Apcom Adriatic: Tech women creating an inclusive workplace

“Apcom celebrates diversity every single day, appreciating and understanding it. It is what makes us successful. We are a team of different nationalities with a strong presence of women in managerial positions.”

Through the years, Apcom has created an environment that helps women grow and take the highest positions in the company. Better than the industry average, women represent 60% of the personnel across Apcom in the Adriatic and 70% in management holding positions. The company’s General Manager in the Adriatic region is also female.

While some industries show trends of a growing female workforce, sectors like finance, engineering, and tech still tend to be strongly male dominated. In STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) industries overall, women make up just 28% of the workforce.

This is what Ana-Marija Durdic, retail executive, thinks about the opportunity: “It is not news that women and men think and act differently. There is no good or bad, just a fact that needs to be on the mind of every manager in order to have diversity in the team. In the last 10 years, the gender diversity picture in Croatia has changed, mostly due to international companies opening offices and bringing different cultures to the market here. Working currently in a mostly feminine environment lead by a strong women, I find it interesting and inspiring as it brings opportunities for supporting, nurturing and empowering women in management.”

It has been noticed within the company that women holding the majority of management positions are among the main drivers of Apple brand development in the region and, year after year, bring the best possible customer experience to Apple users.

“As a woman, working with a woman can sometimes be a challenge, but at the same time an advantage, because we understand each other better which allows us to create a solid workplace relationship. Also, having more diversity in the company helps bring in different ideas and perspectives, allowing the company to become more adaptable to changes. In Serbia, the percentage of companies with mostly female employees is extremely low. Women are still not valued the same as men, but due to successful companies that lead by example, showing that diversity brings the best results, changes are expected in this field in the near future,” said Milica Radovic, Marketing Manager of the Carriers Channel.

The opportunities given to Apcom employees has rewarded the company with a professional team, striving and achieving more, and building a pleasant office environment.

Over the past 21 months, Apcom has had to embrace flexibility in its workspace. All of a sudden, due to Covid-19, the company moved to home offices and changed from traveling suits to sweatpants. For many this also meant home schooling their children and trying to manage those two worlds together, but there is no obstacle a woman can not pass, as Antonija Prlic, Chief Accountant in Apcom Croatia commented:

“It is encouraging to work in an environment where you receive confirmation on a daily basis that a woman does not have to choose between a career and family life, but can live both of them in full.”

And this theme was echoed by Marketing Manager, Spela Seserko: “Women in the male-dominated tech industry often feel under-represented, so it feels powerful and inspiring to be surrounded by strong female energy. Gender inequality is not a topic of the past, and in order to drive change, companies need to invest deeply in all aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are often reading stories about Katherine Switzer, Joan of Arc and Charlotte Bronte, who all pretended to be males to succeed as they knew as a female they couldn’t. But this is the situation we are still dealing with in the year 2022 as well, that is why it is extremely important to speak about it and be part of this change.”

Midis Group has long been a supporter of women’s achievements promoting the advancement of gender equality in business leadership and trying to close the gender gap in the tech industry.

Branka Cander, General Manager of Apcom Adriatic said: “Apcom, like many leading companies, embraces general equality. These differences in our team are what helps our employees grow professionally and personally, and it is what brings the success to the company. Seeing women in leadership positions makes women more inclined to take a job and to aim for higher goals.”

Meet the women of Apcom:

Ana-Marija Durdic, Andrea Gorscak, Antonija Prlic, Branka Cander, Dora Bozic, Jelena Ignjatovic, Marlena Milunic, Mateja Kosi, Milica Radovic, Nastja Simunic, Natasa Dovic Krasovec, Neza Demojzes, Sanja Savatic, Spela Veselko, and Spela Seserko.

More about Apcom in the Adriatic Region

Apcom in the Adriatic Region is an Apple Authorized Distributor in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina. In the region there are teams in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and North Macedonia. The HQ of Apcom CE is in Budapest.

Ugly Sweater Party brightens the week at Apcom in Adriatic Region

Every third Friday of December, people all over the world trade their casual garments for something more festive for National Ugly Sweater Day. From garish green and red colors to pom-poms, there seems to be no end to the festive designs.

This year, employees at Apcom in the Adriatic region decided to participate in this magical holiday and put on their ugliest, fluffiest, itchiest Christmas sweaters and gather at a virtual morning party.

Teams from four countries, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and North Macedonia joined together over holiday music with hot beverages in their hands and smiles on their faces. This way the Apcom team celebrated the successful previous year and welcomed the upcoming 2022.

Apcom in the Adriatic region wishes you all a happy holiday season and a joyful new year.

The teams: Ana-Marija Durdic, Andrija Radisic, Angel Jovcevski, Antonija Prlic, Branka Cander, Darko Kovacevic, Dejan Momcilovic, Dora Bozic, Georges Abboud, Hristijan Panev, Hrvoje Kablar, Hrvoje Simunec, Jelena Ignjatovic, Marko Kovacevic, Marlena Milunic, Mateja Kosi, Milica Radovic, Milos Pejic, Nastja Simunic, Natasa Dovic Krasovec, Robert Trifunovic, Sanja Savatic, Sinisa Durdevic, Spela Veselko and Spela Seserko.

More about Apcom Adriatic Region

Apcom in the Adriatic Region is an Apple Authorized Distributor in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Midis Local Office Women’s Network: inspiring and supporting each other

Midis Local Office Women’s Network has come together with the idea of creating ‘a specific time dedicated to inspiring and supporting each other, whilst sharing skillsets and building stronger connections.’

Since the move into new offices in November, the Midis Local Office in Dubai Internet City has gone from strength to strength. Old and new faces fill the chairs and common areas with a sense of excitement for the future and an ability to collaborate again, in person.

“It was this gentle buzz which started conversations across departments in the kitchen, the heart of any thriving office, and made us appreciate the wealth of different skills and experience we have amongst our own colleagues within the office,” said Emily Purches, one of the organizers of the group.

Following the success of a focused women’s talk during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, it became apparent that by meeting and connecting on a regular basis, women could potentially provide support for one another and in turn, contribute to making the Local Office an ‘outstanding working place’.

After discussion and planning to get things started, on Thursday November 11, the women of Midis Local Office met to discuss this new initiative and see how to contribute to building an environment in which all can thrive. A total of 24 people attended and it was a great success, where laughter was shared, and valuable feedback was given.

The word from those present was positive: “It was great meeting everyone and getting to know one another on a professional and more personal basis,” said one attendee. “Now I know everyone’s name!”

“We will be meeting once a month to share ideas and see how we can help each other,” said another. “Watch this space!”

Now the plan is to spread the message about the women’s network much further afield. This initiative has just started in the Dubai office; the aim is to reach out to all the women of the LO teams and to replicate this drive across all regions from Europe to Africa.

