SHERIF ABDELGAWAD

8370 Greensboro Dr Apt 624, McLean VA 22102 • +1.703.628.0637 / +352.691.998.523 • sabdelgawad@icloud.com

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIST & DIGITAL INNOVATION SOLUTION LEADER

Transformational leadership exercised throughout disruptive technology, innovation & business-driven value modeling

Far-sighted technology strategist expertly skilled in shaping & planning initiatives; mapping out pathways to success;

and propelling industry-leading firms to outperform objectives through integration of state-of-the-art disruptive and

innovative technology solutions. Progressive, global career history featuring early adoption of emerging technologies,

development of lean & adaptive technology-enabled organizations from design to implementation of enterprise-class

governance and technology platforms. People and culture challenges-aware with successful track record in building

digital transformational strategy that drives agile, innovative, and continues improvement culture.

Astute, proactive and emerging technology professional, adept in architecting business-driven IT solution and service

capabilities within competitive international markets to fuel new revenue streams while sustaining organization

business growth demands through innovative technology solutions and lean operation. Proven talent for cultivating

valuable relationships with key stakeholders, influencing executive leadership, conveying complex technical concepts

in easy to understand terms. Continually inspire and facilitate collaborative exchange between multicultural internal

and external resources.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Strategic corporate IT planning, goal setting & delivery

• Best-in-class IT / PMO governance, policies & standards

• Infrastructure-as-a-Code & IT-as-a-Service transformation

• Business-value IT solutions, frameworks & value modeling

• Digital Transformation & Cloud Computing adaptions

• Executive-level advisement & presentations

• Hybrid-Cloud, IT services lifecycle management & DevOps

• Continuous Integration, Development & Deployment

• Lean enterprise & continuous improvement / Kaizen

• IT services, solutions & products design

• Enterprise Architecture Frameworks

• Team building, motivation & leadership

• IT strategy development & execution

• Big Data, Analytics & Internet Of Things (IoT)

• Open Source adaption & operation model

• Mobility & BYOD Solutions

• Consultative Solution & Value Selling.

• Insight Selling Techniques

SELECTED RELEVANT ACHIEVEMENTS

Led Innovation & Digital Transformation Strategy for key strategic customer across EMEA. Examples of a public

reference customer: Emirates Airlines with Next Gen Digital Airline using AWS Platform.

Influenced, architected and led cross-functional transformation for a Telco Operator Cloud Strategy. Developed

Telco Over Cloud Strategy using AWS and value engineering methodologies.

Inspired, built business case and architected an end-to-end digital-bank transformational technology solution

addressing people, process, culture and technology. Resulted in multi-million deals and successful

implementation that enabled customers to transform to IT as a Service generating new revenue streams and

becoming customer-centric organization.

Successfully packaged and repeated Cloud Transformational initiatives generating multi-million multi-year deals

for key and global accounts across different verticals: FSI, Telco, Media, Oil & Gas and Airlines.

Developed, led & won largest private cloud computing, mobility and digital-bank transformation contract for

VMware. Service-led & C-Level advisory approach to reshape the IT strategy for the bank. Result in a $4.5M USD

initial contract including products & services. A project that successfully showcased business value by enhanced

time-to-market by 70%, provided an immediate budget saving of $6M USD & generating new revenue streams.

Architected and developed a Telco revenue sharing solution to generate new revenue stream through security

SaaS Offerings for Barracuda Networks. Turnaround troubled channel-only revenue from 100K/year business to

$2.5M USD in one year by building right ecosystem and direct technical sales strategy.

Built team of technologist for Red Hat new operation in Middle East & Africa (MEA) while executing successfully

the developed 3-yr emerging market business plan. Grew business by 250% in 3-years through localized salesaligned

solution architect & services strategies.

Led team of solution architects & consultants for global accounts; penetrated Wall-Street accounts displacing

competitors by gaining customers’ trust as a technical advisory role and identifying higher value/lower cost open

source solutions.

