Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank Creates Chief AI Officer Role, Appointing CIMB's Former Data Chief to Lead Vision 2035 Strategy
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank Creates Chief AI Officer Role, Appointing CIMB’s Former Data Chief to Lead Vision 2035 Strategy #
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has created a Chief AI Officer position for the first time, appointing Pedro Uria-Recio to lead the bank’s artificial intelligence strategy as it pursues its Vision 2035 transformation plan. The announcement was made on 21 August 2026.
Uria-Recio joins ADIB from CIMB Bank in Malaysia, where he served as Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer, responsible for the Southeast Asian lender’s AI strategy and overseeing the rollout of generative AI, agentic AI, and advanced analytics across the group’s markets. He has also held senior leadership roles at Thai telecoms group True Corporation and Axiata Group, and earlier worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in Chile and Malaysia. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a degree in Telecommunications Engineering.
In his new role, Uria-Recio will direct the next phase of ADIB’s AI deployment with a mandate covering customer experience, risk management, operational efficiency, and internal capability building. According to the bank, his remit will also include establishing governance frameworks and infrastructure to scale AI responsibly across the wider ADIB Group.
Group CEO Mohamed Abdelbary described AI as “one of the principal transformation enablers” of Vision 2035, the bank’s strategy to become the world’s most innovative Islamic bank. Abdelbary credited Uria-Recio with a strong record of translating AI capability into tangible commercial and customer outcomes.
Uria-Recio said his focus at ADIB would be on practical delivery rather than strategy alone, committing to deploy AI responsibly at scale, strengthen internal capabilities, and build solutions that make banking more intelligent and personalised.
ADIB provides retail, corporate, business, private banking, and wealth management services, and holds AED 304 billion in total assets. The bank added 125,000 new customers in the first half of 2026, bringing its total base to more than 2.7 million. Outside the UAE, ADIB operates in Egypt, where it has 79 branches, as well as the United Kingdom, Qatar, and Iraq.
The appointment gives ADIB a dedicated board-level AI function. Several other regional banks have created similar roles as Gulf financial institutions increase investment in large-scale AI infrastructure.
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