Building on excellence – interview with Elie Oueiss, Director of HR, Midis Group

As Midis Group undergoes a journey of HR digital transformation, Elie Oueiss, newly assigned as Director of HR at Midis Group, and Raymond Bou Samra, the group HR Advisor, were both interviewed to explore their thoughts about the challenges of the past, present and the future.

In this exclusive interview, Elie Oueiss talks about the challenges of this transformation, and how he sees the way forward.

Q: You have come into post while many changes are happening to global HR practice – especially considering the pandemic – and as change is coming to the Midis Group. Can you tell us a little about the challenges?

The challenges are huge, and they come at different levels. What is imperative is that the pandemic forced and expedited mega changes where organizations had to act fast. I believe Midis Group managed to adapt and adopt these changes and act in an agile manner.

Having said that, we needed to ensure business is always up and running and people are safe. The pressure on the management team in general and HR specifically was enormous; the key to that was investing heavily on time and resources trying to secure agility and ensuring compliance while maintaining safety and best practices. That all came at days where Midis Group growth plans never stopped despite all instabilities.

All factored in, this was a true challenge because the group was undergoing a huge transformation at the HR level. We wanted to take advantage of this pandemic to gain a winning edge. While others might be cutting down on budgets, we had to double efforts, investments and resources to deliver this project.

Here, I must say that our advisory board had a big role pushing the project forward despite all instabilities and insecurities this pandemic brought. We needed this change, we needed this agility, we needed a system that could support our management and the leadership to ensure business growth.

Q: Change is happening in HR across many vectors, mainly a complete digital transformation and a new HR approach towards the IT business that is ever changing. Could you tell us a bit about how this change manifests within Midis Group?

For the past few years, Midis Group was restructuring business across five main channels that are the main lines of business for the group. Being present in more than 30 countries across EMEA, representing leading global technology vendors along with managing the diversified businesses that the group conducts, structuring businesses became a must to allow the group continue growing at the pace it is achieving.

Thus, we had a need for a complete HR solution that strengthens the employee experience and serves the business growth. Because when you grow – and as you grow – there are always growing pains. Trying to avoid this, we need to ensure that the employees experience is at its best. This is where we looked for a solution that is fully mobile, that is both global but also localized and compliant in terms of legalities and requirements by law of each country we operate in. SAP SuccessFactors, with all its modules, was our best choice and we are in the progress of integration throughout 2021 and 2022.

Q: You mentioned earlier that HR transformation is happening from within, and the advisory board is keen on the success of this project. How difficult is such a project with such a diverse and huge organization?

The more organizations grow, the more challenges grow and the more the bureaucratic pressure becomes a force blocking change; sometimes HR practice ends up being an end in itself, rather than helping things to run smoothly. Being so diverse in business lines and being present in many challenging regions, HR is now an important and strategic pillar to the business.

This is where we have created new vectors of HR. One of which is the Line of Business HR management, where we have created a Head of HR for each line of business, fully collaborating with the leader of that business line, understanding their requirements, and the specific requirements for the type of business activity.

Here is an example: in Retail, there is higher employee turnover and thus the demand for faster recruitment is needed. While in System Integration, the focus is more on recruiting candidates from various experiences of continuously evolving technologies like artificial intelligence, big data or machine learning. This is why each line of business will need – and have – its own functional HR team to support the business expansion. In parallel to that, we have created an HR Center of Excellence that will deliver our services and features.

Q: How important is the Center of Excellence considering the various changes within the industry?

The Center of Excellence is the core of HR, delivering its key functions. It is mainly split into four vectors:

One function is delivering Talent Acquisition and Onboarding to cater for the continuously growing need in talent, of course focusing on the candidates’ experience.

The other function would be the Total Rewards, which is about where we stand as a Group, attracting new talent in the IT marketplace. We do represent top global vendors that are the pillars in the IT industry. It is really crucial and important to remain competitive and this is where the rewards function is key. Our Rewards team will ensure that building a Rewards strategy allows the group to continue attracting talents and retaining them for the future.

Then you have the Organizational Development Excellence (OD), where we will develop enhanced operational excellence and infrastructure to sustain the group growth and changes.

The last frontier of excellence would be HRIS, where we have a whole team of HR tech professionals, leading on our HXM Solution to make sure it is properly integrated to cater for the diversity of Midis Group, ensuring legal compliance by country of operation.

Q: After deploying SAP SuccessFactors (SAP SF) as an ultimate employee experience solution, what is next in the digital journey?

Being in the Tech business, we have some sort of obligation, and we feel it is a necessity as well to keep on updating our HR IT solutions.

After successfully deploying our SAP SF HXM Solution, we would definitely be looking at always adopting leading HR Tech solutions that would enhance our HR Journey. A trending example would be in talent acquisition; here, many solutions are being adopted to speed up the recruitment process and increase success ratios in selecting candidates by engaging some Artificial Intelligence conducting video interviews. The group is always open to explore any Tech HR solution that will empower the business and deliver best practice in HR.

Q: As the new head of HR for the Midis Group, what is your message to your business leaders and colleagues?

As I take over my role, the Midis Group headcount is proudly growing to more than 4400 employees, all doing a fantastic job and delivering outstanding services to our customers and partners. To our business leaders, I would tell them: good talents are not always easy to find, let us make sure we team up to create the best working environment for them. Let us employ the best HR practices to ensure our teams are well retained, as we have done for many of them.

Moreover, we must continue to provide the best working environment so that we drive the Midis Group to become an Employer of Choice. That is the motto that I have chosen to accompany my journey. To our colleagues, I say: at the HR department, we are all aiming to continuously make Midis Group a better place for you to stay and grow.

Q: What should we have asked you?

You have honestly asked amazing questions, thank you. Maybe a small one about what does a change in HR leadership mean to the culture of the group? And here I would tell you that every time there’s a change in HR leadership, there must be an impact, and I hope the impact our unit will bring will be for the best of the Midis Group team.

The important part of my job is to embrace strong and agile HR practices at all levels and to properly connect the dots between the management and the team. Because with Tech, the only constant is change.

Q: Is there anything you would like to say, about the good foundations that Raymond has put in place over his long period of work building-up the HR department?

Now that Raymond occupies an advisory role, I am sure that we can take the best of his experience and wise counselling on key decisions that the group will adopt moving forward. Combining Raymond’s experience with the group’s future vision for HR will build a strong team.

Working with Raymond has been about cooperation from day one. It’s been about keeping the harmony between our key business leaders and the HR department, because if objectives and goals are aligned, success is always the result.

I am very glad that we are aligned with the Board of Directors’ vision; they are well involved in the change and supporting this transformation journey making our mission easier.