1/5

SHERIF ABDELGAWAD

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

AMAZON WEB SERVICES – AWS, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

EMEA Head, Enterprise Technology Strategy 8/2014 – Present

Leadership role to influence digital technology strategy for strategic customers. Leading technologists team building a

new enterprise technology strategy & solutions that create accelerated cloud journey with measurable business

values to our top key accounts across EMEA. A combined role as lead business development, C-level advisory and

technology thought leadership to reshape the customer IT Strategy around digital transformation and cloud adoption.

§§ C-Level engagements showcasing business value of cloud technology. Insights-led approach to influence IT

strategy and reframe the buying vision in collaborative way utilizing value-modeling and insights selling.

§§ Developed and executed sales and solution strategy. This is including the partners ecosystem to accelerate

adaption of AWS Platform and deliver real business value across the enterprise. End-to-end business

solution with detailed technical architecture that covers cloud, DevOps, IoT, Big Data, and Mobility.

§§ Led team and developed a cohesive business solution framework delivering the technology breadth of the

entire AWS Platform utilizing lean enterprise, value engineering, and continuous improvement methodologies.

§§ Built end-to-end IT-as-a-Service & Digital Transformational Solutions for key verticals addressing people,

process, culture and technology architecture. Key verticals solutions: Healthcare, Telco, Financial Services,

Airlines, Automotive and Media & Entertainment industries.

§§ Led, influenced, created and oversaw large-deals pursuit transformational sales and delivery team.

STRATICAL CLOUD, INC. – STRATEGIC & TACTICAL SOLUTIONS, McLean, VA

General Manager (Founder) 12/2011 – 8/2014

Spearhead startup organization operation for a strategic and tactical cloud advisory services firm. Addressed value

gap between customers and vendors in the Cloud Journey. Built frameworks, methodologies and IP to showcase

business value of disruptive technologies like Cloud Computing through the lean actionable strategy and agile

technically executable plan. IP developed built around Business Architecture, Kaizen Lean Enterprise, DevOps,

Simplified Six Sigma, and value engineering/modeling to ensure successful transformation projects into the digital and

cloud era by doing the right things and doing it right.

§§ Designed Digital Transformation solutions with Hybrid-Cloud using key public cloud vendors like AWS, Azure,

Google and VMware CloudAir as well as private cloud mainly OpenStack, vCloud Suite, and Microsoft

technology. Won sizable engagement for key customers in Middle East & North America.

§§ Formed partnership to complete capabilities and expanded WW delivery by nurturing alliance with key

delivery partner and key vendors like AWS, VMware, Red Hat, Mirantis and Cloudera.

§§ Approach key vendors like AWS, HP, VMware and Barracuda Networks proposing “value engineering and

insight selling” methodologies to bridge gap between customers and accelerate sales cycle with relevant

solutions. Result in being hired by all the approached vendors to implement the approach as an employee.

HEWLETT-PACKARD - HP, McLean, VA

Chief Cloud Strategist – Global Accounts 4/2014 – 8/2014

Hired through my company Stractical Cloud, Inc. Acting as Cloud CTO for the Global Accounts. Participated in Helion

OpenStack packaging, positioning and sales across major verticals. Gained trusted-advisory relationship to key

customer’s CIOs influencing pan-HP sales from Hardware, Software, and Cloud Computing (Public, Private, Hybrid

and Managed). Key achievements:

§§ Lead Transformation Manager assigned to key global accounts. Led pan-HP initiative delivering insights and

technology thought leadership around Digital Transformation for the assigned accounts: UBS, Chevron, Time

Warner & HBO, T-Mobile, Bank Of America, Verizon, J&J, Merck, GE, BankNYM, Goldman Sachs, PNC Bank,

and Bloomberg.

§§ Built value proposition and hybrid-cloud architecture solutions for HP Helion OpenStack launch and part of

the extended emerging technology architecture team to enable sales force and engage with early-adapter

program for HP Helion.

§§ Participated in Executive Briefing delivering emerging technology strategies and addressing digital

transformation challenges for the enterprises.

