In Mobility Reimagined, Umar Zakir Abdul Hamid shares an unfiltered, deeply personal account of his first decade navigating the rapidly evolving automotive and mobility sectors. From engineering labs in Malaysia and Japan, to startup scenes in Southeast Asia and Finland, to boardrooms in Europe, keynote stages in China, and virtual standardization sessions with professionals in the US, Umar traces a career shaped by curiosity, courage, and a commitment to democratizing opportunity.
As a brown Southeast Asian professional rising in an industry historically shaped by Western and East Asian leadership, Umar offers more than technical insight, he opens a window into what it takes to lead across borders, disrupt legacy systems, and redefine success on his own terms.
This book is part strategy guide, part industry overview, and part leadership memoir. It speaks to young professionals, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, offering hard-won lessons on global expansion, digital transformation, and inclusive leadership. It is also a resource for employers seeking to understand the future of talent and the new frontiers of mobility.
Accessible, candid, and sharp, Mobility Reimagined captures the essence of a career, and an industry, at the intersection of innovation, inclusion, and intentional change.
Umar Zakir Abdul Hamid, PhD, EMBA, is a future-ready business leader at the crossroads of mobility, technology, and transformation. Over the past decade, he has shaped global strategies from Malaysia to Europe, bridging engineering, business, and policy across the EU, US, China, and frontier markets.He led PROTON International's global expansion (part of the GEELY conglomerate), architecting a 10-year strategy for market entry and product globalization with the potential of expansion across more than 40 countries, and co-shaped ZEEKR's European go-to-market for their digital and connectivity product area during the rise of software-defined and connected vehicles. His work at the intersection of business and technology has earned recognition from SAE International (USA) and the Finnish Engineering Society. He was also a key cornerstone in Sensible 4's rapid growth in Finland from 2018 to 2021 during the pandemic period, contributing to collective revenue and funding of almost 20 million euros.After a decade in mobility, he is moving into a larger sandbox. As Head of CEREBRUM, Johor Corporation's next-generation innovation and transformation platform aimed to be the Global South's regional innovation centre, Umar now applies his experience from the global mobility industry to a broader economic ecosystem, governing, scaling, and reimagining platforms for sustainable growth.
