I’m Abdul Rahman Bazian — a cooperative activist and entrepreneur based in Amman: two decades building businesses, more than 15 years across newsrooms and marketing teams. I use a grounding in business and economics to turn complex ideas into practical, validated models.
I started in sales at MetLife Alico 15+ years ago. Successful but restless, I moved to content and marketing at SADDA, then to The Jordan Times while at PSUT. Post-graduation, I tried banking and disliked it, so I left to run AlGhad’s English section, rejoined The Jordan Times in 2018, and became their only consistently full-page writer, specializing in business and economics. Meanwhile, I’d been building my own startups — SmarTax and Checkers Inc.
You Own Your Reality. So, Take Charge of It.
From translating and teaching at 16 to front-page business journalism, and from marketer to founder. The full story, year by year, and the work behind it.
Staff roles at The Jordan Times, AlGhad and Al Bawaba Middle East; freelance work with SRF and Jordan News; ventures from SmarTax to Checkers Inc.; and the courses and voluntary work in between.
Newsrooms, agencies, institutions and startups across Jordan, the Gulf, Europe and the United States.
It started when I was 16. I was already a published Arabic and English writer with Jordan Poetry, and that opened doors. Freelancers contracted by international NGOs and UN agencies, including UNRWA and UNHCR, passed me translation and language-teaching work and paid me for it. I also translated and dubbed films. My first job came in 2009, in sales at Alico, now MetLife.
Newsrooms and marketing teams followed, and in 2018, Checkers Inc. Alongside them, I spent three years as a senior translator and copywriter at Zadd, and interpreted and facilitated for EU-JDID, including an ISO audit of Jordan’s Independent Election Commission. In 2020 I became SRF’s stringer and fixer in Jordan, a role I still hold, and I reported freelance for Jordan News until 2022.
At Al Bawaba Middle East I was brought in to rebuild the business section — content strategy, SEO, benchmarking. With no team or technical support, I drove 118% traffic growth single-handedly, hit 63% of the department’s target on my own, and set the benchmark for the team that followed. Since then, my focus has shifted from traditional day-after reporting to high-quality new-age media and SEO-optimized reporting.
My marketing experience began with SADDA more than a decade ago. Since then: ventures of my own, and consulting for startups on growth and sustainability strategies, SEO content, brand messaging, market research, business planning and resilience. Most recently, research-led content and consulting for Proxidize: market maps, pricing indexes and statistics pieces, sourced and checked line by line.
I’m a builder. As founder of Checkers Inc., a private-sector cooperative, and of the workers’ cooperative at the heart of the First Youth Cooperative of Jordan, I’ve developed products, grown a shareholder base, onboarded ESOP employees as partners and laid the model’s foundation — launching late 2026.
Four turning points that shaped who I am professionally. Each marks a shift: from employee to founder, from marketer to strategist, from writer to content expert, from local reporter to international correspondent, and from translator to front-page journalist.
The turn from employee to founder. As CEO of this employee-owned cooperative-to-be I scaled revenues 200% in 2023–24 and 75% in 2025, lifted margins 35% and took retention from 75% to 95% — expanding into GCC, EU and US markets. 150+ projects and 50+ brands through Checkers.
The turn from writer to strategist. Where I learned SEO content and fused it with serious business journalism — 118% traffic growth in five months, single-handedly and without a team, while producing unique, value-added bilingual reporting.
The turn from local reporter to international correspondent. The only foreign stringer and fixer on retainer with Swiss Radio and Television — facilitator, correspondent and interpreter, 99% delivery anywhere in Jordan.
I started as a translator here while still at university, left journalism for banking, then left banking to get back to it — through AlGhad, and back here for front- and full-page stories.
Every piece starts with sources, data and the market it lands in.
Plain words, checked facts, in Arabic and English.
Written for the people who have to understand and act.
Built to be used, and built with the people who will use it.
I create winning growth and resilience strategies. But at a hands-on level, apart from research and strategies, I create bilingual content — writing, translating, localizing and interpreting across both. Each language searches and phrases differently, so I build for each on its own terms — content that ranks, and that generative AI cites as a source.
Portraits, reporting and the team, in one place.
Four ways to go further: the ventures and projects, the published stories, the photographs, and the record with dates.
Ventures, projects and case studies, with what each one involved.
See my portfolio →106 stories across seven outlets, in Arabic and English.
Read the archive →Portraits, field work, and the Checkers team at work.
Visit the gallery →Roles, dates, courses, languages and voluntary work.
See my resume →Newsrooms, agencies, institutions and startups across Jordan, the Gulf, Europe and the United States.