Ex-Talabat CEO Joins Flyby as Chairman to Propel Global Expansion

Flyby, the adtech startup turning delivery fleets into moving digital billboards, has brought on a heavyweight name as it prepares for its next phase of growth. Tomaso Rodriguez, the former CEO of Talabat who steered the company to a $10 billion IPO, has been appointed Non-Executive Chairman of the Board.

It’s a move that feels anything but random.

Rodriguez led Talabat for six years, during which the business expanded more than ninefold. In December 2024, he oversaw its listing on the Dubai Financial Market, raising $2 billion and valuing the company at $10.1 billion. The IPO was the largest global tech listing of that year and was oversubscribed by double digits, not a small feat in a jittery market. By the time he stepped down in November 2025, Talabat had become the largest on-demand tech platform in MENA, serving over 6.5 million active users across eight countries.

Now, he is lending that experience to Flyby, at a time when the company is gearing up for a Series A round and pushing deeper into the GCC and Europe.

From what started as pilot projects in Munich, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Flyby has built a digital out-of-home network integrated directly into last-mile delivery operations. In simple words, its smart delivery boxes, fitted with IoT-enabled hardware and connected to a proprietary tech stack, act as mobile advertising screens while also collecting real-time data. It’s a clever twist on urban logistics, and I reckon it’s spot on for cities where delivery riders are everywhere you look. Well… I mean, in parts of Dubai or Riyadh, you can’t walk a block without seeing one.

Flyby says global brands such as L’Oréal, Red Bull, Tabasco, Motorola and Western Union are already on board, alongside major agency groups including Publicis and WPP. On the logistics side, partnerships include names like noon, Talabat, Careem and Deliveroo. That cross-section, advertisers, agencies, aggregators, suggests the model is more than just a shiny gadget strapped to a bike.

According to Cheyenne Kamran, Flyby’s co-founder and CEO, the company is “live, revenue-generating, and ready for scale.” He noted that Rodriguez’s track record in taking Talabat from a regional player to a publicly listed giant would be instrumental as Flyby enters its Series A and expands into new markets.

Rodriguez, for his part, described Flyby as the only company globally to have successfully transformed delivery fleets into a live, high-tech media channel. He pointed to the scale of visibility, hundreds of thousands of riders on the streets daily, and framed it as an “unexplored frontier” for advertisers seeking dynamic, real-time messaging.

And believe it or not, there is also a civic angle. Flyby’s infrastructure is positioned not just as an ad platform but as part of smart city and urban beautification programmes. At scale, the company plans to operate 10,000 smart boxes by 2027, with a five-year roadmap targeting 50,000 units across the GCC and Europe. If it reaches those numbers, it would be sitting on one of the most granular real-time mobility datasets in urban delivery, valuable not only for media buyers but potentially for municipalities and mobility planners too.

I’ve seen many startup announcements over the years, and sometimes the chairman role can feel a bit ceremonial, a nice headline, not much else. On the flip side, bringing in a leader fresh from a $10 billion IPO, especially one so embedded in the MENA tech ecosystem, is not just window dressing. It sends a clear signal to investors that Flyby is serious about scaling and governance as it moves into its next fundraising chapter.

For MENA founders reading on Arageek and plotting their own growth journeys, there’s something quietly encouraging here. The region is no longer just producing exits; it’s recycling experience. Leaders who have built, listed and exited are stepping back into the ecosystem. That kind of flyweel, if sustained, could make all the difference in the years ahead.

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