§§ Built collaterals and artifacts for the extended solution architect and pre-sales teams around converged

infrastructure, Mobility, Machine Learning, IoT, and Cloud Computing.

2/5

SHERIF ABDELGAWAD

§§ Actively contributed to the competitive analysis team and product marketing to built go-to-market strategy and

address key industry trends. More importantly evangelized value engineering as a concept to showcase

technology value vs. cost.

VMWARE, INC., Dubai, UAE

Business Solutions Strategist – Middle East & Northern Africa (MENA), 2/2013 – 11/2013

Hired through my company Stractical Cloud, Inc to be part of the Accelerate Advisory Services and help building the

MENA team out of Dubai, UAE. Oversaw multiple major banking customer transitions to software-defined-datacenter

(SDDC) and private cloud technologies with end-to-end design of sophisticated IT Transformation projects. Triggered

USD$14M upswing in services and licenses revenue. Led and coached cross-functional team in addressing different

technical solutions by redefining IT strategy. Managed all phases of project lifecycle, from concept through to postimplementation

and support. Created optimal client satisfaction.

§§ Engaged with C-Level across the region advising on IT strategy and transformational roadmaps.

§§ Co-developed business case for a green-field datacenter built-out with crafted IT strategy to reduce workforce

by 50% for one of the largest banks in the US and double productivity by adopting private cloud and softwaredefined-datacenter

(SDDC – Server/Network/Storage Virtualization – SDC, SDN, SDS) .

§§ Helmed business/IT transformation initiative for leading Middle Eastern bank by influencing the CIO, senior

technology leadership and board members on delineation of visionary IT strategy, goals, and executable

roadmap to transform IT into service-oriented organization utilizing next generation technologies.

- Led team of architects to design and deliver multi-phase service deal with first-phase revenue value of

USD$4.5M; displaced HP, IBM, and Cisco competition from additional phases estimated at USD$6M.

- Designed high-level architecture and low-level systems architectures for the Bank cloud transformation

initiative. Detailed planning including managing culture change, moving to commodity hardware, Unix

to Linux migration, IT standards, organizational changes for successful cloud operation model, change

management and process optimization for cloud operation model.

- Produced savings of USD$6M and lowered time to market (TTM) from 160-days to seven by

instituting lean methodologies and deploying new cloud operations model for SDDC.

§§ Positioned VMware as thought leader and premier solution provider for cloud computing and SDDCs by

evangelizing product and business offerings with customers and while delivering different keynote

presentations at various IT events, such as IDC, Saudi TV Channels, and Forrester Technology Analysis.

BARRACUDA NETWORKS, Dubai, UAE

General Manager – Middle East & Africa (MEA), 12/2011 – 12/2012

One year Contract through Stractical Cloud, Inc. Consulted on, originated, and built from scratch a sustainable go-tomarket

techno-commercial strategy and service operation model to turnaround and revitalize Network Security

solutions throughout MEA region. Designed Security SaaS Solution showcasing business-value and featuring market

segmentation and technical artifacts. Developed and implemented multiple vertical solutions and products in network

security, data protection, and cloud services.

§§ Transformed random channel-only service revenue of USD$100K into reliable annual income of USD$2.5M

within one year by fostering a fresh technical ecosystem, attracting valuable partners, hiring high-caliber

talent, built standard technical artifacts for the security solutions and streamlining direct service sales plan.

§§ Achieved highest revenue averages across global regions while expanding territory business 150% and with

growing business development team from staff of one to twelve.

§§ Architected and Developed Telco Operator Solution to generate new revenue stream through public Cloud

Security – Software-as-a-Service Offerings for major Telco Operator in Middle East & Africa featuring

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) utilizing OpenStack &

VMware vCloud Suite/Nicira.

§§ Packaged end-to-end Security Solution for Physical, Virtual and Cloud Security for key industry verticals.

