Managed operations in a high-volume document and payment processing environment. PCI compliance, shift planning, team development, and cross-functional coordination across a 24-year tenure. The work wasn’t glamorous. It was consequential. Processes built to last and teams coached to own them. This is where I learned that consistency is a form of leadership.
Toronto, Ontario · akeelghaib.ca
I make
things work
the way
they should.
22 years in operations taught me that most problems
aren’t complicated — they’re just unclear.
Operations, process design, and practical AI tools for businesses that are tired of workarounds. I work with small teams, not around them.
Open to conversations
The gap between
how something should
work and how it does.
I’ve spent most of my career inside operations that looked fine on the surface but weren’t. A process that ran smoothly — until it didn’t, and everyone was surprised. A system built for the person who designed it, not the person using it. I became good at noticing that gap.
That usually means slowing down before speeding up. Drawing a process on paper. Asking the person who actually does the job what the job involves. Lean thinking gave me a framework for this, but the instinct came earlier — from years of watching small inefficiencies compound into real consequences.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve had it figured out the whole time. Some of the most useful things I learned came from doing something wrong in front of people whose respect mattered to me. That’s uncomfortable to write, but probably more useful than a list of accomplishments.
Now I apply the same approach to AI tools for small businesses. Not because the technology is exciting — because small businesses are full of repetitive, manual work that nobody should still be doing by hand. A well-built workflow doesn’t replace anyone. It gives them their time back.
Selected work
& experience.
Took on an operations and warehouse role at a community organization serving people across Halton Region. Rebuilt inventory processes from the ground up, introduced QHSE standards where there were none, and restructured the warehouse so the people who cared most about the mission could focus on it — instead of managing a system that wasn’t working.
Working with a small network of consultants and technologists to build practical automation for businesses without IT departments. Health clinics, contractors, professional service firms, and non-profits. The tools are specific, unglamorous, and built to reduce the repetitive parts of someone’s workday. We work with clients directly — no intermediaries, no vendor pitch.
Six workflow
problems. Made
visible.
I turn messy human workflows into clear, lightweight digital systems. Here are six real problems I clarified, structured, and made safer using AI. My approach in each case is the same: make informal human activity visible, structured, and accountable — without adding bureaucracy.
01
Trades · Field operations
Daily Workflow Intelligence for Trades
Physical work is invisible until something goes wrong.
Tradespeople operate through verbal instructions, handwritten notes, and memory.
Jobs get done, problems get solved — but none of it is captured in a form
that’s useful the next day, let alone next year. Accountability is informal.
Patterns are invisible. Liability is real.
I designed a lightweight daily capture system that records job status, task
completion, and site notes in structured form — without changing how
tradespeople actually work. The output is a readable log owners can act on,
insurers can follow, and teams can learn from. The process stays human.
The record becomes digital.
02
Professional services · Admin operations
Smart Intake
Information arrives in fragments. Nothing is where it should be.
Most small service businesses handle new clients the same way: a phone call,
a scattered email thread, maybe a note in someone’s personal calendar.
Information arrives incomplete. Follow-up is inconsistent. Staff repeat the same
questions to the wrong people at the wrong time.
I replaced that with a structured intake that converts first contact into
a complete record. Questions are asked once, in the right order. Responses are
organized automatically. The right person sees the right information without
having to chase it down. The chaos doesn’t disappear —
it just stops being everyone’s problem simultaneously.
03
Behavior design · Personal systems
Personal Accountability & Resilience Tracker
Most tracking tools generate data that nobody acts on.
Apps with forty metrics. Dashboards nobody opens. Scores that feel arbitrary.
The self-tracking industry has optimized for engagement, not usefulness —
and the signal gets buried in the noise.
This is a minimal daily check-in focused on a small number of behaviors
that actually predict performance: sleep, movement, recovery, focus, and
one personal commitment chosen by the user. The data stays private.
