Rafael Patron / AI AI Program Manager · Dubai
About

Rafael Patron.

AI Program Manager · Faculty · Keynote Speaker · Author · President of the Scientific Committee, AIPIA.

Twenty years in digital. The last five in AI, every day. Resident in Dubai, operating across five regions. I help organisations turn artificial intelligence into measurable competitive advantage.

The trajectory.

Trained in business administration, but spent most of my career where business meets code. Silicon Valley first. Google, San Francisco, 2012-2013, when machine learning was leaving the labs. Then Snap Inc. in the pre-IPO phase, where I saw from the inside what it means to scale a digital product to hundreds of millions of users.

Back in Europe I founded Patron Multimedia (Chiavari, Italy, 2012), still operating today. Since 2019, AI Program Manager at Intarget DMCC, Dubai, with engagements distributed across Italy, the UAE, the United States.

In 2024 I completed Harvard CS50 AI. Fifty-five international certifications — Google, AWS, Salesforce, HubSpot, and others. But certifications only prove one thing: that you keep studying. What matters is what you've built.

Institutional role.

Since June 2025, President of the Scientific Committee of AIPIA — the Italian Association of Artificial Intelligence Professionals. Over 320 members. Headquartered in Rome. Recognised by the European AI Alliance of the European Commission. Official endorser of the Rome Call for AI Ethics, the Vatican-led initiative for ethical AI, signed by Microsoft, IBM, FAO, the United Nations.

The institutional role isn't decorative. It's where I help build — alongside others — the European professional practices for artificial intelligence. Standards, governance, ethics, education.

Teaching.

I teach AI at the University of Florence. For six years I taught at IED Milan. I deliver corporate executive education programmes for organisations whose teams need to start using AI Monday morning, not study it in theory.

The angle of my courses is one only: practical. Real cases, hands-on exercises, frameworks that work in the actual job. No slides full of buzzwords.

Books.

Three books published in Italian. Growth Hacking (2024), AIO — Artificial Intelligence Operations (2023), and in 2026 Find Yourself on ChatGPT, the first Italian-language manual on Large Language Model Optimization.

Writing forces thinking. And the notes I put into a book are the same ones I bring into client engagements.

Companies.

I've worked with sport clubs (Juventus, AC Milan, Genoa CFC, Virtus Entella, Wyscout), tech and enterprise groups (Microsoft, DEDA Group, Intarget, TIM), food and energy companies (Colussi, Eni), academic institutions (University of Florence, IED Milan).

Different sectors, similar problems: how to use AI to do better what you already do. Not to do new things at random.

The numbers

Twenty years.
Five in AI.

20 years experience in digital
55 international certifications
3 books on AI, LLMO, and growth
5 continents where I work and speak
Background

Education,
experience,
publications.

Education

  • Harvard University · CS50 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python · 2024
  • University of Genoa · BSc, Business Administration
  • 55 international certifications (Google, AWS, Salesforce, HubSpot, Meta, Microsoft, others)

Professional experience

  • 2025–present · President, Scientific Committee, AIPIA · Rome
  • 2019–present · AI Program Manager · Intarget DMCC · Dubai
  • 2012–present · Founder · Patron Multimedia · Chiavari, Italy
  • 2017 · Faculty · IED Milan
  • 2016–2017 · Snap Inc. · Pre-IPO · Los Angeles
  • 2012–2013 · Google · San Francisco

Publications

  • 2026 · Find Yourself on ChatGPT (Italian: Fatti trovare da ChatGPT) · LLMO
  • 2024 · Growth Hacking · The fundamentals of fast and sustainable growth
  • 2023 · AIO · Artificial Intelligence Operations
Let's talk

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