Planning for succession: Raymond Bou Samra interviewed about his career as Group HR Manager

Raymond Bou Samra – the Group HR Manager for 17 years- has been responsible for directing and successfully developing the human resources infrastructure at Midis Group. As Raymond now occupies an advisory role, and Elie Oueiss moves into the HR driving seat at Midis Group, we interviewed both Raymond and Elie to explore their thoughts about the challenges of the past, present and the future. Our first interview is with Raymond, who talks about the successes of the past, and how those have helped shape the Midis Group we know today.

Q: The Midis Group has grown a great deal over the last three decades. Over the years, what have these challenges meant for you?

A key challenge was to be able to identify skilled but motivated candidates who were a cultural fit. You could always find candidates but to have people who are motivated, and a cultural fit, is a bit more difficult. Basically, we enjoy working with people who are looking for long-term challenges, who are entrepreneurial, who are willing to take a lead, to be future leaders. We really value people with initiative, and who look at their job as being a partner in the business.

Q: Is the job of an HR manager at regional and local level different from being HR manager of the whole group?

Well, the job has changed throughout the years and the role of the group HR manager has developed since I started 17 years ago. Back then, the concept of an HR manager was basic. So development and growth started with introducing and strengthening the HR presence and role at the Head Office. And then I worked across the entities, to introduce them to the role and to make sure to market that role and to preach it.

I visited most of the affiliates across countries in the Middle East, Central Eastern Europe and Africa to understand how they deal with their HR situations and for me to comprehend their needs and assist them in overcoming their challenges.

As the tasks developed, it was fascinating to find out about the different types of jobs and roles of our people. From that point on, it was about identifying and unifying job titles, organization charts, and so on, and then we developed one set of policies and HR processes applicable across the group.

Following that success, as business expanded, and new trends emerged in the IT industry, the HR role at Head Office developed a more strategic aspect. This meant that we had to evolve more functional roles, and the HR team expanded regionally and locally, until reaching the present HR transformation plan that Elie Oueiss is leading.

This exciting new phase will support the level of growth we have achieved so far and will carry us into the future. Digitization of HR means that the Group is adopting more integrated systems – mainly the SAP “SuccessFactors” solution – and that will help us manage the processes, to understand them, and to go further and standardize the approach to HR matters.

Q: Midis Group HR policy has succeeded in many ways, one of which is employee retention, with many people staying in the Group for a long time. What part has HR played in this success?

We rely a lot on entrepreneurial spirit and positive business initiatives from our people, but the Group also presents a diversity of internationally-renowned products and brands, and we enjoy the confidence of our international vendors and suppliers. The financial stability and the development of the businesses is offering career growth to employees. So this basically what is behind our success.

Q: The Midis Group recruitment approach seems perhaps to be less about the candidate’s CV, and more about character and what the candidate can bring to the team and the group. Is that a deliberate policy, or has it evolved over time?

It is a deliberate policy to acquire business-oriented people who add value to their jobs in a frame of integrity and self-development. With empowerment, the Group offers its employees the opportunity to become their own boss, if proven eligible through the years. A lot of our managers are career managers. They start as employees and develop their roles throughout the years to become leaders, and at a certain point they might become partners in their entities.

That’s what often has made them more eager and ambitious to continue – they become part of the organization. So that’s the big motivation that we work on, and it has been successful for the last few decades.

The roots of these values show in our company name. Initially, we were called MidEast Data Systems – MDS as an acronym. Then in our re-branding process about 11 years ago, we added two ‘I’s to the acronym to become what is our corporate name now, MIDIS. Those extra two ‘I’s stand for Integrity and Innovation.

Q: Over the years, what aspects of the job have been the most pleasurable, or the most successful?

I have always kept an open door for communication with employees and managers, and I always have gone on frequent visits getting closer to the people, listening to them, talking to the managers. In order to make sure management and employees identify further with the group, visiting them was a key task.

This has been successful and continuous at several levels -starting with messages from the Chairman to all employees, consistent communications from the head office team to departments at entities and by directly connecting with employees as needed. This has strengthened the relation and communication between the head office team and the teams on the ground, making sure everyone is aligned with the group goals and objectives. This is what I consider the most successful and the most pleasurable aspects to me at least.

Q: Looking forward to now, and advising from an external perspective; does it free you up to do things slightly differently, what are your thoughts on that?

Working at the Midis Group for so long has been a wonderful experience, but first of all, I believe in rotation; I believe we cannot hold a job and stay in it forever. With time, age, development, your productivity at a certain point goes from one level to another; so in order to remain productive, you may have to step back, look at things from a different perspective and give opportunities to colleagues to take their chances in moving forward.

From that perspective, I thought that it would be more interesting and more productive to give that opportunity to younger colleagues, though I’m still here on an advisory level.

It will be important to work alongside the new team, to help them understand what the situation has been like in the past and how they can take it from that point on, in communicating and coordinating with executive management and teams as well as with the various entities across the different countries. So sharing my business experience with the present HR management and serving as a bridge to senior management with a new HR transformation process is a task that I’m happy to respond to.

Q: What advice would you give to Elie Oueiss as he takes over responsibility for managing HR across the whole Group?

Elie is very dynamic and full of energy and will make sure that plans are put into action and are being implemented correctly. I wish him and the HR team a great rewarding success. Of course, there will be obstacles, some resistance to change in some places. Therefore, my main advice to him would be to listen a lot and then move forward with his plans.

Midis Group rising stars – Ivett Hegyi, Regional CRM Manager, iSTYLE CEE

Ivett Hegyi joined iSTYLE Europe last year in September as Regional CRM Manager CEE, based in Budapest, Hungary. She’s one of the rising stars in the iSTYLE team and we are extremely lucky to have an executive of her caliber building the CRM facility within the Group.

We interviewed Ivett for Midis Group Careers to find out more about what makes her excited about her career, working for iSTYLE, and some of the lessons learned along the way.

What’s your professional and learning background, and what drew you to working with iSTYLE?

I majored in Communication and Media Studies at Corvinus University of Budapest. At that time, I already knew it was important to have professional experience as early as possible, so I applied for an internship at one of the biggest financial institutions in Hungary. This was while I was doing my BA degree; I then got a full-time position as a CRM manager during my MA. Working hard and being determined always paid off.

Three years later I was leading a CRM Campaign Management team at another major bank in Hungary. Fast forward another three years, and I had become the CRM LifeCycle Manager of a Czech-owned financial company in China, where I was responsible for all CRM activities with an enormous customer base.

After working in the banking sector for 10 years I decided to change my career path. I quit in 2018, and instead of being employed by huge companies, I started to support small businesses and entrepreneurs in the area of direct marketing, and also established my own business.

