Waleed Shaalan serves as the Chief of Design at the Aseer Development Authority (ASDA), where he contributes to thoughtful strategies for sustainable urban transformation in Saudi Arabia’s Aseer region since 2023. Collaborating closely with teams, he helps integrate architecture, infrastructure, and mobility to build accessible, eco-friendly communities in support of Vision 2030’s goals.Prior to ASDA, Waleed worked as Design Director for the French Agency for the Development of AlUla (AFALULA) from 2019, partnering on masterplanning initiatives that respectfully preserved cultural heritage while improving transportation networks, tourism accessibility, and urban connectivity. Before that, he collaborated as Design Director for AREP in the Middle East, a French firm focused on multidisciplinary planning, contributing to large-scale projects that harmonize architecture with efficient mobility systems. In his earlier career, Waleed held roles such as Senior Projects Director at United Real Estate Company (URC), Design Principal at SSH Design, and architect at Perkins+Will in Chicago. Waleed values sustainability and was part of a collaborative effort that received the World Architecture Festival’s Future Projects - Residential award in 2011 for the Junoot project in Oman, in partnership with Cal-Earth and others.