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:

• President Award, Avaya - 2013
• Listed among the top 5 most influential IT executives in the region (Network Middle East)
• Nidal is a founder and former member of the Young Arab Leaders Organization (YAL)

Nidal is based in Dubai with his family and 4 kids and holds an MBA in management.

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.

Anthony Brown is a Corporate Consultant for Avaya and part of the World Wide Strategic Engagement team. He has 16 years experience working with contact centre technologies, bringing a strong background in Application Sales and also Professional Services where he delivered multimedia contact centre solutions around the world. As a Corporate Consultant, he’s focussed on unique and complex customer engagement solutions. Anthony also brings a strong knowledge of new and emerging technologies, such as social media, proactive customer care, big data and real time speech analytics.

Anthony is a regular speaker at Avaya, Avaya Business Partner and Industry Events and is committed to helping Avaya customers develop “connected” experiences for their customers.

Anthony relocated from the UK to Australia in 2004 and now lives in Sydney with his wife and two children and holds a Bachelor of Science (hons) degree in Applied Computing. He is an avid Formula 1 fan and enjoys mountain biking, scuba diving, playing squash and of course, spending time with his family.

Darren Read is the Acting General Manager and General Manager of Services at Avaya Australia, with responsibility for enabling digital transformation-as-a-service for organisations of all sizes in the region.

Prior to joining Avaya in early 2014, Darren held senior leadership roles at Frontline Systems and HP. His career of more than two decades has seen him develop extensive expertise in a variety of IT fields, including services and networking. Darren holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the Sydney Graduate School of Management

Sami Ammous leads the Sales Engineering organization in the Avaya Asia Pacific market, focusing on keeping the organization aligned with the latest technology trends of digital transformation. Sami drives his team using an outside-in approach, starting with desired customer outcomes and closing with delivering a solution. He also helps increase team efficiency through team-based approaches to opportunity management. Sami’s expertise in multiple technologies and verticals allows him to address strategic problems using a simplified approach.

Professional Experience
Sami has had exposure to multiple verticals and markets in the Middle East, Africa and Asia regions. In addition to running the SE teams, he has personally been engaged in transformation projects in telecom providers, financial services organizations, government bodies, and retail customers. Sami brings to the table a solid technical background with a rich understanding of business challenges in the C-suite. His specialty is technical and business consulting around digital transformation, technology adoption and emerging architectures.

Previous Roles
Previous to working for Avaya as SE Director, Sami held the following positions:

• GGM Technology Office Senior Manager: running a team of business engagement specialists focused on positioning cutting edge Avaya technology
• Solutions Sales Specialists at Avaya, focused on Customer Experience Management
• Consulting Systems Engineer at Avaya, focused on contact centers
• Account manager for a multinational company in Jordan
• Technical manager for an IT company in Jordan
• Active involvement in multiple NGOs

Avaya Experience
Sami has been with Avaya since 2006, where he started as a Systems Engineer working on IP telephony, unified communications and contact centers, then moved on to focus on contact centers exclusively in 2008, with involvement in projects with strategic consultants. In 2014 he took on the challenge of leading the Technology Office, and moved to Singapore in early 2016 to run the SE organization in the Avaya Asia Pacific market.

Qualifications
Sami has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and holds several Avaya certifications. He has also completed several business consulting trainings, and is an active member of the MELA Network.

A thought leader in customer experience and innovation with 17 years’ experience in the banking and financial industry, Daniel is currently the Director of Omni-Channel Transformation for the banking brands of the Westpac Group.

Daniel started his career as a temporary call centre operator for the Advance Bank and St George merger in 1999. During his career Daniel has held many frontline and then leadership roles across our contact centres and specialised in customer service. Progressing to be the Head of Operations and the General Manager for contact centres, Daniel has also led many of the banks largest contact centre and customer service related transformation programs.

Daniel is married and has three boys, outside of work he is actively involved with community based events as the founder of the Danny Bergan Memorial Foundation and an active board member of the MonStaR Foundation. Both organisations are dedicated to finding a cure for Motor Neurone Disease and also helping disabled children integrate into school life, raising over $2.5m in the last 10 years.

Shara Evans is a Technologist, Futurist and Keynote Speaker. She is recognised as one of the world’s top female futurists, fusing her engineering background with an intuitive understanding of how society is likely to respond to new technologies.

She’s the Founder and CEO of Market Clarity, an award-winning technology analyst firm, and Telsyte (which she sold to publicly listed UXC), and has been providing innovative research and strategic consulting on telecoms and technology for the past 19 years.

Shara is a regular media commentator on technology issues — appearing on shows such as Sky News, The Drum, 7:30 and is regularly quoted in publications such as the Financial Review, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and many others.

Shara helps her clients understand new product and service opportunities that are being underpinned by emerging technologies. Frequently working with executive, strategy and product teams, Shara gets organisations to think outside the box of what's available today to imagine the world in 5 or 10 years, and assists them in commercialising these concepts into innovative new products and services.

In her keynote speeches, Shara brings together the latest technology innovations and cutting-edge research projects, tying them into strategic insights for a wide range of industries.