In his previous outfit Ammous led the Sales Engineering organization in Asia Pacific, where he provided technical and business consulting in digital transformation, technology adoption and emerging architectures to C-suite leaders across the region. Since joining Avaya in 2006, Ammous has held a number of strategic positions, particularly in transformation projects for telecom providers, financial services organizations, government bodies and retailers.

“As the home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world, ASEAN is in an exciting phase of its development. Sami Ammous has a rich understanding of the region’s unique business challenges and a wealth of experience in helping organizations transform how they deliver customer and employee experiences to fuel their success. I have no doubt that he is the right person to scale and accelerate Avaya’s business in this very important region,” said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Avaya International.

“A region that sits on the intersection of traditional values of personal interaction, and the accelerated adoption of emerging technology, ASEAN is home to some of the world’s leading companies as well as innovative new entrants in the market. ASEAN’s diversity invites open, flexible solutions, a perfect fit with Avaya’s strategy of helping companies engage their customers and internal teams in more meaningful ways,” said Ammous.

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The decision to add Carmody comes at a time of rapid growth for Zyme as it expands its portfolio of solutions that empower companies to sell more through the channel while lowering channel investment. Carmody will be responsible for product development and operations across the company’s businesses and will report directly to Chandran Sankaran, CEO, Zyme.

“Paul has deep experience leading companies that combine technology and service, which made him a perfect fit for this new leadership role at Zyme. Paul also embodies Zyme’s culture of transparency and excellence in people leadership, and providing world-class service to customers,” said Sankaran.

Carmody has held a variety of senior leadership roles in the high-tech industry, including his work as CEO of AchieveIt, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that helps businesses successfully implement strategic plans and manage teams. He also led business units at the internet infrastructure provider Internap and served as vice president of product development at Rackspace, serving with the company through its IPO. Carmody began his career at McKinsey & Company as a consultant providing strategy and operational advice to high-tech businesses.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to combine my own professional experience with the deep knowledge of the Zyme team to transform how companies leverage indirect sales. I’m honored and excited to help Zyme continue to revolutionize channel data management with a growing portfolio of solutions and services,” said Carmody.

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Agiasotis will take office starting 11^th of next month and will report to Blair Crump, President, Sage. Agiasotis will be responsible for ensuring the company’s growth and success in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region as well as assume responsibilities for the Australia business.

He will also drive the company’s development on providing customers with newly-launched global cloud technologies and support, new customer acquisition and loyal following for local payroll, payment and accounting solutions.

In his previous outfit, Agiasotis, was the President of Western Union’s global business solutions since 2013. Before that he led the company’s sales function and held the position of Regional Managing Director for the APAC region. Apart from Western Union, Agiasotis has held leadership positions at Oracle’s sales business and Siebel Systems.

“With his vast and varied experience running businesses across the Asia Pacific market, Kerry is well-positioned to lead Sage’s business in one of the fastest growing regions in the world,” said Crump.

Agiasotis bring over 20 years of experience in business management, sales and consulting to the table, gained primarily in the Financial Services and IT Industries. He has a understanding of business builders, having had his own business consultancy practice serving SMEs in the past.

“Sage has taken great strides across the APAC region to support businesses – the engine room of the economy – with emerging cloud technologies that help them grow and thrive. I’m excited to work with colleagues to build on this success and serve customers with the transformative power of Sage’s software solutions,” said Agiasotis.

He will be based in Sydney, Australia, and step into the role post Alan Osrin, Managing Director, Sage Australia retires next month.

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According to the company, India is an important market as it has the largest population of small and medium businesses that are going online to grow their ventures.

“India has an estimated 460 million users online and an increasing mobile internet environment, so SMBs are taking their ventures online to attract customers and extend their brands,” said Andrew Low Ah Kee, Executive Vice President of GoDaddy International.

“We are delighted to have Nikhil on board to help SMBs in India grow their businesses online. His passion for solving technology challenges, working with SMBs to develop relevant products in emerging markets, and his proven business experience will help GoDaddy extend its leadership position in India.”

In his last outfit, Arora led the Asia and India operations for WeWork and prior to that he served as Vice President and Managing Director of Intuit India, where he led Intuit’s India business strategy, strengthened partnerships and capitalized on social, mobile and global market trends impacting small businesses.

Arora brings to the table his experience of corporate strategy, business development, marketing, finance and operations, over a career spanning two decades and five countries, including roles at Laureate Education, ADP, Delphi Automotive and CBS Television.

“I have a passion for helping to transform the lives of micro and small businesses by embracing their challenges and creating solutions to help them be successful. GoDaddy is the hub where businesses come to create a digital presence for their venture and continue to manage their digital presence with ease as their business grows. We believe in partnering with our customers during their business journey as they accelerate their path to success,” said Arora.

