Dr. Mahdi Seify
PhD · MBA · Engr. · FIoA · FHEA · PMP® · PMI-ACP® · PMI-PBA® · CQRM · ISO/IEC 27001 & 25999 Lead Auditor & Lead Implementer — AI Governance Standards Practitioner (ISO/IEC 42001, NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act) — Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader in Business Analytics, University of Northampton
Dr. Mahdi Seify is the Founder and Chief AI Officer of VisionXY7 Ltd, an active Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Business Analytics at the University of Northampton, and a Fellow of the Institute of Analytics (FIoA) and the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
How this site fits with VisionXY7: I advise here, on mahdiseify.com, personally — strategy, governance, training, and audits led directly by me. VisionXY7, the company I founded, is the team that builds and deploys the automation itself once a pilot is scoped.
His positioning bridges elite scientific research with deep operational enterprise engineering. Over a 15+ year career, Dr. Seify has directed more than 100 high-impact, cross-sector industrial and governance projects valued from £12k up to £200M — spanning global development programmes for the World Bank, large-scale automation within the German Federal Health System, and mission-critical infrastructure for major national enterprises.
I'm a reflective, values-driven academic and founder who thrives in environments of curiosity, collaboration and purposeful challenge — calm and solutions-focused under pressure, driven by curiosity, service, and the belief that education and applied innovation can genuinely transform lives.
I hold that "Artificial Intelligence" is a misleading label: it extends specific cognitive capabilities — logical-mathematical processing, scale, pattern recognition — but cannot touch existential, intrapersonal, or creative-synthesis intelligence. That's the premise behind Artificial Complementary Intelligence (ACI), the framework I use to guide every engagement. Read more on Research →
The discipline behind the delivery
A PhD and a boardroom-ready delivery record are one side of the story. The habits underneath them are the same ones I bring to the gym floor and the languages I've picked up along the way.
Competitive Runner & Basketball Player
Regional medals in both — competitive sport as a long-running practice in discipline, pacing, and performing under pressure.
Les Mills Certified Instructor
Certified to teach Body Pump, Body Balance (Yoga), Grit (HIIT), and Core, plus a Level 3 Nutrition Certification — coaching others through the same discipline I apply to research and delivery.
Four Languages
Persian (mother tongue), English (advanced), German (A2), and Arabic (B1) — a working reflection of 25+ years operating across UK, European, and Middle Eastern teams.
I'm a reflective, values-driven person who thrives on curiosity, collaboration, and purposeful challenge — calm and solutions-focused under pressure. The same consistency that shows up in a 6am Grit class shows up in a PhD validated on 50 million NHS records: neither gets finished without showing up on the days it isn't easy. More of this side on the didimishe channel →
The authority behind every deployment
Fellow of the Institute of Analytics (FIoA)
Highest professional recognition in data & analytics.
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Excellence in university teaching and curriculum design.
Project Management Professional (PMP®)
PMI certification — global gold standard for project delivery.
PMI-ACP® · PMI-PBA®
Agile Certified Practitioner & Professional in Business Analysis.
ISO/IEC 27001 & 25999 Lead Auditor & Lead Implementer
Information security & business continuity management system governance and audit.
AI Governance Standards — Working Knowledge
Builds on ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Auditor & Lead Implementer audit methodology to apply the emerging AI-specific standards ecosystem in practice: ISO/IEC 42001 (AI Management Systems), ISO/IEC 23894 (AI Risk Management), ISO/IEC 42005 (AI System Impact Assessment), the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (Govern–Map–Measure–Manage) and its Generative AI Profile, and EU AI Act risk-tiering and GPAI compliance obligations.
CQRM · Azure AI-900 · ITIL v3
Quantitative risk management, cloud AI, and service delivery.
25+ years. Delivered, not just studied.
Founder & Chief AI Officer
- Building ROI-proven AI systems for growing businesses, NHS, dental practices, and enterprise clients across the UK.
- Combining 25+ years of IT delivery experience with 8+ years of applied AI research.
- AI readiness assessment, workflow & orchestration design, ISO/IEC 27001 governance, GDPR-aligned risk management, and AI governance advisory aligned to ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and EU AI Act risk-tiering.
Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader — Business Analytics
- Leads postgraduate Business Analytics curriculum spanning machine learning, predictive modelling, BI architecture, and AI governance.
- Founder of the FASTER (Future Analytics, Systems, Technology & Emerging Research) Research Group — a faculty-wide applied innovation and industry partnership platform.
- Built long-term partnerships with Northamptonshire Council, VivaCity, Graf, and local SMEs; engages DASA, Silverstone Tech Cluster, ICURe, KTP.
- Designed and launched the university's first applied analytics research lab under the FASTER Group; supervised 150+ dissertations on real organisational analytics challenges.
Business Analyst & Data Scientist
- Healthcare fraud detection: AI anomaly-detection workflow processing 15M prescriptions in under 5 days at ~95% validated accuracy.
- Unilever Materials Innovation Factory: built a £500 automation prototype replacing a £150,000 vendor proposal.
- TEXXI Ride-Sharing: simplified complex operational models to secure VC readiness.
- Led 15+ UK-wide consulting projects across logistics, education, energy, environment, and transportation.
Senior Project Coordinator, Business Analyst & Data Scientist
- Managed 50+ cross-industry analytics/BI/ERP projects across energy, telecom, FMCG and public sector.
- Technical lead for MCI (118M subscribers) on three national transformation priorities.
- Led the full EPCCF cycle for Golrang Industrial Group's second national production line; strategic diagnostics across 186 factories.
Project Monitoring & Evaluation / MIS Officer
- Coordinated a $200M multi-ministry development programme across three government ministries and five international consulting firms.
- Led M&E systems design, ensuring cross-organisational accountability, reporting accuracy, and governance integrity.
Grounded in doctoral research, not vendor hype
PhD — AI-Driven Analytics
University of Liverpool, UK · 2017–2025
Developed the Deep Business Analytics (DBA) framework, integrating LSTM neural networks with the Balanced Scorecard for predictive management control. Validated at Royal Liverpool Hospital's NHS Haematology Laboratory on a bespoke IoT platform, analysing 50M+ real-time records on the university's HPC cluster (~5 days of processing).
Executive Programme — AI for Business Strategy
MIT Sloan School of Management, Boston · 2020
Comprehensive overview of machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics, and their implications for corporate strategy, the economy, and society.
MBA — Information Systems
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran · 2005–2008
Focus: Monitoring & Evaluation in project-oriented organisations via Project Management Information Systems.
BEng — Industrial Engineering
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran · 1999–2004
Focus: Information Security Management Systems — quantifying and managing information security risk within organisations.
Validation from senior academics & industry leaders
"Dr. Seify's doctoral research on Deep Business Analytics demonstrates exceptional originality and rigour. His development of the Business Connectivity Map — bridging operational AI with strategic management control — is a genuinely novel contribution to the field."
"Mahdi brings a rare combination of engineering rigour, academic depth, and practical implementation capability. His work on AI governance frameworks is directly applicable to the most demanding critical infrastructure environments."
"The DBA framework represents a paradigm shift in how management control systems can be designed for the AI age — moving from diagnostic-reactive to predictive-pre-emptive governance."
Who has done it — not just studied it.
Dr. Seify takes a limited number of strategic consultancy clients directly. Start with a free 20-minute discovery call.