Alaa Ali Elshimy (Past Speaker)

With 20+ years of leadership experience – more than a decade of which has incorporated profit and loss responsibility for multi-country business operations with combined turnover in the many billions – Alaa has excelled over an extended period of time both as a Regional Managing Director and as the Transformation Catalyst for new business methodologies, new ventures, and new opportunities in large, geographically dispersed markets and regions.
 
In various assignments undertaken, Alaa has held full strategic, operational, and profit and loss leadership responsibility. From 2000, he contributed to the success of Hewlett Packard across the Middle East, Africa, and the Mediterranean regions, with responsibilities as diverse as overseeing the set-up of new office locations, the delivery of large-scale transformation programs, and multi-country leadership of Business Units, eventually joining Huawei in 2016.

Alaa has been characterized by others as an energizing and engaging business leader, equally successful in building collaborative partnerships with senior corporate executives, Boards of Directors, and investors as well as front-line operating teams around the globe. He is a unique combination of strategist, visionary, operating executive, turnaround specialist, and company advocate.

Alaa earned his Bachelor of Science in Telecommunications Engineering from Cairo University and his MBA from Central Pacific University in the US. He has completed Executive Education Programs with Harvard University and London Business School and a Mini MBA (Telecommunications) with the Telecom Academy. He strongly supports developing the next generation of global executives and plays an important role in acting as a mentor to aspiring business leaders in the teams he oversees.