Samer Mokdad Email & Phone Number

United Arab Emirates

Dubai

Professional Services and Regional Projects Manager; November 2015 – PresentCustomer Accounts: MEA & Europe Regions customers Managing multiple regional client engagements for IT projects in areas of WAN Optimization, SD-WAN, and Digital Experience management solutions: Network Performance Management, Application Performance Management, End-User Experience management solutions and cloud optimization solutions for IaaS, PaaS and SaaS solutions.  Responsible for customer facing… Show more Professional Services and Regional Projects Manager; November 2015 – PresentCustomer Accounts: MEA & Europe Regions customers Managing multiple regional client engagements for IT projects in areas of WAN Optimization, SD-WAN, and Digital Experience management solutions: Network Performance Management, Application Performance Management, End-User Experience management solutions and cloud optimization solutions for IaaS, PaaS and SaaS solutions.  Responsible for customer facing project management and backend project management/coordination and customer relationship management. Managing day-to-day operational aspects (scope, schedule, budget and quality) of numerous concurrent projects of varying size & complexity. Defining, initiating projects and managing cost, budget, schedule, change management and performance of projects, while working to ensure the ultimate success and acceptance of the overall Professional Services program. Leading services pre-sales activities (Creation of project work plans, development of statements of work, WBS, and overall project schedule, costing and pricing). Determines appropriate revenue recognition, ensures timely and accurate invoicing, and monitors receivables for project. Forecasting revenue and ensuring profitability, margins, bill rates and utilization. Embodied Customer Success Management function:• Maintaining ongoing relationship with some of the biggest customers, driving a consistent customer experience while ensuring customers derive business value from the Riverbed platform by painting a vision and path to success by identifying and driving key use cases.• Building success plans, tying capabilities to the customer's desired outcomes, including goals and KPIs for measuring progress.• Helping drive incremental revenue by working closely with the sales teams to strategize on paths to expanding our platform footprint within covered accounts Show less

Dubai

Telcordia (Ericsson Acquisition)Customer Accounts: MEA region customers Managing multiple regional client engagements and full project life cycle deliveries of contracts for small and large scale IT transformation OSS software projects composed of software solutions for Planning & Engineering, Fulfillment, Service Assurance, Service Quality management along with professional consultancy services and specialized services such as data migration & business consulting services - Typical… Show more Telcordia (Ericsson Acquisition)Customer Accounts: MEA region customers Managing multiple regional client engagements and full project life cycle deliveries of contracts for small and large scale IT transformation OSS software projects composed of software solutions for Planning & Engineering, Fulfillment, Service Assurance, Service Quality management along with professional consultancy services and specialized services such as data migration & business consulting services - Typical service contracts size within 2-7’M US$ range. Responsible for customer facing project management and backend project management/coordination and customer relationship management. Defined, initiated projects and managed cost, budget, schedule, change management and performance of projects, while working to ensure the ultimate success and acceptance of the overall program. Responsible and P&L accountable for the coordinated management of multiple concurrent complex projects while ensuring customer satisfaction, maintaining loyalty and the alignment toward strategic business (committed timelines, committed quality, project profitability). Typically managing large virtual globally dispersed cross-functional teams (25+) of technical architects, SME consultants, development engineers, integration engineers. Managing and optimizing resource utilization to ensure that project profitability targets are met. Management of service operations and contracted Service Level Agreements (SLA) and management of 3rd party suppliers and subcontractors/partners. Growing long-term relationships with clients by continually seeking to increase customer satisfaction and deepen client relationships. Anticipating client needs, identification and leveraging of potential areas of services sales opportunities and providing business development & pre-sales support (project plans, costing estimates, scoping, risk management, implementation strategies) for bid preparations and sales proposals. Show less

