Cortes leads MEMA TSG
Santiago Cortes has been appointed as MD and VP, Technology Solutions Group (TSG), HP Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa (MEMA). In his new role, Cortes will drive the TSG business for HP’s MEMA region, which covers 71 countries, and lead the regional management team. Cortes has been handling HP’s Spain and Portugal (Iberia) business for the last seven years and previously was GM of Compaq Spain for five years.
“Santiago Cortes’ proven track record of growing HP to become the largest IT company in the Iberian market, and building close relationships with many enterprise customers will help tremendously in continuing to strengthen our leadership position in these very important and high growth markets,” said Francesco Serafini, HP’s managing director for EMEA.
Cortes succeeds Ken Willett, who led HP MEMA for the last two years, and who was recently promoted to drive HP’s sales strategy and productivity in EMEA.
Modi leaps ahead
Career and recruitment resource Monster has appointed Sanjay Modi as MD for India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Prior to this assignment, he was the company’s head of sales, India.
“Sanjay has been a leader at Monster since he joined the company and his experience will serve him well in this new role,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, president and CEO of Monster Worldwide. “He has helped Monster grow, not only in India but also across the entire Southeast Asian and Middle East Region, which has had a significant impact on the company’s global footprint.”
Before joining Monster in 2001, Modi served at Indiaconstruction.com as the general manager of operations, and in business roles at NIIT Ltd. and Ingersoll Rand India Ltd.
Al-Akkad becomes country manager
Axis Communications has promoted Baraa Al-Akkad to Country Manager overseeing the company’s operations across 19 countries in the Middle East. Al-Akkad brings more than nine years of sales and product management experience in the Network Video market and will be responsible for building on current business relations with partners and customers across the region. Prior to this assignment, Al Akkad was Axis’ Regional Sales Manager in the MENA region where he was exposed to a number of diverse markets and was able to implement new sales strategies to improve the company’s growth rate.
Axis has recently moved to larger offices in the Dubai Airport Free Zone as part of the company’s future expansion plans to building a larger training facility while increasing its offerings of surveillance solutions across the Middle East. The new offices will serve the ME regional market including GCC, Levant, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Axis predicts that its future in the region will be bright. According to IMS Research, the Middle East has the world’s highest penetration rate of IP-based video surveillance products. Recent surveys conducted by IMS forecast that the penetration rate of IP-based surveillance will exceed 50 percent in 2009. Early adoption and constant requirements for new technologies in the Middle East has significantly contributed to the region’s increasing demand for security products.
