A DAY IN THE LIFE
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On the lighter side of things , we ask the industryexperts what makes them tick …
Hesham El Komy , Senior Director , Channels , Epicor Software
What would you describe as your most memorable achievement ? Being recruited as the first person on the ground in the Middle East for a small open source vendor , starting from scratch and within 12 months being in a position to build a team and open a fully-serviced office , is definitely one of the highlights of my career .
What first made you think of a career in technology ? It wasn ’ t so much me choosing a career in technology as the other way around ! My landlord during university worked at Systems Union , a provider of financial and performance management solutions . On one of his monthly visits to pick up the rent cheque , we started chatting and before long he offered me a job in marketing . I initially started out doing outbound marketing but quickly moved to database marketing and marketing systems and the rest , as they say , is history .
What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position ? I firmly believe that people perform at their best when they are given some flexibility and have a say in decision making , specifically when it comes to goals and targets . Rather than push down targets , I take a bottoms up approach – I put the onus on my associates to give me a plan that they think they can achieve and then hold them accountable . This works well and gives the team the flexibility to think outside of the box .
What do you think will be the hot technology talking point of 2016 ? Technology is moving very fast and having just one talking point over a single year is no longer the case . This said , in my view the next ‘ big thing ’ is going to be containers . Containers bring a totally new dimension as enterprises will be able to run a greater number of computing workloads on the same server , thus significantly reducing the cost of computing .
How do you deal with stress and unwind outside of the office ? Outside of the office I love spending time with my two kids . They are still young so time with them completely removes me from the day to day stresses and pressures of work . We tend to swim , go to the beach or I help them with their homework . Other than that I like to watch and participate in motorsports .
If you could go back and change one career decision , what would it be ? I know this might sound clichéd , and probably easier to say given where I am today , but I honestly don ’ t think I would go back and change any decisions . Sure , there have been some bumps or ‘ wrong turns ’ along the way , but I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and my career is no different !
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