Ash Ali

Co-Founder & Growth Hacker

Uhubs

At Uhubs, we empower sales teams to unlock their full potential by transforming skill development into a precise, data-driven unfair advantage. 

By industrialising the monitoring and tracking of essential sales skills, we provide leaders with rapid insights to identify growth opportunities that genuinely drive revenue impact. 

Uhubs streamlines skill development, enabling modern sales teams to achieve measurable success faster and more effectively.

Co-Founder

The Unfair Advantage

The new Book "The Unfair Advantage" uncovers the secret behind why some startups make it and others don’t. Available in Jan 2020- Pre-order book from Amazon, WHSmiths, Foyles & Waterstones.

Wrapping up my experience as the first UK Marketing Director of £3.5 billion company JUST EAT into a practical narrative, I break apart the different types of unfair advantages swimming just under the surface of your favourite success stories. Every single one of them has an unfair advantage within the MILES structure (Money, Intelligence & Insight, Location & Luck, Education & Expertise, Status).  Out on January 9th 2020!

I've done keynotes on "Startup Marketing", "How to find your unfair advantage", "My personal/JUST EAT success story", "The first 3 years in startups" and have been part of several panel debates, pitch judging and discussions.

Author, Keynote Speaker & Co-Founder

Private angel Investments in seed stage startups across the globe. Mentorship and advice to startup entrepreneurs in various sectors and markets with a specific focus on online marketplaces, mobile app's and interesting social & community projects.

If you have startup requiring seed capital, an experienced startup advisor or non-executive role get in touch. 

- Idea assessment, including market sizing, competitive analysis, go to market strategy
- Applying lean methodology techniques to launch MVPs and find product market fit
- Growth Hacking
- Product and business development
- Digital marketing strategy
- Capital raising including marketing materials and business introductions
- Entrepreneur Mentorship & Advisor
- Lean startup
- EIR or non exec roles

Mentor @PiLabs @turn8 @istarter @TeamPK

Startup Investor, Advisor & Mentor

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School

Guest Lecturer

Spinks

Advising the senior Spinks team on continual growth for being the talent partner to the Start-Up / Scale Up sector.

Spinks Advisory Board Member

Royal Holloway, University of London

UCL School of Management

Loughborough University

Imperial College Business School

ESCP Business School

Washplus - Dubai's Laundry App

Acquired by new player in GCC with great ambitions. 

Seed investor and marketing advisor to Dubai's leading on-demand laundry and dry cleaning app, washplus. 

Founded in Dubai Silicon Oasis as part of Dubai's smart city drive we have an awesome vision and a very strong founding team and set of angel investors. 

Have been featured in 7 days, Time Out Dubai, Dubai Chronicle and Ahlan!

Washplus - On demand Laundry App

Co-Founder of Uhubs | Bestselling Author: 'The Unfair Advantage' | Empowering SaaS Sales Leaders to Exceed Targets

Hey there! I’m Ash Ali, an entrepreneurial spirit who thrives on turning ideas into reality. 

Best known as the first marketing director at Just Eat, I helped scale it to Series A which then went onto become UK’s first tech unicorns.

But my journey didn't start in the usual boardroom. Without a formal degree, I carved my path through sheer grit, instinct, and a knack for seeing opportunities where others see obstacles. 

Today, I leverage my 20 plus years experience to mentor, invest in, and fuel the next generation of startups.

I co-authored "The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed" which won Business Book of the Year.

Our book dives into leveraging your unique traits for success — something I live by and encourage others to recognise in themselves.

I'm currently leading Uhubs, a cutting-edge B2B sales performance startup that empowers sales leaders to define and measure excellence in their teams. 

Our unique Pulse technology provides real-time insights and metrics, helping businesses understand "what good looks like" in sales performance. 

It's about bringing clarity and precision to skills for better sales strategies, enabling teams to thrive in today's competitive markets.

My personal philosophy is to:

"Embrace your unique journey, your most significant 'unfair advantage' might just be something you already possess."

If you’re an entrepreneur at heart, a sales leader looking to elevate your team, or just want to chat about the startup world's highs and lows, feel free to connect! 

I'm always open to sharing ideas, speaking at events and conferences and specialise in GTM, Marketing, Sales and everything to do with starting tech startups.

Co-founder - We're hiring!

Uhubs helps busy sales leaders at top SaaS companies optimise their sales enablement to develop reps and grow revenue, by uncovering blind spots on performance, motivation and skills.

The Uhubs Pulse platform visualises each team’s development needs for personalised upskilling & provides data-driven coaching recommendations that are saving Sales Managers 40+ hrs per quarter and helping reps ramp up 30% faster.

Supercharge your sales team by booking a demo with us today.