Dubai

 Handled all professional services and project/program management for MEA region. Managed regional client engagements and full project life cycle deliveries of 4’M Eur (yearly average) contracts in customized security software solutions interfacing fixed/mobile voice & IP based network elements (Cisco, Nortel, Nokia Siemens, Huawei, Italtel, Sandvine, etc) and Billing/Mediation/CRM/OSS/BSS platforms (Comarch Tytan, Pivotal CRM, Intec MD, Siebel CRM, LHS BSCS, HP IUM, Netcracker Service… Show more  Handled all professional services and project/program management for MEA region. Managed regional client engagements and full project life cycle deliveries of 4’M Eur (yearly average) contracts in customized security software solutions interfacing fixed/mobile voice & IP based network elements (Cisco, Nortel, Nokia Siemens, Huawei, Italtel, Sandvine, etc) and Billing/Mediation/CRM/OSS/BSS platforms (Comarch Tytan, Pivotal CRM, Intec MD, Siebel CRM, LHS BSCS, HP IUM, Netcracker Service Inventory, etc). Responsible and P&L accountable for the coordinated management of multiple concurrent complex projects while ensuring customer satisfaction/loyalty and the alignment toward strategic business and organizational objectives. Defined, initiated projects and managed cost, budget, schedule, and performance of projects, while working to ensure the ultimate success and acceptance of the overall program. Built credibility, established rapport, and maintained communication with the various stakeholders at multiple levels. Main liaison with key executive stakeholders to ensure customer expectations are being achieved. Drove improvement, retention and growth of the established sales accounts; Identification and leveraging of potential areas of opportunity. Tender analysis & pre-sales support (costing & risk management) for bid preparations and sales offers. Responsible for regional staff & sales account management of established customers (development of new services and business opportunities). Managing the day to day customer relationships and acting as the client ambassador to internal teams. Typically managing large virtual cross-functional teams (15+) of technical consultants, development engineers and integration/delivery/support engineers. Management of service agreements (support/maintenance) and contracted SLAs.  Management of subcontractors and regional sales & delivery partners. Show less

 PM resource management - prioritization and balancing of Project Management resources. Contribution in tendering and project start-up phase. Deployment in regional projects of PM related processes and tools: project cost and progress management, project contract management, service delivery performance metrics processes and performance reporting. Drive profitability & benchmark programs and support Project Assessments. Responsible for employee satisfaction, fulfillment of… Show more  PM resource management - prioritization and balancing of Project Management resources. Contribution in tendering and project start-up phase. Deployment in regional projects of PM related processes and tools: project cost and progress management, project contract management, service delivery performance metrics processes and performance reporting. Drive profitability & benchmark programs and support Project Assessments. Responsible for employee satisfaction, fulfillment of people processes, personal development plans and competence development of service suppliers. Achievements Highlights:  Championed corporate initiatives to improve delivery quality, efficiency and productivity by promoting common use of best of breed methods and processes. Achieved 65% increase in compliance in top 5 regional projects. Developed new procedures/standards for better project performance and governance in customer engagements. Show less

Customer Accounts: Orascom Mobilink (3 years) & Telenor (2 years) Responsible for execution of new projects/contracts with full technical and commercial responsibility (profit & loss responsibility) throughout the complete customer life cycle for IT software solutions such as BSS: Intelligent Network (Prepaid Billing Systems), OSS: Voucher Management, Customer Care & Network management including complete management of subcontractors and partners (eServ Global, Fujitsu Siemens Computers… Show more Customer Accounts: Orascom Mobilink (3 years) & Telenor (2 years) Responsible for execution of new projects/contracts with full technical and commercial responsibility (profit & loss responsibility) throughout the complete customer life cycle for IT software solutions such as BSS: Intelligent Network (Prepaid Billing Systems), OSS: Voucher Management, Customer Care & Network management including complete management of subcontractors and partners (eServ Global, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Sun Microsystems). Typically managing a yearly program of over 25 individual projects amounting to a sales volume of 50-80’M Eur yearly with typically large virtual teams (40+); During this period, my assigned customers were in the top 5 worldwide customers in terms of sales revenue. Ensuring timely realization of the projects by using professional methods of management. Project controlling & tracking in terms of progress, milestones and costs. Management and coordination of various internal parties and subcontractors for project realization while ensuring work packages are delivered in time / budget / required quality within proven SDLC methodologies. Tender analysis & support for bid kickoff preparations and responses, planning of overall rollout and implementation, controlling of timeline and quality, progress reporting, risks & claim management. Participation in customer top management meetings (Head of Planning, Head of Operations and CTO) in terms of project realization reviews and management of SLA. Participate and contribute to the Sales strategy definition; Focusing on aligning short-term activities with the strategic goals of the sales accounts. Establish & define efficient and practical working processes, communication concept, decision making procedures to create synergies between the operations team, the local organization, and the customer’s key stakeholders. Managing resource plans, delivery schedules and cost overviews. Show less