RED HAT, INC., Dubai, UAE

Regional Head Of Services & Solutions – Middle East, Turkey & Africa, 5/2008 – 12/2011

Devised and launched technology and related services strategies and programs to expand operations, propel growth,

and increase business value throughout emerging MEA market. Ensured consistent, scalable high-quality and

integrated business solution offerings and delivery. Excelled in building, managing, coaching and mentoring staff of

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SHERIF ABDELGAWAD

solution architects, service professionals consulting and training consultants in landing major sales with prominent

stock exchange, banking, airline, and telecom firms.

§§ Led, built and managed three main technical functions: Solution Architects, Professional Services, and

Training Services in the newly established office in Dubai covering the assigned emerging market.

§§ Managed sales revenue targets supporting sales function by hiring, coaching and retaining key solution

architects.

§§ Defined Professional Services & Training Services Strategy to meet services goals around revenue, margins

and utilization.

§§ Built customized partnership service business model to leverage and augment local or global system

integrator to expand capability and meet customer’s requirement.

§§ Built and successfully launched new rapid packaged services both with time and materials or fixed prices.

Yielded 60% YoY growth with high customer satisfaction rate, delivery on time and on budget.

§§ Accelerated business by 250% in three years by creating and executing localized sales-aligned pre-sales and

professional services strategies catering to financial services industry (FSI) and telecom services providers

with packaged virtualization and cloud computing solutions.

§§

Increased operational efficiencies, elevated effectiveness, opened new revenue streams, and heightened

repeat revenue by automating various dynamic infrastructure architectures that enabled cloud computing

(IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and ultimately yielded higher performance at a lower cost.

§§ Led, architected and deployed Private Cloud Solution for a major Telco Operator using heterogeneous multiclustered

Virtualization Architecture. Utilized Multi-Hypervisor Technologies: VMWare, Hyper-V, KVM/RHEV,

and Xen.

RED HAT, INC., McLean, VA

Director, Global Solutions & Strategies, 4/2006 – 5/2008

Evangelized Insight-Selling utilizing value-modeling to showcase real business impacts of solutions. Established

Solution & Strategy Office (SSO) and consulted on strategic business plans to enhance profitability across multiple

market sectors, distribution channels, and geographic regions. Expanded product portfolio, services, and support

offerings; advanced sales practices. Focused team on strengthening long-term partnerships with executives at major

global accounts. Spearheaded enterprise architecture (EA) practice encompassing full IT project lifecycles to achieve

optimal operational efficiencies for key customers worldwide.

§§ Added net new USD$30M revenue and generated year-over-year business growth by instilling a common

vision; encouraging solutions-oriented and lean thinking; training on sustainable team practices; promoting

utilization of a business-value sales techniques; and developing sales/service vertical business-driven

solutions to attain consistent high-performance service and products sales.

§§ Supplied leadership and sales teams with inter-regional governance by founding a global Technical Advisory

Board (TAB) which provided vision and strategies for international go-to-market planning.

§§ Engaged with C-Level within key global accounts to define open source strategy and define transformational

roadmap beyond Linux addressing agile development, people, culture and innovation with open source.

§§ Achieved high satisfaction and 100% renewal business through providing the right value through businessdriven

and open source technology solutions to top 15 targeted global accounts: Glodman Sachs, UBS, Bank

Of America, JPMorgan, Disney, PayPal, eBay, Chevron, SHELL, Vodafone, Verizon, ARAMCO, New York

Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

RED HAT, INC., McLean, VA

Senior Technology Development Manager | Service Delivery Manager | Principal Architect / Managing

Consultant – Northeastern Region, 2/2000 – 4/2006

Boosted revenues, improved account penetration, and decreased sales cycle for complex projects by 40% with

customized technical to business-value sales strategies and collateral that were implemented in offices worldwide.

Delivered 120% revenue increase and won USD$3.5M by cultivating trust-based advisory relationships with Wall

Street accounts.

§§ Honored with award for turning around troubled engagements into successful delivery by providing the right

architecture and solutions. Managed 14 professionals as Service Delivery Manager for two years.

§§ Earned recognition from senior executive leadership for 100% project success, customer satisfaction rates,

positive turnaround of at-risk projects, and speeding TTM while initially serving as Principal Architect.

