Hamad Mubarak Al-Hajri

Founder and CEO Snoonu

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Hamad Mubarak Al-Hajri founded and runs Snoonu, a Qatari technology, logistics and e-commerce company positioned as the country’s first super app — a single consumer application spanning food and grocery delivery, retail, and on-demand services. He describes it as the first Qatari technology company to pass a valuation of one billion Qatari riyals. What distinguishes him from most founders in the regional delivery sector is that consumer technology is his second career and he came to it late and sideways. He is an engineer who spent roughly seven years inside Qatar Petroleum, first in offshore control systems and then in LPG marketing, followed by project management roles with a Japanese engineering contractor and a Qatari defence and security holding company, and then a stint in government as Director of Economic Competitiveness at the Ministry of Finance. He has since been involved in launching around a dozen ventures, several of them held through his own Mieraj Holding Group.

Career Highlights

• Founder and chief executive of Snoonu, described as Qatar’s first super app.
• Raised investment that, by his own account, made Snoonu the first Qatari technology company to exceed a valuation of one billion Qatari riyals.
• Spent roughly seven years at Qatar Petroleum, as Head of Control System Offshore Engineering and as LPG Marketing Manager.
• Senior Project Manager at JGC Gulf International Co. Ltd, the Gulf arm of the Japanese engineering contractor.
• Senior Manager of the project management office at Barzan Holdings.
• Director of Economic Competitiveness at Qatar’s Ministry of Finance.
• Founded Mieraj Holding Group and co-founded Oryxnet for Services, Lilac Landscape, Mshwar and Biryani Express.
• Holds engineering degrees from Murdoch University and Teesside University, an Executive MBA from HEC Paris and a research doctorate from Kyoto University.
• Regular speaker at regional technology and entrepreneurship events, including MWC Doha and the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival.

Professional Journey

Al-Hajri trained as an engineer, taking a Bachelor of Engineering at Murdoch University in electromechanical instrumentation and maintenance between 2000 and 2003, and went into the industry that dominates the Qatari economy. At Qatar Petroleum — renamed QatarEnergy only in 2021, well after he had left — he spent around seven years in two very different functions. As Head of Control System Offshore Engineering he was responsible for the instrumentation and control systems on offshore production facilities, which is hard safety-critical engineering. As LPG Marketing Manager he was on the commercial side, selling a commodity into international markets. Holding both roles in one career is unusual and is the earliest evidence of the pattern that runs through everything since: he moves between technical and commercial functions rather than specialising in either.

He deepened the project management side formally, taking a Master of Engineering in Project Management from Teesside University in 2010-11 alongside a PMP certification he had held since 2005, and moved into large-project delivery. At JGC Gulf International Co. Ltd, the Gulf operation of the Japanese engineering, procurement and construction contractor, he worked as a senior project manager; at Barzan Holdings, the Qatari defence and security procurement group, he was senior manager of the project management office. Both are environments where the work is coordinating very large capital programmes across contractors and government stakeholders.

The move into government was the pivot. As Director of Economic Competitiveness at Qatar’s Ministry of Finance, his brief was the diversification question that dominates Qatari economic policy — how a hydrocarbon economy builds sectors that are not hydrocarbons. That is an unusually direct line into the venture he went on to build, because the answer, in practice, means domestic companies in services and technology existing where previously there were none. He layered executive education onto the shift: an Executive MBA at HEC Paris in 2016-17, a Stanford advanced project management programme in 2016 and a Stanford professional certificate in innovation and entrepreneurship in 2017, a Harvard executive leaders programme in 2019, and a research doctorate at Kyoto University in entrepreneurial and small business operations completed over 2017 to 2021 — the academic study of exactly the thing he was by then doing.

Snoonu is the result and the centrepiece. The super app model — one consumer application through which food delivery, grocery, retail and errands all run — suits a small, dense, high-income market better than it suits large ones, because a single app can plausibly reach most of the population and because the logistics fleet is shared across every category. Al-Hajri’s positioning of it as Qatar’s first is a claim about national capability as much as about product, and it connects directly to his Ministry of Finance brief. By his own account the company has since attracted investment taking it past a billion Qatari riyals in value, which he characterises as a first for a Qatari technology company.

Around Snoonu he has built a portfolio rather than a single company. Mieraj Holding Group is his own holding vehicle; he is co-founder, chief executive and product architect of Oryxnet for Services, and a co-founder of Lilac Landscape, the ride or mobility venture Mshwar, and Biryani Express, a restaurant business. Speaker biographies credit him with involvement in around twelve startups across a twenty-year career, though only these six are named anywhere. He has become one of the more visible Qatari founders on the regional circuit, appearing at MWC Doha and the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival and being profiled by Forbes Middle East, where his consistent theme is the buildable domestic technology sector he was previously paid by the state to argue for.

Education

Murdoch University

Bachelor of Engineering, Electromechanical Instrumentation and Maintenance (2000-2003)

Teesside University

Master of Engineering, Project Management (2010-2011)

HEC Paris

Executive MBA, Business Administration and Management (2016-2017)

Kyoto University

Research Doctorate, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations (2017-2021)