“Together with our partners, we have an opportunity in India to continue to fuel the dreams of small businesses and help them take their ideas to the next level. I look forward to working with the talented GoDaddy teams and supporting our customers in India.”

Arora has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from Hofstra University, New York.

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A 22-year veteran in the IT industry, Chao has experience covering sales in IT and outsourcing, product marketing, new market expansion, GTM build-up and partner development and management. Based out of Singapore now he will be growing and managing Sage Software Asia’s partner ecosystem handling the entire portfolio of segments from startup & small businesses, and scale-ups to enterprises.

In his previous outfit, Chao was Regional Sales Director for South Asia at Epicor Software Asia, where he spent close to a decade. At Epicor he was responsible for ASEAN direct and indirect quota development, strategizing on GTM plans, partner enablement programs implementation, driving ASEAN market expansion, managing and guiding a team of regional country managers and building up both the business and partner community, resulting in growth for the business.

Chao has also held various positions in sales at several IT organizations catering to SMEs and enterprises such as Powermatic Distribution and Singapore Computer Systems and also co-founded an online business in the past.

“In some parts of Asia, such as Singapore, small & medium businesses account for 50% of GDP growth and two-thirds of new employment. At Sage, we want to recognize the contribution these businesses make to the economy and support them with awesome technology,” said Blair Crump, President, Sage.

“Robin will bring to this mission his extensive field experience in sales, partner management, marketing and business operations, and a proven track record in developing and motivating successful sales teams.”

Sage also announced the appointment of Jennifer Warawa as the Executive Vice President of Partners, Accountants, and Alliances, reporting to President Blair Crump. Warawa is beed with Sage for a decade and an accountant by trade. In her new role, she will take responsibility for leading the tech company’s network of partners and accountants as they grow their businesses with Sage, as well as leading on crucial technology alliances with partners like Microsoft and Salesforce.

“I am honored to be given this opportunity – I am looking forward to delivering on our ambition to help business builders in this region manage everything from money to people with brilliant technology,” said Chao.

“These solutions will be essential in mapping the transformation of Asian countries into a fully-fledged digital economy, with pervasive use of new technology in analytics, cloud and bots.”

Along with these appointments, Nick Goode, currently EVP for Product Management at Sage will oversee a merged Product Marketing and Product Management organisation, and take the role of EVP Product.

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The company has also appointed Dr Yu Dong as the Deputy Director of the AI Lab at Seattle. The former Microsoft scientist, Dong, will oversee the operations and management of the Lab.

“Dr. Yu Dong is an expert on speech recognition and deep learning. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Yu, and are confident that his addition to the team will serve to further strengthen Tencent’s AI technology,” said Dr. Zhang Tong, Executive Director of AI Lab.

“We hope that AI Lab will become more than a laboratory, but a connector. By bringing together the world’s leading experts in the field, we hope to further drive fundamental research on AI to expand its influence and enhance its practicality.”

Dr. Yu Dong, Deputy Director of AI Lab stated that over the past decade, Tencent has accumulated abundant experience in application scenarios, developed a massive data bank, established powerful computing capabilities, and built an outstanding team of technology experts; all which have helped form the foundation of in-depth research and AI application at Tencent today.

“With the establishment of the AI Lab in Seattle, I believe that there will be more top talent joining AI Lab to help further promote AI development around the world.”

Tencent, which is the company behind QQ, WeChat, Qzone, among others, will not be the only Chinese tech conglomerate in the US. Companies like Alibaba, Didi Chuxing and Baidu have also built their base in the country.

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Capillary states that Tony Wang comes with over 20 years of extensive experience in IT software R&D, system implementation, and technology management across various industries including retail and finance. In his previous outfits he has worked with companies such as Bertelsmann, Oracle, Autodesk and Arvato services.

Aneesh Reddy, CEO and Co-founder, Capillary Technologies said, “Tony’s appointment is of great strategic importance to us at Capillary. After India, this will be our second development center which will focus entirely on the local market.”

“The purpose is to cater to the local market better so that we can engineer solutions that are relevant to the local demands. Tony comes with a quiver full of rich and diverse experience in domains such as CRM, FMCG, services and finance industries both globally and in China and we are extremely excited about the value addition and expertise he will bring to the table.”

The company recently launched a social CRM for China-based app WeChat and is also integrating its e-commerce CRM with Alibaba-owned online retailers Tmall and Taobao Mall. The omnichannel customer engagement and commerce platform company that provides solutions to retailers is also collaborating with apparel retailers like Lee, GXG and VF.