I joined iSTYLE September last year, just right after I moved back to Hungary from Singapore, where I had lived for two years. The position was a perfect match, as I was looking for an innovative, mid-size company, where I have the opportunity to utilize my CRM experience and entrepreneur mindset.

CRM is a relatively new part of the marketing and sales sector: what is it about the activity that attracts you?

I have worked in CRM for more than a decade now, and I never get bored with it. What do I love most about my job? The impact that it makes. I see how beneficial it is for all kinds of companies. I believe that understanding our clients, and communicating with them in a personalized way doesn’t only provide iSTYLE with a competitive advantage. In fact, it is fundamental, because the rapid pace of change in the online world has increased customer expectations – especially toward the premium brands, such as Apple – and that needs to be addressed effectively.

You’ve worked across some big sectors internationally – what would you say are the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your career so far?

It is hard to mention only one because trying out myself internationally was definitely an intense thing to do, full of challenges and learning both on a personal and professional level. That was especially true in China, where life is fairly different in almost every aspect than I was used to before.

I think the importance of cultural awareness is definitely one lesson worth highlighting. My job is all about consumers, so it is vital to understand their needs and their behavior patterns in order to find the best way to communicate with them. Although I have several frameworks for successful CRM campaigns, the secret formula for success is always based on the local flavors.

You have quite a focus on self-development and volunteering – would you say that has helped your professional development?

Yes, absolutely.

Living abroad can be isolating, so volunteering is a great opportunity to connect with like-minded people, give back to the local community and also gather new knowledge.

For more than a year I was volunteering for one of the oldest professional women’s associations in Singapore. They were set up to empower women to achieve their highest potential through learning, leadership, and networking opportunities. Through this, I learned a lot about women empowerment, and I also gained tremendous experience in brand and social media management, which I found I could instantly leverage while building my own business.

You’ve been able to really build CRM as a key advance within iSTYLE – what other big milestones have you achieved in your career?

There are two particular achievements that helped me broaden my horizons and change the way I see things.

One of them is related to my professional career: I had the opportunity to design powerful communication strategies for a pool of 20 million customers in China, as a CRM Life Cycle Manager. The other one is a passion-driven side project with a purpose to make a difference through community building. I started this journey with two of my co-founder partners by organizing retreats to Bali.

Though the scale and the scope of each project were different, I am extremely proud of both. And, of course, I do my best to make an impact here, at iSTYLE, as well.

The consumer electronic business is a very dynamic and fast changing environment. How are you finding the balance between work and personal life?

Is there such a thing as work-life balance? I am not sure. I experienced burn-out before, so I am conscious enough now to catch the warning signs. For me, self-development is essential to be authentic in life, to understand the things that matter the most and the values that give me anchors during uncertain times – both in personal and professional dimensions.

After 10 months I can confidently say that joining the iSTYLE family was an excellent decision. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to work for a company with a clear vision that has a forward-looking mindset supported by great leaders and awesome teams.

Inspiring Women in Tech: Three talented executives from our Croatian affiliate

The Croatian management team at Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium has three young female sales executives that have grown and prospered within the company. Read on to hear how Ana Lučić, HPE Pointnext Sales Specialist, Dina Markić, Enterprise Account Manager, and Martina Matoš, HPE Education Sales Specialist have worked their way through to prominence in the industry.

Working in IT sales isn’t always easy to get into. Two of our three successful executives went straight in as interns or students after college, but one, Ana, already had some business experience.

Dina Markić: “I started working at HPE as an intern right after college. The internship position was as a Sales Enablement Assistant. Before even finishing my internship, I got a position in HPE Inside Sales in Prague hub. After sharpening my sales skills in the hub, I grabbed the opportunity to work in the local market as an Account Manager.”

For Martina Matoš, the starting point was quite similar to Dina: “Before taking over this job I worked in HPE for six years in several positions. Started as a student, then working in Customer Operations department for several years and later taking over in a sales position.”

For Ana Lučić, the move into IT wasn’t such a leap in terms of experience. “I worked in various industries and departments prior to this position. I have experience in finance, sales and operations,” added Ana.

It’s impressive to read how qualified all three women are – all three have Bachelor degrees and Masters as well.

“I graduated from the University of Zagreb, in the Faculty of Economics and Business with a Bachelor degree in Business Economics and then a Master’s degree in Accounting and Auditing” said Dina.

Martina: “I graduated from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business with a Bachelor degree in Business Economics and a Master degree in Accounting and Auditing.”

Ana has an impressively international flavor to her education CV: “I have a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from IMC University at Krems in Austria. During my studies in Austria I completed a semester of exchange in Madrid, Spain. I also have a Master of Science degree in Service Leadership and Innovation from Rochester Institute of Technology.”

So all three have really advanced educational qualifications – which makes one wonder if they ever thought they would develop a career in sales when studying?

Dina was philosophical about this question: “I never thought that my career would be in sales, especially not in IT sales, as I don’t have technical background. But where there is a will, there is a way.”

Martina always wanted to work in an international company, but never imagined it would be in the IT industry. “Working here made me realize how happy I am with my position, the company and the industry. Now, after so many years, I could never imagine working in a different industry.”

For Ana, working directly with the public was important, right from the start: “I always knew I wanted to work in a customer-facing role as part of a multinational company since cultural diversity is something I greatly value and appreciate. IT as an industry is very exciting and competitive and I am happy I get to work in this area.”

All three are clearly destined for continued success in their roles, and have worked hard to get where they are today. We asked them about their career high points, so far. What’s been your biggest success in the job – what have you been most proud of?

According to Dina, the job is very dynamic, and there is constantly something new happening. “I am proud of the progress I’ve made from an intern in Sales Enablement to the Account Manager working with both public and private sector. As they say, I am the youngest Account Manager (for HIT part) in our local office ever.”

Martina: “My greatest accomplishment was setting up and developing the Education Business from scratch after a company transferred to Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium. I’m mostly proud that now we have good business results, we are constantly delivering our technology training to our customers and continuing to grow even further.”

For Ana, the success she found has been about people. “I am most proud of our team and the people that I get to work with every day. When you are surrounded by such great individuals, you are able to thrive and provide an outstanding service to your customers and partners.”

Over the last two years, during the challenge of the pandemic, new kinds of technology have kept the business world spinning. What digital/business/industry innovations excite you the most?

Dina thinks technology is part of every industry and has even been part of a lot (if not all) aspects of our lives, but she’s thoughtful about how it should be used. “I guess artificial intelligence as a technology trend is very fascinating. It improves our lives and jobs in so many ways, but on the other hand we need to use it wisely. Also, working from home has become broadly possible. It will be interesting to see how professional and social dynamics might change with more and more people working remotely.”