4/5

SHERIF ABDELGAWAD

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

International & Emerging Market Experience, Served as:

NCR Corp: Technical Account Manager – Kuwait City, Kuwait

Emirates Telecommunication – Etisalat: Systems & Network Engineer

StarNet - ISP: Sr Network Engineer, Cairo, Egypt

BS, Electronics and Communications Engineering – CAIRO UNIVERSITY, Cairo, Egypt 1996

Professional Development

EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS

Business & Leadership Career Advancement ▪ Sales & Motivational Leadership ▪ Business Communications

Sales Automation ▪ Object-Oriented Analysis & Design ▪ Fearless Presentations ▪ Solution, Value & Insight Selling

Public Speaking Secrets ▪ High-Impact Leaders ▪ Business for Engineers ▪ Advanced Sales Techniques

Thought Leadership / Public Speaking Engagements

Capgemini Architecture Week: IT Role in the Digital Age – Munich, Germany 2015

IDC CIO Summit: Cloud Journey & Addressing Data Sovereignty – Dubai, UAE – 2015.

IDC CIO Summit: Digital Transformation – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - 2014

IDC Security Roadshow: Consistent End-to-end Security for Physical, Virtual, & Cloud, 2012 – Abu Dhabi & Dubai

Cloud Computing Conference & Exhibition: Roadmap to a Successful Cloud Implementation, 2011 – South Africa

IDC IT Manager Forum: Between Vision and Reality: Overcoming IT Obstacles from Vision to Reality, 2010 – Doha

Gartner Open Source Seminar: Cloud from Vision to Reality, 2010 – Kuwait City

CNBC Arabia – Business Review Live: Open Source Strategies, 2009 – Dubai

TECHNICAL PROFICIENCIES

Certifications: Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)

Platforms:

IT Strategy:

Windows, RHEL (V. 2.1, 3, 4, 5, 6), SUSE, zOS, Solaris, HPUX, AIX

Cloud Platform IBM Softlayer, Rackspace, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, AWS Platform, HPCloud, HP

CSA, HP Helion, OpenStack, VMware vCloud Suite & vCloud Air. Management : BMC,

CloudForms, Eucalyptus, CSC Agility, VMware vRealize.

Business Architecture & IT Alignment, IT Transformation, IT Modernization, Private and

Public Cloud Computing (Iaas, PaaS, Saas), Digital Transformation, Web Services,

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (TOGAF), Lean Enterprise, Kaizen – Continuous

Improvement, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, Agile & DevOps.

Methodologies: Heterogeneous Computer Strategy, Frameworks (ITIL), Security & Compliance, Project

Assessment & Remediation, Architecture Evaluation, Disaster Recovery, Data Backup

Governance:

IT Management Standards, ITU-T Telecom Standardization, Information/Data Security

Mangement Systems, COBIT, ValIT, ICT Readines for Business Continuity

Virtualization: Multi-hypervisor technologies, including: Docker Containers , EC2, VMWare vSphere,

Microsoft Hyper-V, Red Hat KVM/RHEV, Citrix Xen; Workspace/VDI: RHEV-Desktop,

Citrix & VMware Horizon Suite, Amazon Workspaces.

Networking:

Database,

ETL & BigData

Storage:

Middleware

Software Defined Networking – SDN (Nicira, OpenFlow, OpenLight); Network Function

Virtualization – NFV, Dynamic Routing, VLAN, WAN, MAN, VoIP; Security & Application

Delivery: WAF, IDS/IPS, NG Firewall, Load Balancers.

Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL, PostgresSQL, EnterpriseDB, MangoDB, Amazon Arura,

Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon Data Pipelines,

Hadoop, Amazon EMR, Amazon Data Warehousing (Redshift), SAP HANA; Data

Virtualization, Data Masking, Data Partitioning concepts.

NAS, DAS & SAN. Vendor Specific Knowledge: EMC, NetApp

JBoss, Websphere, Weblogic.

5/5

1999 – 2000

1998 – 1999

1996 - 1998