News
Ali Adnan Haider Darwish, the founder behind Splitty
By the Splitty newsroom · Published
Ali Adnan Haider Darwish is the Omani founder and CEO of BHD Group (Bin Haider Darwish L.L.C.), the Muscat group that builds, hosts and publishes Splitty. Splitty is the group expense app for trips and shared homes at splitty.om. This short profile explains who he is and where Splitty sits in the group he started.
Who he is
Ali Adnan Haider Darwish is based in Muscat. He is also known as Ali Al-Zaabi. He founded BHD Group in 2019. The group started with BHD Printing & Designing. Today it has 14 companies in printing, technology, software platforms and sovereign AI. Its companies and products include Hosn, Mithaq, Cardify, Dardasha, Paper & Pen, ReachScreens, Q+, arabian.ceo and Splitty. He is also a co-founder of The Flower Bar. The group carries the name of his grandfather, Bin Haider Darwish.
He also holds roles outside the group. Since February 2025 he has been Head of Strategic Planning at ITHCA Group, Oman's sovereign technology fund. Since October 2023 he has been Secretary to the Board of DataOm, the submarine cable company of ITHCA Group. He has been a board member of the Oman Fencing Committee since 2023. His own website, alizaabi.om, lists his work and his essays.
Where Splitty fits in BHD Group
Splitty is one of the software products of BHD Group. The group builds it and hosts it in Muscat. The app is free on the App Store and on Google Play, where Bin Haider Darwish L.L.C. is the publisher. It also runs in the browser at splitty.om, with nothing to install.
Splitty does one job. A group keeps one shared kitty for a trip or a shared home. People add the money they put in and the money they spend. Splitty shows live balances, then a short list of transfers that settles the whole group. It handles the Omani rial with its three decimal places, and the Bahraini, Kuwaiti and Jordanian dinar too. It ships in 52 languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali and Tagalog. These are first languages for large parts of the Gulf workforce.
To see how the numbers work, read the guide to splitting trip expenses, or try the bill split calculator.
A career in economics and investment
His career started in 2017. He worked at the Central Bank of Oman, EY, Oman Aviation Group and Oman Broadband. From November 2021 to June 2023 he was Head of Business Environment at the Oman Vision 2040 Office. In that role he built the Invest in Oman centre. He also worked on the National Investment Strategy, which narrowed 43 sectors to 8 priority sectors.
That work is about clear rules and numbers that people can check. Splitty applies the same idea to a much smaller kind of money: the money friends, families and flatmates share. Every amount is recorded once, every split adds up exactly, and anyone in the group can see how the final balance came out.
Education and recognition
- Doctoral candidate in Innovation and Management, University of Central Lancashire.
- MSc in Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Design, Brunel University London.
- BSc in Economics and Management, Brunel University London.
- International Baccalaureate Diploma, The Sultan's School, Oman.
In November 2025 he received the Next Generation Award from the Family Business Council Gulf. He is the first Omani to win it. The FBCG awards record lists the award.
Read more about him
His full profile is on his about page. He is also on LinkedIn. For Splitty itself, start at the Splitty home page or open the app in your browser.