Affif KADRI is General Manager of K.IOP and an AI & Data Strategy Advisor, with over 20 years of experience in digital transformation and data. Across those two decades he has made one idea his craft: turning data into business value. From digital and CRM at Lancôme and L’Oréal, to Chief Data Officer roles in Dubai, to launching AI-powered SaaS with the K-Technology & Services group - first K inventory, now K.IOP. What sets him apart: he is a leader who also builds - strategy at board level, and hands-on with the tools.
A data-first career
Affif KADRI trained as an information systems engineer (University of Technology of Troyes) before completing a Master in Digital Business Management at HEC Paris and Télécom Paris. That combination - engineering rigour plus business strategy - has shaped a career built on one consistent thread: translating complex data into decisions people can act on.
From L’Oréal to Chief Data Officer in Dubai
He began by building digital and CRM services at Lancôme (L’Oréal Luxe), launching the brand’s e-commerce platform in Europe and lifting conversion by 50%.
In 2011 he moved to Dubai as Global Head of Digital & Media for L’Oréal Middle East, running digital activity across the group’s four divisions - media, digital marketing, CRM and e-commerce - with a strong focus on measuring impact through business KPIs.
He then became Chief Data Officer and General Manager of Brand Services at Webedia Arabia, leading a cross-functional department of more than 50 people. There he championed a data-first approach for major clients across Hospitality, Travel, Retail, FMCG, Healthcare and Banking - and multiplied business revenue fourfold in three years by turning insight into action.
Building AI-powered SaaS: K inventory, then K.IOP
Since 2021, Affif has led product and growth inside the K-Technology & Services group.
As General Manager (COO / Head of Growth) of K inventory, he spearheaded the vision, strategy and launch of a next-generation, AI-powered SaaS solution for asset and inventory management. He managed a cross-functional team of 30+ across IT/Data, HR, Finance, Marketing and Communication, defined the product roadmap around AI innovation, and onboarded over 50 B2B clients across Hospitality, Finance, Real Estate and Health. In 2024, K inventory was awarded “Most Innovative Startup” by the CRiP, the association of IT decision-makers from France’s major accounts and public administrations.
As General Manager of K.IOP, he drives the platform’s vision and roadmap - including the integration of Agentic AI to autonomously execute complex business workflows - and champions the Data Refinery: the pipeline that transforms raw, unstructured inputs into high-value, governed data ready for the business.
A leader who builds
What makes Affif’s profile unusual among senior data leaders is that he does not stop at strategy. He is a doer: he prototypes and gets hands-on with the tools - from Power BI and N8N to Google AI Studio and, of course, K.IOP - and shapes the product directly, as the bridge between technical teams and business needs.
That is exactly what makes him effective in the upstream, advisory phase of a project - the strategy workshops where a company decides what to build and how its data should flow before a single line of production code is written. He can architect the approach and then help make it real.
What he focuses on today
Affif’s conviction runs through everything K.IOP builds: refine the data before you act on it. Dashboards, alerts and AI assistants are only as trustworthy as the data underneath them - so governance, reconciliation and auditability come first, and AI runs on top of refined data, never raw noise.
His core areas: AI and data strategy, AI and Agentic AI transformation, data governance and Data Refinery architecture, stakeholder and change management, and P&L responsibility.