Nidal Abou-Ltaif is one of the regions most respected and celebrated ICT and business leaders, known for his unmatched track record of success, enormous love of people, fierce passion for winning, and desire to help governments and businesses use technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.
In 2003, Nidal joined Avaya as the regional sales leader for the ME. He began a journey of rewiring the business by building a winning team & go-to-market strategy from scratch. He has been instrumental to transform Avaya from a niche voice/IP telephony player to become a business communications powerhouse by market share in the region in Contact Center, UC & Infrastructure businesses across verticals & geographies.
Nidal has a long history with the networking business at Avaya. He was instrumental in maintaining business continuity when Avaya acquired Nortel, and managed a successful integration process in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
In 2013, Nidal was the mastermind behind Avaya’s growth in the region’s mid-market business when he developed and led iConnect, a strategic initiative for Avaya globally, aiming at building and driving a channel friendly program for the mid-market.
In early 2014, Nidal was selected to lead Avaya’s newly formed Global Growth Markets theater that includes MEA, Turkey, Russia & CIS, India and SAARC, and China, a challenging market the with highest global growth potential. As president for Avaya GGM, Nidal took the challenge to turnaround Avaya in India, and drive Avaya’s networking business in his geography. In FY14, and under Nidal’s leadership, Avaya GGM led the networking business, achieved impressive growth mid-market with Avaya’s flagship channel engagement program iConnect,, and is currently expanding into territories.
In his 30 years as a sales leader, Nidal has transformed businesses for the 3 companies he worked for: NCR/ATT & Avaya. From 1980 to 2003, Nidal lead various teams at NCR/ATT into new business lines well before competitors ventured into them. His latest role as sales director for ME, North Africa, and Eastern Europe for Infrastructure & Networking business grew to become the area’s most recognized SI/reseller of IT infrastructure, eBusiness & enterprise apps.
Nidal has always been driven by a passion & commitment to build and develop leaders. At NCR, he fostered a culture of self-motivation, agility & integrity. Most of the associates Nidal mentored went on to join & lead successful careers themselves in technology across Middle East & Africa. At Avaya, his team members have been often described as “a pocket of brilliance” within the corporation and the associates Nidal recruits & coaches are widely recognized as some of the highest of calibers across functions.
Nidal has been recognized for his leadership and management skills by a number of organizations, including:
Nidal is based in Dubai with his family and 4 kids and holds an MBA in management.
Laurent Philonenko is senior vice president of Corporate Strategy and Development and Chief Technology Officer of Avaya. Philonenko is the architect of the company’s strategy and is responsible for the development of its short- and long-term growth, technology and enablement strategies.
Philonenko oversees Avaya Labs, architecture and consulting groups, the Avaya DevConnect developer program and technology partnerships, and the segment leadership groups, which ensure end to end company alignment around core strategies.
He is a proven visionary in the enterprise collaboration and engagement space; his 2001 book '2020 CRM' proved to be prescient in laying out the evolutions which took place - and some still to come. Not afraid experiments, he flew a video conferencing drone during his last Avaya Technology Forum keynote - a first.
He has combined his technology savvy and operational management skills to build a unique track record in the industry.
Prior to joining Avaya in 2013, Philonenko served notably as Chief Technology Officer of Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group, Chief Executive Officer of Genesys, and Senior Vice President of Alcatel's network software solutions.
Philonenko holds nine patents, including a solution to those pesky “reply all” email avalanches or using social networks information for contact center routing.
He is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and earned a master’s degree from Paris University.
When Philonenko is not masterminding the company’s strategy, he can likely be found flying airplanes, practicing his culinary skills or spending quality time with his wife, Michelle. He is also an avid sportsman. His list of athletic hobbies includes running, biking, skiing and (a recent addition) stand-up paddle boarding.
Jean Turgeon (JT) is Vice President & Chief Technologist for Software Defined Architecture (SDA), Worldwide Sales in Avaya, a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions. He has more than 30 years of experience in networking design and implementation that spans WAN, LAN and gateway technology, Unified Communications, open system architecture frameworks, data center, campus and branch solutions.
In his current role, JT is responsible for defining SDA strategic direction, working across the Avaya portfolio to deliver on automation and orchestration. He also ensures accelerated growth of Fabric Technology deployments and strategic solutions initiatives. His previous roles in Avaya included Vice President of Worldwide Solutions Engineering, and Vice President and General Manager of Portfolio and Solutions Strategy. Prior to joining Avaya via the Nortel Enterprise Solutions acquisition which included Bay Networks, JT held Senior Network Architecture and Technical positions at AmeriData and Bell Technical Services. He holds an Executive MBA from the University of Ottawa.
An Australian citizen, Singapore PR and born and raised in Malaysia, Tim Wade is a University of Queensland science graduate majoring in Psychology who has over 19 years of operational leadership and multi-award-winning consulting experience in businesses across Australia and Asia.
his combination plus experience with Crisis Intervention Counselling and Executive Coaching enables Tim to uniquely help individuals and teams further develop their ability to achieve even greater results.
Tim also draws on skills developed in theatre, publishing and association presidency to ensure he delivers entertainingly dynamic, energetic, engaging and interactive presentations, with authenticity and humour that connects with audiences.
Together with IDC's elite team of analysts, Michael regularly engages with Asia's leading institutions across many industries, particularly in banking. In his consulting role, he works closely with IDC’s research teams and global account managers on custom research and business intelligence assignments. Michael's recent work proves that he is the go-to analyst for a broad range of strategic and tactical issues in Asia/Pacific banking. Michael has consulted clients on a range of topics including mergers and acquisitions, Big Data, Social Media in banking, product innovation strategies, customer centricity and CRM initiatives, vendor product portfolio positioning, and core banking systems.
Mohammad Nezarati leads the UC applications group, including audio conferencing and messaging solutions for Avaya. Prior to joining Avaya, Mohammad founded Esna Technologies in 1989 to deliver innovative communications and collaboration solutions to enterprise customers, which was acquired by Avaya in May 2015. He served as both CEO and Chief Technologist for Esna, and was the primary architect and developer of the company’s first award-winning UC solution, Officelinx. Mohammad has more than 25 years of leadership experience and has been honored with the Canadian CTI Pioneer award for his experience in the messaging and communications industry.