Cisco MEA Cloud Summit

President, EMEAR Cisco

Wendy Mars is President of Cisco’s Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia region (EMEAR).Wendy is responsible for Cisco’s growth, business and operations across the EMEAR region. Her focus is on driving strategies which deliver on customers’ digital and sustainability transformation requirements and which help to close the digital divide. The region delivers over $13bn annually and represents more than a quarter of Cisco’s revenue.

Wendy is a passionate supporter of greater diversity in business. She specialises in creating high-performing teams that are grounded in a strong sense of common purpose, a focus on results and holding each other accountable. She is driving initiatives that promote greater inclusion and is the Executive Sponsor of Cisco’s Connected Women and Connected Black Professionals communities. She understands the talent and skills challenges facing the technology industry and firmly believes in promoting education in digital skills as a driver of transformation and differentiation.

Vice President Cisco MEA

Reem has a wealth of experience in business leadership and strong understanding of the digital transformation landscape. Prior to joining Cisco, Asaad held the position of CEO at Raya Contact Center, a business process outsourcing service provider based in Cairo with operations in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, servicing multi-national and Fortune 500 companies. During this role, she was instrumental in driving the company growth and go-to-market strategy, digital transformation, and regional market development.

Vice President, EMEAR Architectures and Sales Specialists

Gordon Thomson leads the EMEAR Architecture and Sales Specialists organisation. His greatest passion is engaging closely with customers, partners and sales teams, and demonstrating how technology can navigate all of the new challenges and opportunities ahead.

Previously, Gordon was the global sales leader for Intent-Based Networking where his team drove the sales motions for transforming the customer experience through Cisco’s core portfolio, which represents 40 percent of Cisco’s total product revenue. In this role, Gordon and his global team worked closely with customers and partners, leading them through major market transitions to ensure their businesses thrive and grow. 

A 23-year Cisco veteran, he develops and implements innovative go-to-market models that accelerate the shift to software selling and digital transformation, while building strong teams and followership. By combining his technological expertise and customer-first mindset, Thomson has achieved unrivaled success in designing sales strategies for the new software and cloud-centered markets.

Thomson’s legacy will be his belief in the power of people and teams to achieve powerful results through go-to-market innovation and high-trust relationships with customers

Vice President, Europe, Middle, East and Africa, Russia CIS (EMEAR)
Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

Adele leads Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) EMEAR organisation, which she’s responsible for 6,000 employees, 120,000 customers, 12,000 partners. It includes professional and support services, customer success and renewals teams who, alongside ecosystem partners, deliver business solutions throughout a customer lifecycle for increased time-to-value and high return on technology investment 

Adele has over 20 years’ technology sector experience and a strong track record in orchestrating large-scale, transformational programs for key customers. She is a Certified Management Consultant (CMA) and holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, and an MBA from Henley Business School. Adele also has been awarded two patents both in security technology. 

Director, Research – Software Program, IDC META Region

Harish leads IDC’s research & advisory practice for Software and Cloud Program in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey region. Harish is a known name in Technology industry esp. among System Integration companies and IT Software Vendors. He brings in more than 18 years of experience of working with leading System Integration and other technology companies across Middle East and India and has exposure to global as well as emerging markets. He leads a team of research analysts and manages the delivery of insights in IDC’s software program and syndicated research. Harish and his team have expertise in analyzing data and studying trends to provide our clients with thought leadership & actionable insights. He is based at Dubai.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Cisco Middle East and Africa

Osama AlZoubi is the CTO for Cisco in Middle East & Africa Region. In his current Role, Osama leads the Engineering and Innovation teams at Cisco MEA. He is a very senior member of the MEA SLT, Seasoned and very experienced in Business, Technology, Innovation, and Digital transformation. He is also the author “the Digital Transformation” Book, and published multiple articles in Harvard Business Review Arabia (HBR).

CTO Cloud & Architecture Team, Cisco EMEAR

As CTO for Cisco’s cloud offerings in the EMEAR architecture team, Tjerk is focused on evangelizing Cisco technology vision and strategy to executives, architects and engineers. Tjerk also represents Cisco at public events speaking.

In this role, Tjerk is specifically focused on integrating the different architectural components that that deliver the cloud experience to customers.

Cisco Systems - Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Mazen Al Jundi is the Cloud infrastructure and Software Sales specialist for Middle East & Africa. In his previous role, he was Cloud Workload security specialist part of Cisco Worldwide incubation team.

He is a technology specialist with over 16 years of experience in the ICT field, Mazen’s profound knowledge and experience has been of immense benefit to his customers digital transformation journey.

He’s also a programmability enthusiast and drove programmability efforts for service providers in the region.

Cisco Advisory Services EMEAR

Sean Kelly is a Principal Consultant in the Cisco Advisory Services team based out of the UK and working with customers across EMEAR. For over 20 years he has been helping organisations transform and evolve through the understanding of business & technology goals & challenges, deriving & implementing the most appropriate architectures and implementation approaches, and by ensuring a fit-for-purpose operating model exists to support the organisation.