Martina and Ana both get excited about a new product they are both keen to see and sell, as Martina says: “Currently I’m mostly excited about our new consumption-based model for IT infrastructure that brings financial flexibility based on pay-per-use. I believe this is a great innovation in this industry and will bring simplification and agility.”

Ana added, agreeing with Martina: “Our new consumption model, known as HPE GreenLake – Selectium Program, is something I am very much looking forward to. I believe this is the future of service delivery and there is a growing demand on the market for such a model.”

So what keeps Ana, Dina and Martina coming in to work each day – what is great about working for HPE/Selectium?

“Working for HPE/Selectium is great because I work with a lot of great people and excellent professionals. I am also happy with the work-life balance that we have here,” said Dina.

For Martina, “the greatest thing about working for Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium are the people. We have a great team, such excellent colleagues to work with, which inspires me to do my job the best that I can. We all have a common vision: the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives.”

Ana finds the company and job brings many learning opportunities: “Apart from the team itself, the dynamics of the job is what excites me the most. Every project and customer is different and that gives me an opportunity to constantly develop and obtain new skills.”

As we wind the interviews down, it is clear these successful women each have some useful insights and skills that have helped them get this far in the industry. Is it about being female? Would you say that being a woman in a traditional male industry gives you a unique view or a competitive edge?

Dina: “I would say that being a woman in a predominantly male industry gives me a unique view. People usually don’t expect a young woman to talk about technical solutions, but I’m happy to see that there are more women present in IT. In the end, success in the job depends on person’s skills and knowledge.”

For Martina, it’s definitely a help being a woman in the sector. “Some leadership behaviors, observed more frequently among woman than among men, have a positive impact on a company’s organizational performance. In this way women complement and enhance the range of leadership behaviors that are critical to corporate performance, especially in IT.”

Ana agrees. “I would say that it certainly does. Soft skills and emotional intelligence are some of the key competitive advantages for women in business. Although characteristics such as effective communication, empathy, and self-awareness are difficult to measure, they are highly valued and are all essential skills for effective leadership and management within the workplace.”

So there we have it, when there is a will there is a way, as Dina noted in her interview. At Midis, we are happy to be at the forefront of the trend of successful female executives, grown from the company’s own employment pool. Cultivating a company’s own employees and giving them an opportunity to show their strengths and capabilities is something we deeply value and cherish. Thanks to our three willing participants – Ana, Dina and Martina – for giving their time and offering such valuable insights. We wish them well and good luck in their future endeavors.

Interview: Edmond Hamati talks about his journey so far in Midis Group

In December 2020 Midis Marketing Administrator Edmond Hamati (24) was featured on the LinkedIn profile of the Lebanese American University (LAU) Adnan Kassar School of Business, where he studied. On LinkedIn, Edy talked about his start at Midis and what the LAU learning has meant to him.

To find out more about his career and aspirations for the future, Edy agreed to be interviewed for the Careers section of the Midis Group website.

My pathway right now is going through marketing and operations, though my current projects are focused on System Integration and Distribution. It’s busy; at Midis, I have two positions. My first role is Group Marketing Administrator, where I am part of the Central Marketing Bureau that oversees the alignment and cross collaboration of Marketing initiatives across the different lines of business, and I am the Marketing Executive for iSTYLE in Morocco – Apple Reseller.

My work at iSTYLE consists of planning and executing marketing initiatives along with Yara, our marketing consultant. I am also involved in operations including training sales executive, achieving target sales etc…

The spirit of the retail line of business is what catches me the most because one can be very creative; you can work on a lot of campaigns, different marketing strategies within influencer marketing, social media marketing like Facebook, Instagram, Google as well.

I love the contact with the customers; I’m in the showroom most of the time. I believe that in order to be a good marketer, you always have to be connected to your customers, to get direct insights and to be on top of the flow of operations which allows you to modify your service or your product campaigns according to what works, and what doesn’t work. This is what makes it interesting! The human touch, and retail marketing is all about that.

Q: What’s so great about the way Midis Group works?

What’s really great is that they take your ideas into consideration, even if you’re an intern. When I started, I proposed a marketing project and the management directly gave me the opportunity to drive it. They really give you a chance and you feel valued as an employee.

You are not limited to your current responsibilities, they explain the whole scope of work and if you have something valuable to propose they’ll just help push you forward.

The diversity of cultures at Midis is incredibly great. You could be talking to colleagues from Spain, then collaborate with teams from Czech Republic and later Dubai etc. This makes work very exciting – learning new things, new cultures and how to deal with new people.

Q: Apart from that success – what things did you find challenging about joining Midis – what was difficult?

When I first started, I only had a little background in marketing but it was not related to technology, so that was very challenging. I was learning a lot every day and became familiar and passionate about technology. But what was quite challenging was to understand the different lines of business that Midis drives, and it has been so insightful to learn this. .

This makes it very interesting for someone my age; it was “new ground” to me and every day presented a new challenge, either in sales or in marketing. That pushed me to learn Facebook, Google and Apple courses. I have now over nine Google certificates!

The challenge now is managing my time between my university Executive Master’s degree at ESCP Business School/ESA Business School, and my role at Midis and iSTYLE.

Q: Is there someone who you work with who you see as a role model?

Actually, Bashir and Lucie, whom I work with, teach me a lot. Guiding me and advising on how to proceed, keeping me on the right path and I’m very grateful for that. They gave me exposure to the management, and helped in getting my ideas heard. They have both been a great role model.

What also is inspiring is to see how the group has grown from a local company, into such an international organisation. And the key, the main inspiration, is our CEO – Mr. Bustros – with his vision and drive. He is truly my main inspiration and motivation.

Q: Do you think there is something special about Midis, that you do not really see in other companies?

Of course – it is that fact that Midis really values you. They listen to your ideas and give you the opportunity to showcase them and to grow – here, your manager doesn’t bring you down, he tries to build you up.

Selectium marketing manager Sonja Canjuga speaks at Careers Week at University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business

Giving back to the community is an important part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium’s philosophy. A good opportunity arose on November 5, when Selectium marketing manager Sonja Canjuga gave a lecture during Career Week at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business in Croatia.

Selectium employees regularly offer help and guidance via mentorship programs, giving lectures at Universities or in any way they can. They are devoted to helping develop leaders of the future by sharing advice, guidance and help with their education and careers

The University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business was organizing their major Career Week for the third year in a row. From November 2 to 6, 2020, more than 40 lecturers from local and national businesses, many of whom are former students of the Faculty, were involved in the activities of this year´s program.

This year´s event was held as part of an EU project titled “Increasing the employability of students through the improvement of the Center for Careers and Development of Professional Practice – CEZAR”, from the European Social Fund (ESF) operational program, Effective Human Resources 2014-2020.

