— THE TEAM

Operators who’ve done this before.

NIOS wad founded by Haifa Barbari, Jason Valdez and McVal Osborne — a team with deep experience in AI products, scaling brand and marketing operations, and building businesses to exit.

Haifa Barbari

Contact: Haifa@GetNIOS.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/haifabarbari/

Haifa Barbari is a futurist and founder working at the frontier of AI, creativity, and human sustainability. As founder and CEO of 8ight Ventures, she is building a stealth-stage AI venture with a mission as ambitious as the moment demands: advancing AI and human progress in the machine era. She is often brought in to speak about the future with the machines, and to advise organizations at moments of inflection — when ambiguity needs to become direction, and when leaders need to regain momentum in rapidly changing environments.

With more than 20 years of experience across behavior change, product, and innovation leadership, Haifa was among the first to launch an AI marketing platform in health, and grew her career to global agency strategy and innovation leader across CDM, DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Digitas, and VCCP — work that contributed to a successful exit to CapGemini. She is the creator of Marketing to the Machines, a proprietary framework that helps organizations understand how AI systems interpret brands, shape visibility, and influence customer decision-making in the Generative Internet Era. Recognized as an Innovator of the Year and one of the Top 50 Women in Tech, she has been featured in BBC News, ADWEEK, and Newsweek, and is a trusted voice at global summits on AI, marketing, creativity, and the future of work.

At the core of her work is a belief that creativity unlocks what's next — with AI and beyond it. Her mission is to inspire an equally advanced future: one that is both technologically powerful and deeply human, where humanity feels more, not less. She partners with businesses in the new era to shape products, services, and cultures that are Human Powered. AI Accelerated.

Jason Valdez is an operational strategist with a track record of helping growing businesses turn ambition into sustainable, scalable systems. As Co-Founder and COO of 8ight Ventures, he leads operations, product execution, and go-to-market strategy for a stealth-stage AI venture building first-to-market platforms for the next era of human and machine interaction. With deep experience guiding companies through organizational transformation, Jason specializes in building structures that support growth, create clarity, and drive long-term value.

Most recently, he served as Chief Operations Officer of Greater Than One, where he led the media and technology agency through a complete operational overhaul — reorganizing it into three portfolio business units with defined P&L accountability, strengthening governance, and improving profitability and forecasting discipline. The transformation ultimately positioned the company for its successful acquisition by Real Chemistry in 2025. Across more than 20 years in integrated healthcare and marketing agencies — including Klick, GSW Advertising, and Eveo — Jason has scaled PMOs, mentored multi-office teams, and built the operational foundations that allow creative organizations to grow without losing their edge. He also founded Vision2Velocity, a consultancy offering fractional COO support to small and mid-size companies preparing to scale or exit.

Jason brings a practical, people-first approach to leadership, drawing from real-world experience to help businesses align vision with execution. His work focuses on empowering leadership, creating repeatable systems, and building organizations that are not just built to grow, but built to last.