Recognizing the importance of the Middle East and Africa, Hafeez Khawaja, senior regional director of emerging markets, responsible for the development of Western Digital in countries ranging from Saudi Arabia to India, is now operating from Western Digital’s headquarters at Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai. Khawaja, previously based in the UK, has been part of the Western Digital team for more than 10 years.
Western Digital is also intensifying its relationships with channel partners and end-users in the Middle East and Africa. As part of this initiative, the company has appointed Saeid Marashi — a channel and logistics expert — as senior regional sales manager.
Marashi, who has more than 15 years experience in the IT industry, will focus on educating channel partners about Western Digital’s range of state-of-the-art, cost-effective storage products. Marashi previously served CompuBase IT training group as executive director and Microsoft Middle East in distribution channel management roles for more than five years.
“The Middle East and Africa are home to many small and medium-sized businesses that run on limited budgets but are in need of greater storage capacity,” said Marashi. “Engaging local businesses will drive demand for Western Digital’s storage products offering high performance and reliability for less cost. The distribution, sales and service infrastructure that Western Digital has developed in the region this past year provides the management team here with the ability to reach directly a broad spectrum of customers. This infrastructure enables us to deal quickly and efficiently with customer needs at a local level, giving Western Digital a competitive advantage.”