The purpose of the CEZAR program is to increase employability and early career development of students through the cooperation of the Faculty of Economics and the business community. The overall goal of the initiative is to contribute to increasing the employability of university students in Croatia.

Sonja’s lecture was held as part of the Project Management learning strand, and her presentation was titled “Project management in practice – real life example of yearly marketing plan project management”.

The presentation described the steps of a yearly marketing planning process, marketing plan creation project roles and marketing annual plan creation processes. Sonja also talked about the responsibilities of a marketing project manager and she outlined the characteristics a good marketing project manager needs to possess.

“Most importantly, the message presented to students was that marketing project management is a highly interesting and rewarding profession, one where you can learn a lot and thrive in an interesting, dynamic professional environment,” said Sonja.

Sonja graduated from the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business in 2007, majoring in Management. During her time in the Faculty, she was a professor’s assistant in two major Departments, Management and Accounting.

“We are extremely happy whenever we have the opportunity to welcome guest speakers on our Faculty. This primary aim is the driving force behind our Career Week, when we are trying to have our Faculty’s alumni community present their career paths and what it took them to achieve success in today’s extremely volatile market conditions” said Luka Samaržija, PhD, Assistant Professor Department for organization and management.

“It always is a pleasure to have guest speakers present to our students, especially when they are such experienced professionals like Ms Canjuga. We were honored to host her on our platform.” said Luka Samaržija.

The University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business is among the top 10 best faculties of economics in the world, considering it holds the prestigious EPAS accreditation, awarded by international accreditation institution, the European Foundation for Management Development, or EFMD.

The Faculty’s vision is to be recognized as a much sought-after and reliable higher educational institute and a practical business partner, alongside the countries’ other national and international scientific and educational institutes. It is an institution which evolves continuously, always streamlining and upgrading study programs, research and staff skills.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium highlight talent pipeline success

Amidst all the bad news about Covid-19 across the world, good news is emerging from Eastern Europe, where Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium have built an excellent talent development scheme.

Now the Group would like to highlight the stories behind three of these future leaders. It is about encouraging more skilled and bright recruits to join up, but also to show the depth of talent now working at Selectium, and the quality of the management approach that has led to this success. The three future leaders are Jelena Simić, Đorđe Nedeljković and Marko Stojanović.

“This story really is about people who started their professional career as interns in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, proved themselves during their time in the organization, and are now one of the main driving powers of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium,’ said Sonja Canjuga from Selectium.

According to Sonja, the talented team members are predicted to achieve further career development and rise through organizational ranks into managerial positions. The office where the team are based was wholly-owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise until November 2018, after which it became Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium. All three started working for the Midis Group in 2016-2017.

Two of the three shone in their first roles and attracted the attention of management early on: “Even before I became a part of HPE team, while I was working for a customer, I met two young interns who started attending customer meetings together with their older colleagues,” said Ivan Bulatović, Business Development Manager, Jelena and Đorđe’s manager.

“I immediately noticed them; the sparkle in their eyes were showing a great thirst for learning new things. From those moments on, and also today, now we are all part of the same team, I still feel their passion for business that we jointly share. It is truly a pleasure working side-by-side with them, to see how much they have evolved and grown into team members that are completely capable of handling big and important tasks with the same level of expertise as their older and more experienced colleagues. I feel blessed and thankful to have been given a chance to manage these young people in my team.”

And Marko also stood out from the crowd when he started with the Group, added his manager, Žarko Subotić, HPE Pointnext Business Manager. “I’ve been Marko’s direct or indirect manager since he joined our company. I quickly recognized his development potential, so I promoted him to our Sales team, where he really came to shine. Based on that, we created, together with Marko, a career path for him that involved continuous education and an opportunity for him to raise through the levels of organization, becoming a leader on his own someday.”

“I am happy to be able to say that he has not only lived up to our expectations so far, but outdone them. I believe that in the upcoming years we shall be seeing many great things coming from Marko, and I myself am very pleased to be following his career journey.”

More about the team

Jelena Simić

Jelena studied at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Department of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Belgrade. Her role and expertise center around a combination of technology and pre-sales, with a good understanding of business. She is always proposing and creating solutions, talking to the customers about technology, understanding their needs, communicating with the partners and enlightening them.

Jelena said this about her relationship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium; “We have the same goals in terms of the business, and strategy, the way we run the business; and we are focusing together on my improvement and creating a career path.”

Đorđe Nedeljković:

Đorđe studied in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade and graduated with a BSc and Masters in information and communication technologies, and at HPE is a specialist in a combination of technology and sales. As a Pre-sales Consultant from a technology perspective, his obligation is to cover whole the HPE portfolio and its details, and from a sales perspective the job is to know what and how to position the portfolio to both customer and partner, and to have constant and close communication with both of them.

Đorđe is keen to progress: “…to learn new things, to have a job closely related to IT market needs, to have a passionate leader who is future oriented, and of course to have a decent salary!”

Marko Stojanović

Marko studied in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade, and is a specialist in Sales. For him, it is all about having the ability to deliver results while improving stakeholder relations. Marko was attracted to HPE by the possibility to handle project-based work in an IT company with a proven portfolio.

In terms of what he wants from his employer, Marko seeks a chance to demonstrate working with a high level of responsibility and through that, gain a 360 degree understanding of the business landscape. Beyond that, it is important to expand the range of work he carries out: “I want to broaden the scope of my work, and build my knowledge and skills continuously through meaningful core business responsibilities.”

Why was HPE so attractive to work for in the first place?

A range of positive attributes attracted the three to working for HPE: according to Jelena the attraction was the team work, the organization itself, their way of leading the business, the company values, and the culture and people.

For Đorđe, HPE was his first employer and he found there was an “extremely well connected team with excellent communication among colleagues. Beside this huge advantage, I was attracted to the great possibility to develop my technology perspective even more and to improve the knowledge I acquired at University.”

Starting on the ground floor

All three began their internships at a basic level in the Group, but they soon won promotion: Marko said this about his start at HPE: “I was a project coordinator for spare parts strategy in partner-lead markets. After being a project coordinator, I quickly won a Pointnext SMB Sales role for the same Adriatics territories, and I then progressed to Pointnext Services Sales for Serbia and Montenegro.

Jelena had a basic first role and progressed from there: “It was my first job and I started as an Intern in HPE in Belgrade as a Presale Consultant on the servers portfolio, working only on server solutions together with HPE Software. I then switched to Prague Inside Sales Hub where I worked as a Solution Architect for the Balkan region, covering the whole HPE portfolio and working closely with our worldwide experts. After two years being in the Hub, I moved back to Serbia where I now work as a field Presales Consultant, helping our customers with their data centres and infrastructure.

