Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise appoints El Khodry as new VP for MEA

Sandrine El Khodry, with an extensive 24-year experience in technology and telecom industries, reinforces local Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise senior management to energise and boost MEA business to reach the company ambitions.

SANDRINE, French and native Egyptian, joined Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise two years ago as VP of the direct-touch sales across Europe and South. In January 2020, Sandrine was appointed as VP for the MEA region, based in Paris. Sandrine recently moved to Dubai to support ALE growth and market share expansion from its MEA head office. The MEA region is an important region for growth ambitions for ALE. It's one of the focus regions for ALE.

Sandrine has a master's degree in Enterprise Strategy at FEDE Federation Européenne des Ecoles in Geneva, Switzerland and is preparing a business PhD on the 'Impact of culture on Business'. With an extensive 24-year experience in technology and telecom industries, Sandrine has held several senior executive roles including General Manager Vertical in British Telecom EMEA and APAC and as Regional Head, South Europe, Switzerland and France in Eunetworks.

ALE is a leading provider of communications, networking and cloud solutions tailored to ensure customers' success with flexible business models: in the cloud, on premises and hybrid. In 2019, we proudly celebrated the 100-year anniversary for our brand. As a trusted advisor to more than 830,000 customers in 100+ countries, we owe our success to a combination of our company's most important assets - our people and our culture. As a truly global company, we value people bringing a rich diversity to our workplace and respect the richness of multiple nationalities, beliefs and cultures, with equal opportunities for all based on skills and experience. Our values of speed and agility, customer centricity and reliability, reflect our identity over the last 100 years and who we aspire to be for the next 100.

In an interview with BTR, the new VP talks about ALE plans for the region.

How important is the Middle East as a market for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and what are your plans for the region?

The Middle East region remains a key market for growth, with the UAE at the forefront of digital transformation revolution. This is evident from how the public sector across the region continues to provide services online, while rolling out e-learning initiatives since the onset of the health crisis. The continuous digital transformation efforts will have a huge impact and open doors to a new era of business, thus providing ALE with an opportunity to position our company as a multinational facilitator of digital transformation in the region.

ALE is committed to reinforcing our local presence in the Middle East in order to listen, understand and care about the needs of our customers and partners in this region. As a direct illustration, the company recommended I relocate from France to UAE, to assure proximity to our customers and partners in the region for more agility and support. Leveraging the high-level professional connections with well-known local businesses, my goal is to boost Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise's presence in the region to the next level.

What are the key differentiators for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise in the enterprise networking and communications market?

At ALE, we've spent 100 years innovating - and we're not about to stop now. From the very first telephone, to the birth of networks and cloud technologies, ALE has always been a central part of the communication world.

ALE offers tailored solutions with built-in security to meet the unique needs of each business - from small businesses right up to global corporations. We help businesses move to the cloud at their own pace with a range of flexible solutions and business models coupled with new services.

From the company's open architecture cloud-based collaboration platform RainbowT - to the limitless possibilities of Artificial Intelligence in the future - our technologies help businesses make better, more personal connections. These technologies enable faster growth and greater agility across every sector. Through our expertise in the areas of Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) and Internet of Things (IoT) as well as Network, we offer customers a platform to make the most of every cloud-based communications opportunity.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Digital Age Networking provides the networks that enterprises need to address the increasing adoption of IoT. These autonomous networks seamlessly and automatically integrate IoT into the enterprise digital transformation, minimizing risks, keeping costs contained and supporting digital business needs for both today and tomorrow.

Having anticipated the needs of this digital era 5 years ago, our R&D was already well equipped to support our customers by offering the necessary tools to facilitate working from anywhere with a solid and reliable infrastructure.

Which sectors do you expect to help fuel the growth of your products and services and why?

Healthcare, Hospitality, Education, Transportation and Government are the key sectors where ALE delivers added value to enterprise customers. While our solutions for the education sector connects students and faculty to create an interactive learning experience, our healthcare value proposition helps prepare the future-ready smart hospitals to redefine how people, technology and devices interact in the healthcare ecosystem in order to optimise the care pathway with secure real-time communications.

ALE hospitality solutions facilitate redesigning guests journey to enable a safe, efficient and contactless guest experience as the industry navigates the post-pandemic world. In transportation, ALE helps connect people and processes securely for speed, comfort and safety to deliver the best passenger experience.

ALE digital government solutions can help transform the public services experience by automating recurrent requests and improving efficiency with a unified infrastructure that supports many services for the community and its citizens.

To better communicate ALE's proven solutions across the MEA end-user community, the company organises vertical-specific value proposition webinars every month. To join any of these webinars, email infoMEA@al-enterprise.com

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