 Planned and managed all phases of the solutions/product integration process, including requirements definition, technical analysis and design, risk assessment, scheduling, realization, validation, integration, delivery and acceptance. Coordinated green field rollout of a new GSM operator network (MTC Vodafone) for the IT based Value Added Services and IP Network (10’M Eur) - Deployment of over 10 different service platforms (WAP, GPRS, AAA, SMS, MMS, Voice Mail, Unified Messaging… Show more  Planned and managed all phases of the solutions/product integration process, including requirements definition, technical analysis and design, risk assessment, scheduling, realization, validation, integration, delivery and acceptance. Coordinated green field rollout of a new GSM operator network (MTC Vodafone) for the IT based Value Added Services and IP Network (10’M Eur) - Deployment of over 10 different service platforms (WAP, GPRS, AAA, SMS, MMS, Voice Mail, Unified Messaging, Location Based Services) supplied by Siemens and partners (Materna, CMG-Logica, Cisco, Tecnomen, SUN) and deployment of the VAS IP network (firewalls, routers and switches). Managed over 15 site integration engineers and drove the project to achieve on-time deployment/integration in a record time (less than 2 month) by meeting all project milestones – This project became a reference success story within Siemens. Team leader of a 10 member maintenance support team; Initiated and defined work procedures for the maintenance phase. Daily customer interfacing, handling and conflict/escalation resolution to meet the expectations and the commitments of the business. Show less

Customer Account: Etisalat Cross team collaboration and coordination with the customer, support team and the local integration team members to implement strategic technical implementation and integration plans. Bridged and maintained client relationships while demonstrating a strong focus on client needs, requirements gathering and conflict resolution. Installation, commissioning, configuration and integration of mission critical WAP platforms within Telco operator Etisalat. This also… Show more Customer Account: Etisalat Cross team collaboration and coordination with the customer, support team and the local integration team members to implement strategic technical implementation and integration plans. Bridged and maintained client relationships while demonstrating a strong focus on client needs, requirements gathering and conflict resolution. Installation, commissioning, configuration and integration of mission critical WAP platforms within Telco operator Etisalat. This also included customer specific platform setup and end-to-end integration and acceptance tests with third party applications and platforms (GPRS, MMS and Portal). Technical briefing/presentations to section managers and technical training to customer’s engineers. Show less

 Performed product support duties: Comprehensive system testing and system approval before delivery to customer. Provided technical support for customer engineers and site engineers (over 20 worldwide projects) focusing on troubleshooting application, clustering, volume management and network configurations. I also participated in the creation of installation, configuration, recovery and system acceptance procedures for the platform components. Responsible for special emergency… Show more  Performed product support duties: Comprehensive system testing and system approval before delivery to customer. Provided technical support for customer engineers and site engineers (over 20 worldwide projects) focusing on troubleshooting application, clustering, volume management and network configurations. I also participated in the creation of installation, configuration, recovery and system acceptance procedures for the platform components. Responsible for special emergency intervention assignments at the customer projects. Show less

Long Term Network Planning Department Built and developed tools for voice and SS7 signaling network dimensioning and optimization (Traffic Engineering). Created tools to provide statistics on the mobile network (Traffic, CPU utilization, number of blocked calls, etc) Subscriber traffic forecasting and budget planning for transmission bandwidth requirements.

Mba, Business Administration

MBA degree awarded with Distinction/Honors. International Triple Accreditation: AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB Ranked in Top 20 Europe & Top 50.

Certified Itil V3 Foundations & Certified Prince2 V2009 & Certified Cobit V4.1

Certified Pmp (Pmi)

Also Certified PM@Siemens (Project Manager) Siemens AG

Bachelor Of Engineering, Electrical / Major In Telecom