About Nuzhat Naweed, Chief Product Officer of CAFU

Nuzhat Naweed joined CAFU in August 2021 as the company’s first Chief Product Officer. Nuzhat is responsible for building the Product strategy for CAFU, a company that believes in product-led growth to achieve its mission and vision to be the vehicle service platform of choice.

Nuzhat brings over two decades of international strategic and technical expertise to the role, drawing on her experience at PA consulting, Deloitte, ASOS, BBC Worldwide, Zalando and Careem. With extensive insight in leading multi-disciplinary teams at large organizations as well as start-ups, Nuzhat is an expert in translating critical goals and customer needs into strategic actionable opportunities and has a proven track record in execution excellence for portfolio and platform companies.

Nuzhat holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Cardiff and a Master’s degree in Information Technology from Aston University. In 2019, she achieved her certification in Design Thinking from Stanford University.

About her thoughts for the industry

I remember as a child, my father telling me about how one day we would be able to see each other through telephones, and this would become our primary mode of communication. At the time, I found it hard to believe, and it sounded too futuristic. 

Looking back over the last 30 years, it is amazing to see how technology has evolved. From the Commodore 64 to the cassette and CD Walkman’s, floppy disks and video players, each technological advancement felt like magic at the time, and represented significant leaps in technology.

However, nothing compares to the smartphone, which changed our lives in unprecedented ways. It has enabled us to be permanently connected and has disrupted the business models of many companies.

As we enter 2023, I believe we are on the cusp of another wave of disruption. The use of AI, especially the likes of ChatGPT, will change many aspects of our lives, and as a product leader, I am particularly curious about its use at CAFU. I believe that ChatGPT will be a productivity multiplier for us, allowing us to do more with less, and with higher levels of efficiency. We are already using ChatGPT for copywriting options in our app, as well as app store releases, and are looking to see how we can use its recently launched API to improve the experience of one of our products. This is merely the beginning of how I foresee us utilizing openAI and ChatGPT at CAFU.

The future of business is being shaped by platforms and fully loaded single app experiences.  This is my second observation for 2023.  At CAFU, we are building a platform that provides our customers with vehicle services in one place. Whilst such platforms may appear simple, they are complex and require attention to create joyful customer experiences, network effects and compounding growth. To achieve this, we work closely with all parts of the business to provide an end-to-end seamless experience. It is crucial to invest in all aspects of the platform, including all platform participants, not just those that are customer-facing.

I am also closely monitoring the trend towards electrification, not only in the UAE but also globally. The market is facing several challenges that need to be addressed to support the adoption of electric vehicles and facilitating this adoption requires innovative solutions. At CAFU, we have made significant investments in R&D to tackle these challenges and are working on various technological solutions to address the opportunities in this field. 

Looking towards the future, I am excited about the possibilities that are offered by emerging technologies. At CAFU, we are just getting started with exploring these technologies, and believe that we have the potential to revolutionize the mobility sector.