“China retail Industry has clearly been a step ahead of all other Asian countries, and Capillary is a rising forerunner with its range of products, including Capillary InStore, Capillary Analytics and Capillary WeChat CRM that have won the loyalty of many businesses. I am excited to join this young and dynamic team and look forward to building future-ready products to take the China business to the next level,” said Wang.

The company also claims to be ramping up its sales and account management teams and customer success teams across India, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, West Asia and Africa.

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“From a revenue standpoint, Qualtrics is already the size of most public companies and there’s room for a lot more growth considering the large and expanding market in which they play. The interest from investors everywhere underscores the notion that Qualtrics is likely the best private software company on the market today — we are very fortunate to be their partner,” said Ryan Sweeney, Partner, Accel and Qualtrics board member.

In addition, the company announced the appointment of Murray Demo to its board of directors and as chair of its audit committee. Demo is currently Chief Financial Officer at Atlassian, another Accel portfolio company, where he guided the company through its 2015 USD $4.4 billion initial public offering. He has previously served as CFO for tech leaders Adobe Systems and Dolby Laboratories.

“Qualtrics’ is changing the way people work, live, and experience the world. It’s the ultimate productivity platform for organizations,” said Jeff Lieberman, Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners and Qualtrics board member.

“One of the reasons we are so bullish on Qualtrics is that every organization in the world needs an experience management platform. It’s a single system of record for all your experience data. Qualtrics is to XM what Salesforce is to CRM—the category king with a product that is mission critical to every organization,” Lieberman added.

The announcement comes just weeks after Qualtrics launched the XM Platform designed to address the growing experience gap between what organisations actually deliver and expectations from the market, customers and employees.

“We have a lot of great momentum right now with the launch of the XM Platform. I could not be more proud of the team we have put together. This raise is a great step forward for everyone involved. Our investors doubling down is a huge sign of their confidence in the team and the amazing growth ahead of us with experience management,” said Ryan Smith, Co-founder and CEO, Qualtrics.

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In his previous outfit, Renyolds was the Executive Vice President, Operations and Chief Customer Officer of Anaplan, a cloud-based planning and performance management platform. According to the company, he was responsible for leading Anaplan to more than $100 million in annual revenue. Prior to Anaplan, he has held General Manager, operations and sales related roles as a former Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of SAP.

According to Altify, Reynolds’ appointment comes at a time when the sales performance management market is poised for growth, as account-based selling gains recognition and cloud software is now the backbone of most modern sales organizations.

Altify states that its 200 enterprise customer base, proven methodology and sophisticated product, combined with Reynolds’ experience growing companies, lays the framework for accelerated momentum.

“Altify began with a vision to completely transform how sales organizations improve performance by using data and methodology to help sales teams nurture the accounts that matter most.” said Anthony Reynolds, CEO, Altify.

“It has consistently outpaced competitors in delivering value to its customers. Donal has built a great company that truly cares about its customers, has the best products in the sales enablement space and a wonderful team. I’m incredibly excited to begin as CEO as we become the de-facto standard for sales professionals, through growth, innovation and customer success.”

Daly will remain engaged in the business, spending more time with customers, working hand-in-hand with the sales team on key relationships, and investing deeply in long-term strategy. Whereas, Renyolds’ experience in building exponential growth in the cloud industry makes him an asset as the industry expands and new opportunities arise.

“We have been extremely fortunate on our journey so far. We have great customers and an amazing team. Now we have an opportunity to build on that momentum,” said Donal Daly, Executive Chairman, Altify.

“I looked long and hard for an executive with the right cultural fit and values, proven track record and experience to lead the charge for the next phase of growth – and could not be more pleased to announce the appointment of Anthony as our new chief executive.”

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“Tony brings to NextBus a diverse background of technical and solutions-oriented experience, along with his success in operational roles. His career in SaaS and IT/GIS creates a natural overlap with our NextBus growth strategy – which is building on the RTPI heritage that riders and public transit managers count on every day,” said Min Wei, Senior Vice President, Operations, Cubic Transportation Systems.

Prior to joining NextBus, Gale was general manager of TripSpark Technologies’ School Transportation Division, a business unit of Trapeze software. His previous leadership roles include profit and loss leadership, operations, program management, business development and sales and marketing.

NextBus is a cloud-based solution that provides real-time passenger information systems using GPS technology and a proprietary algorithm that incorporates historical travel data to track transit vehicles and predict their arrival time. By taking into account the actual position of vehicles, their intended stops, and typical traffic patterns, NextBus aims to estimate vehicle arrivals with a high degree of accuracy. This estimate is refreshed constantly to provide riders with up-to-the-minute information.

Currently, the company claims to provide its services to over 135 transit agencies and organizations, serving over 300 million riders each year. NextBus also offers a host of arrival information options, including apps for mobile devices, a full-featured website, and signage.

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