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Overview

Oliver joined eZhire as Chief Operating Officer in May 2022, when the Dubai-based mobility-tech business was running at about $5m ARR. It had strong early traction but needed structure across its customer-facing organisation, acquisition channels, operating rhythm and customer experience to scale across the GCC.

Over the next four years, Oliver professionalised the commercial and operational engine. eZhire grew to about $40m ARR, expanded beyond Dubai across the UAE and GCC, lifted NPS from around 25-30 to above 50, and shifted its revenue base from mostly new customers to mostly existing ones.

The challenge

When Oliver arrived, eZhire ran a blended customer-facing function. The call centre was organised by task, not role: the same broad pool handled sales, support, payments, refunds, reviews and everything else.

That worked early on but did not scale. The business needed clearer ownership, sharper conversion focus, stronger service, specialised handling of operational issues, and a consistent link between team activity and company priorities.

Acquisition also leaned heavily on performance marketing, especially Google Ads. It worked, because the business knew its cost to acquire and often profited on the first transaction. But the over-reliance on paid channels needed to come down, with organic built up in its place.

What Oliver did

Redesigned the customer-facing organisation

Oliver restructured the blended team into a specialised model. Salespeople focused on conversion, service staff on support, and tasks like payments, refunds and reviews moved into defined functions of their own.

Rebuilt incentives around shifting priorities

He built and evolved incentives across sales and service, tied to whatever mattered most at the time, whether conversion, volume, service outcomes or other operating goals.

Diversified acquisition beyond paid marketing

A major strand was widening acquisition beyond paid. The company built organic presence through search, social and AI / LLM discovery, aiming to become a trusted regional authority and lower acquisition cost over time.

Made customer experience a growth lever

Oliver made customer experience a growth lever, working systematically through reviews, feedback, direct customer conversations, feature improvements and operational fixes. Experience stopped being a service cost and became a driver of growth.

Embedded an operating rhythm with OKRs

In his first quarter he introduced OKRs across the business, connecting company goals to department and individual priorities. That operating rhythm stayed in place for the rest of his tenure.

The Results

The business grew from about $5m ARR to about $40m ARR during Oliver’s tenure. NPS rose from around 25-30 to above 50, tracked globally and reviewed by region.

The revenue mix changed just as much. At the start, about 70% of revenue came from new customers and 30% from existing. By the time Oliver left, that had flipped: around 70% existing, 30% new. The business also grew from Dubai-first into a GCC operation spanning Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.

$5m to $40m ARR in four years, with the revenue mix flipped from 70% new customers to 70% existing.

Why it mattered

Oliver turned a fast-growing startup into a more scalable regional operator, combining commercial structure, operating discipline, customer experience and retention.

The jump from $5m to $40m ARR matters, but the deeper story is the quality of that growth. eZhire grew less dependent on buying new customers and more able to grow through repeat use, trust and regional expansion.

The takeaway

From acquisition-led growth to retention-led, customer-experience-led growth: building the structure, incentives and operating rhythm to scale a Dubai-first startup into a regional GCC business.