Recognized by Forbes as one of the Most Influential Women in the Middle East, Assad is a highly successful business leader with over 20 years’ experience across industries including technology, financial services and customer experience. She has a proven ability to adapt her leadership style in highly complex operating environments, knowing when to lead from the front and when to guide and support the broader team.Prior to joining Cisco, she was the CEO at Raya Contact Center, a business process outsourcing service provider based in Cairo with operations in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, servicing multi-national and Fortune 500 companies. During this time, Assad acquired the knowledge and experience to drive company growth, digital transformation, and regional market development. Following a very successful tenure at Raya Contact Center, Cisco asked her to lead their Operations across Middle East and Africa. Her current role involves strengthening collaborations with governments, customers and partners, to help them accelerate their digitization agendas with Cisco’s portfolio of advanced solutions. Her responsibility will be to drive partnerships with governments and businesses to build the technology skills and ecosystems that contribute to economic growth for emerging markets.