Gitex Conference 2008 speaker: Sam Alkharrat

Sam is responsible for overseeing the company?s operations in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition to Sam?s Managing Director role, he chairs Cisco?s Real Estate board which is responsible for driving the development of Cisco?s real estate solutions business on a worldwide level.

Under Sam?s leadership, the company?s regional operations grew to more than 350 people over the past three years. Today, Cisco manages a broad portfolio of customers across all business verticals and has a successful channel partner and academies network.

Throughout his 14-year career with Cisco, Sam held a variety of sales, engineering and general manager positions. He started his career as a support engineer in San Jose California. He then became a field systems engineer in 1996 where he attained his CCIEs certification, after which he developed his role to become a Technical Consultant. In 1998, Sam moved to Dubai where he was Cisco?s first Systems Engineering Leader in the Middle East Region. In that role, he built a strong technical organization until he assumed a Sales Leadership role in 2002. 

Sam is also the executive sponsor for Cisco’s Middle East Diversity and Inclusion (MEDI) initiative. He is known for his strong leadership and communications skills, building high-growth teams, and his customer-centric attitude.

Sam earned his Computer Engineering degree from the University of Toledo in the United States and is now pursuing a Global Executive MBA at Duke University.

GITEX Technology Week 2008 conference agenda

GITEX Technology Week 2008 update