Times mainly as an economic development advisor with a focus on emerging markets, where he still writes his own columns.
Richie has published several columns and contributed to different works around fintech and wider digital. For instance, Richie has been the author of “Economic Development Through Fintech: The Middle East and Africa Report,” which has been published annually for the past four years by The Fintech Times.