Playroll

• Led the QA effort across the company and product, as the first member of the QA team
• Built a web automation framework from the ground up, written in TypeScript/JavaScript using Playwright, and integrated it into a GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline, which significantly sped up release times by 900%
• Maintained and investigated nightly Playwright test runs and releases, increasing overall confidence in the product
• Worked directly with the CTO and Head of Engineering, managing a small team

Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Crypto.com

Alas, I worked at Crypto.com as an SDET for only 3 short months. Unfortunately I was then laid off, along with the majority of the UK QA team, due to the crypto winter.

• Planned and led testing and Live Proving of Apple Pay and Google Pay. Initially released to the US market, then expanded worldwide to over 50 million users. Collaborated with the team to release to a tight deadline
• Planned and tested an initiative to drive Singapore wallet adoption with StraitsX
• Raised and helped resolve a Production-breaking iOS login issue affecting all our iOS users worldwide
• Helped plan initiatives to shift left and significantly improve QA involvement in the SDLC

Moneybox

I worked as a QA Engineer at Moneybox for around 3.5 years, getting promoted once in the process. I was on track for another, but decided to leave for Crypto.com instead.

I dedicated one day a week to adding to our automation pack, which was written in Java using Appium and Cucumber. I also helped with interviewing, having interviewed around 200 people, onboarding new members of the QA team, and was the go-to person for test data creation in the company. I led the testing of new features, performed live proving with members of the wider team for major new features, and reviewed pull requests from the rest of the QA team for the automation pack.

• Planned and led end-to-end testing and Live Proving of major new features, including the addition of 6 new funds, which led to customer deposits exceeding £2.4m. Collaborated with the wider team to release in time
• Contributed significantly to the automation pack, which is written in Java using Appium and Cucumber, by automating new features, improving and updating existing tests when required, and reviewing pull requests
• Interviewed over 150 people to help expand the QA team, and helped to onboard new joiners
• Mentored junior members of the QA team in automation, the structure of the app, test data setup, and more

QA Engineer

• Tested both the iOS and Android apps as well as the backend API
• Liaised with developers and the product team to discuss features and bugs, and plan upcoming sprints
• Maintained the regression testing suite and documentation for other testing scenarios
• Worked in a small QA team to perform regression, smoke and exploratory testing
• Helped to update and maintain the automated testing suite


Tech stack:
Microsoft SQL Server, Charles Proxy, JIRA, Confluence, Postman, HockeyApp, TestFlight, iOS, Android, Visual Studio Code, Slack

Junior QA Engineer

Wyman Gordon

I worked as a metallurgist at a large aerospace component forge, providing metallurgical support in nickel, titanium and steel alloys to customers and all internal departments.

• Liaised with raw material suppliers to ensure that material quality requirements are met
• Evaluated materials, processing and testing related non-conformances and concession requests
• Performed microstructural examination of various nickel and titanium alloys for production
• Wrote and updated methods of manufacture and internal procedures
• Technical lead on projects introducing new parts for large customers such as Rolls-Royce

Graduate Materials Engineer/ Metallurgist

Imperial College London

As a Research Intern, I investigated four hardfacing alloys and their microstructures under the supervision of Professor Fionn Dunne, a study that was sponsored by Rolls-Royce for use in nuclear reactors.

I performed optical microscopy, SEM, EDS, XRD and EBSD in order to analyse the hardfacing alloys, and received training using the JEOL JSM-6010LA SEM and EBSD machine.

Research Intern

SDET @ Playroll | QA Automation Engineer | ISTQB CTAL-TA | MEng Imperial College London | ex-Moneybox | ex-Crypto.com

Innovative Quality Assurance Engineer / SDET with 3+ years of experience in FinTech and an MEng in Aerospace Materials from Imperial College London. I help companies ensure their products are of the highest quality and am responsible for testing high-value projects.

Here are a few examples of my work:
- Led the end-to-end testing and live proving of major projects, such as the addition of 6 new funds and 12 new ETFs, which led to customer deposits exceeding £3.5m
- Interviewed over 200 people and helped to expand the QA team from one person (myself!) to a team of over 20
- Contributed to the automated testing suite by automating major areas of the app

Technical Skills & Tools: SQL, Playwright, Cypress, Appium, TypeScript, JavaScript, Java, Postman, and Python.

Currently working as an SDET at Playroll. Previously worked as an SDET at Crypto.com and before that, a QA Engineer at Moneybox, testing both the iOS and Android apps as well as the API. 

ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst certified. Also ISTQB Foundation Level and ISTQB Agile Tester certified, with a pass mark of 85% in both.

Before my life in QA, I worked as a metallurgist at a large aerospace company, focusing on nickel, titanium and steel alloys.

taplio

The Battle

Ash Ali

Qasim Mahmood

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?