Đorđe started as an Intern Presales Consultant focused on HPE Storage portfolio, but soon won developing more parts of his portfolio: “in time, I have added the HPE Server portfolio, and finally the HPE Networking portfolio. That means, as a team, we can offer advice and knowledge in every part of HPE technology field.

All three agreed that Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium is a great place to work, and team spirit is central to that. Jelena likes the team work, “…which we’ve derived from HPE, I also like our organizational culture and values. We all have the same team spirit and the same business goals.”

Đorđe: “…the first thing that attracted me to this company, the team, is still the one which I like the most. Besides that, technology and technical improvements and progressing are my second love. With the combination of those two, I am getting all that I need.”

Marko likes the autonomy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium to handle ongoing business and make decisions without much interference. “Also, as we are now a direct link between HPE and the partners/customers, I enjoy the necessity to monitor various financial aspects of our business dealings, and not only top line revenue.”

What happens after work?

All three of these former interns, now successful executives, have busy and interesting private lives: Jelena does a lot of sport, reads books, loves to learn languages and she travels around a lot.

For Đorđe, spare time is sports heavy: “well, I mostly like to play tennis, but beside this, I’m busy with cycling, swimming, playing volleyball and table tennis. I am a very extrovert person, so hanging out with friends is always my first option. Also reading, especially anything philosophical and also thrillers. And for the end, never forget to eat!”

Marko: “I follow the start-up and e-commerce scene and engage as much as I can, whether it’s a live event, business case or just a podcast session. Aside from this, I truly enjoy spending evenings with my girlfriend and my friends, with some good food and craft beers. Rest of my time goes to non-fiction, psychology books (Malcolm Gladwell, highly recommended) and Netflix.

COVID-19: MDSCS Engineers pass exams to become Certified Project Managers

Two members of the MDS for Computer Systems family in KSA, Alaa Nassar and Albaraa Safi, have successfully passed the PMP exam and have become Certified Project Managers during the difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Both Eng. Alaa and Eng. Albaraa made outstanding efforts within the PMO department and their hard work and dedicated effort have rewarded them with the learning experience and the all-important PMP Certification. I am sure Alaa and Albaraa will be key assets on the MDSCS success journey,” said Jihad Alhafi, Project Management Office Manager at MDSCS.

Alaa and Albaraa have both been working for MDSCS for seven years. Both Engineers are Project Managers and their basic roles cover activities such as planning and defining project scope, cost estimating, resource planning, risk analysis, team leadership, budgeting, quality control and much more.

What is their favorite part of working for the Midis Group? For Albaraa, it’s about learning in a business context – “the best thing is the chance to build soft skills and gain qualified experience with one of the biggest IT companies in KSA.”

Alaa said his favourite parts of the job are, “the daily challenges, and the opportunity to self-develop.” Like many people working across the Midis Group and affiliates in all regions, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit hard in KSA, and made changes to work and life inevitable.

Lockdown has been a challenge for both of these MDSCS engineers.

“At the beginning I suffered during lockdown, but after this, it’s encouraging me to take a next step in my educational qualifications,” said Albaraa.

“I took the advantage of the lockdown period by improving my career path through taking this certificate on my major in Information Technology, and also by sharing my positive experiences during the pandemic,” said Alaa.

ABM team makes personal e-bulletin called Hello ABM!!! to connect colleagues

Elige Farah, Marketing Manager for ABM, had a brainwave while working from home during the lockdown and got her team together virtually to make an informal, friendly and humorous bulletin. The project – called Hello ABM!!! – has been a big success and now the marketing team are making weekly editions of the publication.

The idea for the bulletin came quite by accident: “following the current situation that obliged everyone to stay home and work from home, with all the restrictions, I decided to set up a gaming session with my team to distract them a bit from the pressure that everyone was going through, explained Elige. “It was a good gaming session and everyone had fun and felt relieved from the stress. I talked through the idea to make a bulletin to the team and everyone liked it and welcomed being part of it.”

Elige has been Marketing Manager for ABM for ten years and is based in Dubai. In her role, she looks after the whole Middle East region.

Making Hello ABM!!! has been a really useful experience for everyone involved, thinks Elige. “It is quite a commitment that we are delivering it on a weekly basis, but it is the whole team’s commitment. I am discovering more talents and capabilities in the team and about myself too. It is actually challenging to prepare content that would interest everyone and keep the excitement around it every week.”

Due to the success of the idea, the marketing team at ABM have more ideas in the pipeline. “We are recruiting more talents – we asked in the first edition if anyone would like to join and add more sections,” said Elige. “We cover gaming, movies, and can add travel tips and things like that. Next step would be also engaging the team with some challenges with the Apple Watch and so on.”

The project has been a great success among ABM people and has led to all kinds of positive responses and suggestions: “We actually received a lot of good feedback from the team, especially the section that is making them laugh every week with jokes. We’ve also had movie recommendations and some health and fitness tips for the lockdown.”

Enjoy reading Hello ABM!!! here and here

Women In IT | Midis Group marketing professionals talk about careers

Two successful Midis Group women recently featured in a Tahawultech.com story about women and their careers in IT to celebrate International Women’s Day. Nichola Banerjee and Dushala Agarwal were both interviewed by Adelle Geronimo for a piece that surveyed the views of women at every level, across many channels. Both are marketing specialists and are based in Dubai.

Adelle pointed out in her introduction that, while progress seems to be taking place, and the ‘glass ceiling’ that acts as a barrier to promotion appears to have splintered, by 2040, globally, women may still only form one per cent of the IT workforce.

Dushala Agarwal talked enthusiastically in the Tahawultech story about how gender is generally not part of the recruitment conversation at Midis Group: “The crux of equal opportunities is where “gender” does not exist. I can proudly say that our company culture focuses on recognizing an individual’s skills and fresh ideas, be it men or women. Everyone is given an equal opportunity with utmost transparency if they deserve it.”

Talking about the interview and the published article, Dushala added: “It was pleasing to read the weave of thoughts from other women working in the tech industry and learning that we were all in the harmony of one mind – uplifting the spirits of all the women out there.”

“I deeply believe that we must seize every opportunity to develop value in anything we do with flair. Allow yourself to be a work in progress by grasping inspiration through women from all walks of life and every now and then, from all our occupied schedules, take a moment to reflect.”

For Nichola Banerjee, it’s all about going out there and grabbing the opportunities as they arise. This is what she told Adelle Geronimo in the Tahawultech feature: “These days the technology sector is not just associated with men, although it may seem like technology is a male-dominated space women should not be afraid to step in. Follow your passion and do your thing, girl! If you follow your passion, learn as much as you can, and do good work, people will have no choice but to respect you.”

