Ahmed Rahhou, the former banker who led CIH Bank’s digital overhaul before taking charge of Morocco’s Competition Council, has been appointed Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administration Reform in the new government headed by Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri.
King Mohammed VI appointed Rahhou on Friday at the Royal Palace in Rabat, bringing the 68-year-old engineer into the cabinet after more than five years as president of the Competition Council.
Aïcha Guellaa will serve alongside him as Minister Delegate in charge of Administration Reform.
The appointment gives artificial intelligence an explicit place in the ministry’s name, expanding the digital transformation and administration reform portfolio previously held by Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni.
Rahhou also inherits work already begun under his predecessor, including plans for a framework law governing artificial intelligence.
Seghrouchni announced in October 2025 that a dedicated AI directorate-general would be established to prepare the legislation. The proposed legal framework has yet to be completed.
For Rahhou, the new assignment returns him to an area in which he made his name during a decade at the helm of CIH Bank.
Appointed chairman and chief executive of the lender in October 2009, he took over an institution grappling with financial difficulties and longstanding problems inherited from earlier years.
He set about restructuring the bank while making digital services a major part of its business.
Rather than developing separate digital products outside the bank’s main operations, Rahhou pursued the digitalization of the institution itself.
The MyCIH mobile application was launched in May 2014, the year the bank also abolished value dates, a practice affecting when certain transactions began earning or incurring interest.
CIH subsequently introduced Code 30, a free banking offer for customers under 30. By 2016, the product had attracted 100,000 young customers.
The bank extended its digital approach to Umnia Bank, its participatory banking subsidiary.
Rahhou remained at CIH until 2019, when Lotfi Sekkat succeeded him and continued the bank’s digital strategy.
His departure followed his appointment as Morocco’s ambassador to the European Union on February 7, 2019.
Two years later, on March 22, 2021, King Mohammed VI named him president of the Competition Council, replacing Driss Guerraoui.
Born in Meknes on June 25, 1958, Rahhou graduated from France’s École Polytechnique in 1980 and the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in 1982.
He began his career in the information technology department of Royal Air Maroc before moving into organizational and strategy consulting in France.
He later joined Crédit du Maroc, where he became deputy managing director and a member of the management board.
In March 2003, he took charge of Lesieur Cristal, leading the company until 2009 before moving to CIH.
Rahhou also served as an expert member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council from 2011.
His latest appointment places him in charge of a ministry responsible for digital transformation across the administration, with artificial intelligence now formally included in its remit.