Sean was an early adopter of both x86 virtualisation and then cloud technologies, and has been involved in multiple “first of a kind” cloud deployments. He is also an evangelist of open source, open standards, and agile development methodologies.

Product Sales Specialist in Adriatics for Data Center, Virtualization and Cloud at Cisco Systems

Currently working in Cisco for territory Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia. Started to work for Cisco in 1998. in Brussels in Europe. Since 1998. went through numerous positions ranging from Cisco TAC escalation center in Brussels to systems engineering and managing position. Prior to Cisco working in Croatian Telecom in Croatia. Finished master’s degree in electrical engineering, telecommunications, and information science. Own prestigious Cisco CCIE routing and switching certificate since 2000

Mobility Consulting Systems Engineer

Bader has been with Cisco for over 14 years and has played a major role in designing some of the largest access networks in the region. He covers the Gulf region with expertise on working with different industries. Bader is part of the Enterprise Networks team in EMEA working with Security and R&S teams. Along with his main duty of helping customers and partners design wired and wireless networks, he takes the responsibility of bridging the channel of communication between the field and Cisco's EN Business Unit.

Technical Solutions Architect , CyberSecurity Cisco Southern Africa

Greg Griessel is a Solutions Architect with Cisco Southern Africa specialising in CyberSecurity. He has over 25 years’ experience in IT Security working with Enterprise accounts, 15 of which have been with Cisco.

Prior to Cisco, Greg worked at various ICT suppliers and vendors looking after Sales Engineering, and Network Support. He has a National Diploma in Electronic Engineering and he is a globally Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Greg enjoys building Electronic that contribute to tech innovations.

He is married with two kids.

MEA - Technical Solutions Architect – Cloud Infrastructure and Software Group

Antonio dos Santos has been in the IT industry for over 20 years. During this time, he has worked for a number of Global organizations in different customer roles ranging from onsite support to Solutions Architect.

Antonio has been with Cisco for the past 11 years and has spent the last seven focused on providing technical coverage to the Cisco Field , Partners and customers on the Cisco Data Center portfolio in Sub Saharan Africa and now MEA.

In his spare time Antonio enjoys going for a run and spending time with the family, he is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Senior Solution Architect

Morten is a Senior Solution Architect and a CCIE veteran based out of Denmark. He has focused on DC and network architectures for the last 20 years. Prior to joining Cisco, he was a Network Architect with TDC focusing on MPLS Backbone and Metro Ethernet aggregation network. For Cisco, Morten is driving and incubating Cisco CX new offerings and solutions in the DC and Cloud space, with a special focus on Automation/Programmability, Multi-Cloud, Cloud Native, and Cisco ACI.

Senior Solution Architect

Peter is a Senior Solution Architect based out of Switzerland. He has focused on the Automation and DC architecture for the last 20 years. Prior to joining Cisco, he was the Technical Architect with Sun Microsystems driving their Automation portfolio.For Cisco, Peter is driving Cisco CX new offerings and solutions in the DC and Cloud Space, and also Cisco Migration Solutions. He is also the ISO Lead Quality Champion for Cisco Services EMEAR. Peter is also a seasoned speaker with Cisco Live with Data Center topics, as well as delivering recordings for the Digital versions of Cisco Live. Peter has a rich language background having lived in several countries such as Sweden, Netherlands, and Switzerland. He also has a strong background in Software Development and Electrical Engineering.

Technical Solutions Architect, Cisco

Omar Maayah is a Technical Solutions Architect focusing on Cisco’s Security technologies, in UAE.

Omar comes with 12+ years’ experience, joined Cisco UAE back in 2015 as a Product Specialist focusing on Secure Network Analytics covering Cisco Security Analytics in Middle East and Africa.

In early 2018, Omar took on a Technical Solutions Architect role to drive Cisco's Security Sales activities in UAE supporting UAE’s public sector and Enterprise customers.

Before Joining Cisco Omar worked as a Senior Network Admin in Abu Dhabi where he was able to achieve his CCIE R&S certificate, then became a Senior Network Operations Engineer in Etisalat dedicated to manage and operate Etisalat’s International MPLS network and Internet PoPs, then worked as a Pre-Sales Engineer in Dimension Data.

Technical Solutions Architect
Data Center & Virtualization

Alan has been working with the EMEAR Cisco Data Center & Virtualization team since joining the company in 2007. Primarily focusing on DC infrastructure switching & Storage Networking. Then, Unified switching and Unified Computing platforms. Alan also has a major focus on both converged & hyper-converged infrastructure technologies from Cisco, & other strategic partners that incorporate all of these technologies.
As these offerings span multiple technologies & disciplines, having a good understanding of Storage, Networking, Compute, Hypervisor & Automation aspects is key to positioning this type of technology solution to partners and customers.

Alan has over 20 years of experience in the Data Center environment and has gained knowledge, both as a field engineer, technical instructor and as a technical consultant of various key technologies.