Ghada Arafa Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Launched Fine Jewellery business from scratch, devising product and business strategies to capture cross cultural customer acquisition within UAE region, utilising MBA entrepreneurial expertise. Formed business plans, modelling and strategy. Spearheaded business development, digital marketing and sales strategies to drive compelling business growth.Conceived product vision, gathered customer requirements, secured Manufacturer contracts and controlled costs to meet precise customer and market requirements.Instrumental in building Events Planners, Bloggers and Brands product awareness to secure large Magazine Editorial features at nil cost with Major TV show invitation and features at regional, leading exhibitions and media outlets.

Cairo, Egypt

Promoted to direct global product management across entire product lifecycle for Education Planning and Delivery (EPAD) product, a next generation IBM Cloud, Watson & Box Learning Portal and Mobile App. Manage and influence global teams, serving 420k global employees using state of the art technology. Deliver through Agile Sprints, handling $multi-million programme budgets.Shape product vision, strategy and roadmap to ensure products support key strategic goals. Gather and translate customer requirements from Development teams, leading full product lifecycle management from discovery phase of ideation / inception, to planning and delivery execution to achieve multiple KPI and SLA targets. Deliver across Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums and Retrospective Meetings, identifying and mitigating risks through contingency planning. Transformed team and operational performance, analysing complex performance data across EPAD, identifying and remedying inefficiencies, resolving backlogs / defects, utilising insights to influence backlog and instil into user stories and improving processes to meet KPI targets for operational excellence.

Dubai

Secured secondment as identified future leadership talent, utilizing MBA expertise to launch Digital strategy formation, implementation and direction. Delivered a digital partnership with African Value-Added Distributors to connect IBM Digital Business Group and launch new Digital Now offerings across large re-seller Network. Instrumental in launching new digital self-service market place offering within IBM as new venture, requiring multiple C suite influence and buy in.

Cairo, Egypt

Promoted to deliver strategic post sales engagement with key clients in MEA for Software Group Operations and lead highest / complex project within IBM Egypt, with $multi-million budget. Managed multiple account portfolios, spearheaded business development initiatives and led multiple projects with competing priorities simultaneously. Influenced multiple stakeholders as trusted advisor to attain $multi-million sales growth. Scoped Statements of Work & Contracts, driving customer requirements, scoping, forming architecture, handling procurement, leading teams, mitigating costs and instilling technical best practice to meet IBM process compliance. Turned around problem projects as recognised lead problem solver.Achieved IBM recognition for control of strategic projects across challenging accounts (high profile government accounts in Egypt and UAE), leading high performing project and UX teams.

Cairo, Egypt

Partnered with cross functional stakeholders to gather external customer requirements to influence technology initiatives and changes to enhance processes / systems across IBM.Transformed Customer Team process, devised optimised “to be” Model to enhance business performance and enhanced User Experience & Solutions, leading UX teams to implement best practice.Identified as leading Business Analyst Talent with rare skill set within IBM, mentoring cross functional employees to enhance business analysis talent across IBM Egypt, reducing costs from defect fixing depicted from requirements flows and gaps.

Cairo, Egypt

Master Of Business Administration (M.B.A.), Concentration In Marketing And Entrepreneurship, Highest Honors

Activities and Societies: Achievement of Full Scholarship at Top Regional University. Helping Start ups at AUC Venture Lab.

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Computer Science, Honers