Asked about her thoughts after the interview for Tahawultech, Nichola said this: “As a working woman in IT, technology is diverse and always innovating and we are living in a digital world where technology is mandatory for everyone and has dramatically improved our lives.”

“With trends and know-how evolving with time, one should never stop learning; keep educating yourself every day. If needed, seek support and advise from female mentors; learn from their own experience steering the tech industry as a woman. Finally, feed your mind with positive thoughts and remember to always flaunt that smile!”

Read more from Dushala and Nichola and many other successful women on Tahawultech.com

Midis Group and ITG team are Telecom Basketball League winners in Beirut

Before the Covid virus emergency, Midis Group and ITG joined together under the Cisco banner to participate in a basketball tournament against other telecom organizations, in Beirut, Lebanon and emerged as the Telecom Championship winners.

Recently, the two teams based in the Holcom Building, Midis Group and ITG, held a celebration of the achievement where gifts of sports bags with the Midis logo were distributed to the winners.

The popular Telecom basketball league unites company teams from all over the region and has been played on grounds across the city for five years. According to the organizers, the league was set up for fun, but it is also great for networking and it often results in positive marketing for companies and their teams taking part.

Samer Sosali of MDS named HPE Country Partner Ambassador of the Year 2020

Samer Sosali of MDS for Computer Systems has been named as an HPE Country Partner Ambassador of the Year 2020 and visited the US for the World Partner Ambassador Summit in February.

Being named as one of the HPE Partner Ambassadors means Samer becomes part of the HPE Ambassador Community for Partner Solution Architects. The Ambassador program for 2020 was first announced in Dec 2019.

The title of Partner Ambassador means a lot professionally to those nominated. “It means that I am selected to represent MDS in providing feedback through this community to HPE Business Units, to help shape roadmap discussions on HPE products and solutions,” said Samer on his return from the US Ambassador Summit.

Samer is based at MDS CS and works within the HPE local office team, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He has worked for MDS since November 11, 2005 – almost 14 Years.

Working for MDS CS and within the Midis Group is a career highpoint, says Samer, and is a fascinating challenge. “MDS CS is one of the top Partners for HPE, and a key Platinum Partner in Saudi. The capability and specialization of the team give us a great advantage in providing full Hybrid-IT solutions, along with deep commitment and really high quality of service.”

MDSap team reward success and talent at Sales Kick-off 2020

MDSap team members from all the key regions the company operates within were present at the 2020 Sales Kick-off at the Midis/MDSap Abu Dhabi office recently.

25 employees from MDSap MENA, Turkey, CEE and Poland met at the Kick-off. There was a review of 2019 activity and training sessions took place about the MDSap solutions portfolio. 2020 strategy and business directions were also explored.

Importantly, their great performance was rewarded for the top achievers, and this was followed by a grand dinner at the Byblos Sur Mer, Abu Dhabi.

Tony Achkar, MDSap Group Managing Director and EVP congratulated the award winners for their efforts.

Nesrin Demirci, General Manager, MDSap Turkey won a 2019 Outstanding Achievement Award. Alongside Nesrin, Irem Selcuk, Sales Director at MDSap Turkey was also blessed with a 2019 Outstanding Achievement Award. Finally, Johnny Beyrouthy, General Manager, Middle East North, MDSap, was also handed an Outstanding Achievement Award for his excellence in 2019.

Nesrin Demirci from MDSap talks about building a career in IT

Midis Group affiliate MDSap strongly believes building a more gender-inclusive and diverse work environment is a key element of success in the digital world. MDSap General Manager Nesrin Demirci took to the stage at Bahcesehir College’s fourth “Ladies In First” event in January 2020 to share her experiences in the sector to encourage young girls to pursue a career in IT

At the college, in a suburb of Istanbul, Nesrin talked about her 20-year career in the IT industry, the challenges she faced and how she overcame these. “The point, of course, is to inspire, especially, young girls to pursue a career in tech so I talked about the opportunities that await them and assured them that there is nothing they can’t overcome.”

In Turkey, only one in ten employees in tech are women, so Nesrin discussed how important it is to increase this ratio. She highlighted that technology has the power to transform the world and this transformation is only meaningful if women and men are equally helping shape it. She also talked about how we should break the “tech=boys” misperception and also discussed maintaining a healthy and productive family/work balance.

After her talk at Bahcesehir College, Nesrin was asked questions about her own career in IT. She was asked what she’d do to build a career in IT, if she was 18 again.

“I would tell myself to keep on following my passion! To do things that I love to do, and keep engaging in activities that would help me to go forward. I’d say, read more, spend time with people that would help improve competencies and most importantly, to believe in myself and never be afraid of making mistakes as long as these mistakes contribute to leadership skills and business acumen.”

Nesrin talked about the challenges she’d faced when starting out in IT as a woman. “Even today the number of women in the IT sector is low, and it was considerably lower back when I first started working in the industry. Having just a few female role models in the industry, my biggest challenge was struggling in a male-dominated world and defying social expectations. But women hold the power that helps equalize the work environment, such as the ability to solve problems, multitasking, graceful touch and kindness… All these, combined with a positive attitude, professionalism and hard work, helped me overcome the challenges I faced and contributed to the overall success of our business.”

Nesrin was keen to set out practical steps to take to ensure more girls study tech or digital subjects and develop careers in the industry. “The first step would be to increase the number of women role-models in tech and have mentorship/internship programs that provide hands-on experience to females to make the sector more approachable and accessible. We need fundamental changes in how we educate our children, getting rid of the bias such as boys=techy toys vs. girls=dolls.”

Homelife is important, too, for all professionals, said Nesrin. “We also need more policies that enable more flexible work/life balance like proper childcare opportunities.”

After completing her university degree at Anadolu University, Department of Business Administration, Nesrin Demirci started her career as a Sales Representative at Mikroset in 1998. Throughout her career in the IT sector, she worked in sales and executive positions at leading companies, including Servus Bilgisayar and Oyak Teknoloji. Nesrin has been with the MDSap family for eight years, four of which she’s been serving as Turkey General Manager. Nesrin is married and has two children, a boy, and a girl.

Mindware host all-day wellbeing event at Company HQ in Dubai

Mindware hosted a wellness day in December organized by the Midis Group at the company HQ in Dubai. Its main purpose was to increase health-care awareness by addressing some of the lesser-talked about subjects from our day-to-day life, such as stress and anxiety issues and how to overcome these successfully.

Mindware colleagues also had the opportunity to undergo a general health check-up with the medical team on site. Among the checks offered were a blood test and GP consultation, a dental check-up, and an awareness session, which was a discussion on stress and work-life balance.

The feedback from the initiative was very positive and almost all employees participated in it. This is the first of many interventions Midis group and Mindware will be doing as part of health awareness and safety and security requirements to everyone working in the company.