The output is a weekly pattern, not a grade. The system is built to surface
honest information and then get out of the way — because the goal
is behavior, not the measurement of it.
04
Community · Local discovery
Local Discovery Web
Local is hard to find even when people are actively looking.
Discovery for local businesses and events is fragmented across Facebook pages,
word of mouth, and websites that haven’t been updated since 2019.
People who want to support their community don’t have a single, reliable
place to look. Businesses that deserve visibility don’t get it.
I designed a structured directory and promotion layer for a defined geographic
area — organized, searchable, and maintained with minimal overhead.
The goal was not to build another platform. It was to make what already exists
legible to the people nearby who want to find it.
05
Community · Civic engagement
Community Activity Awareness Hub
Programs run. Residents don’t hear about them.
Community organizations run real programs for real people — and most
residents never know they exist. The problem isn’t indifference.
It’s information architecture. Events are announced in inboxes nobody
checks, on social feeds with poor organic reach, and on flyers that get
recycled before the date arrives.
I built a lightweight awareness hub that aggregates local activity and surfaces
it in a consistent, shareable format. Updated directly by the organizations
themselves. No technical knowledge required. The system is designed so that
the people doing the work can also be the people who tell the story of it.
06
Non-profit · Funder relations
Nonprofit Impact & Reporting Companion
The gap between what’s happening and what’s reported is real — and costly.
Non-profits do significant work and document almost none of it in a form
that funders can evaluate. Staff are busy. Volunteers don’t know what
to record. Impact data arrives late, incomplete, or in a format that requires
hours of reformatting before it can go into a report.
I built a structured intake and narrative system that captures impact data
from staff and volunteers in real time, then formats it into report-ready
summaries using AI-assisted language generation. Less time writing.
More time working. Funders get the clarity they need.
Organizations keep the dignity of telling their own story.
Skills &
certifications.
Operations management
End-to-end oversight of workflows and people
Logistics & inventory
Supply chain flow, accuracy, and control
QHSE compliance
Quality, health, safety, and environment standards
Team coaching
Building capability, not just compliance
Lean process thinking
Remove what wastes motion. Protect what matters
Strategic planning & budgeting
Decisions grounded in numbers and reality
Generative AI & automation
Building practical tools, not demos
Problem solving
Root cause first. Then the fix. No shortcuts
Verified credentials
Lean Bronze Certification
Electronic Document Professional (EDP)
PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
Training Within Industry (TWI)
Currently studying
Generative AI for business applications
Workflow automation for SMBs
Health sector operations & compliance
Trades business management
Professional services operations
Non-profit operations & automation
Outside
of work.
Outside of work hours, I run. Competitively, at distances that require the kind of patience you can’t shortcut. I follow a training method and take it seriously — not because I’m trying to prove something, but because endurance running is one of the few places where the relationship between input and output is completely honest.
I also photograph landscapes — wilderness, open terrain, and birds, usually early in the morning, usually somewhere that took some effort to get to. You can see that work on my Facebook. I speak Arabic, French, and English. I’ve mentored students through Pathways to Education Canada and coached runners through Start2Finish.
None of this is meant to round out a profile. I include it because I think it says something about how I work: with method, with patience, and with a willingness to stay in the process before expecting a result.
Endurance running
Training at competitive level. Methodical, consistent, long game.
Wilderness photography
Landscape, wild terrain, and birds. Early mornings. Difficult access.
Languages
Arabic, French, and English. Multilingual by upbringing and practice.
Community
Education mentor — Pathways to Education Canada. Running coach — Start2Finish. AI Facilitator — ACCESS Community Capital Fund.
Akeel Ghaib
Operations leader & SMB partner
Toronto, Ontario · akeelghaib.ca
Toronto, Ontario · akeelghaib.ca
Let’s
talk.
If you’re working on something messy and need a clearer process,
or if you want to talk about building a simple tool for your business —
I’m easy to reach.
No pitch deck required.