Unplugged with iSolution: How A Failed Restaurant, Bold Pivots, And Tenacity Built A Regional Leader

Open an app to pay a bill and everything just works until it doesn’t. That invisible reliability is the world Rami Kishli builds, from stitching APIs to orchestrating data so services actually deliver. We sit down with Rami to chart a candid, energetic arc: a failed restaurant that taught differentiation, a leap from Lebanon to Kuwait with no job but a plan, and a startup called HITS that sprinted from a $2,000 first order to a successful exit. He then navigated Exact’s structure, sold business outcomes at Cisco, and mentored rising talent at SAP, before taking the riskiest bet of all leading Software AG’s Middle East business when the brand was struggling.

What follows is a decade-long turnaround built on cause, clarity, and relentless execution. Then comes the twist: IBM’s acquisition of WebMethods and StreamSets. Rami shares the shock, the 48-hour reset, and the nuts and bolts of leading people through an emotionally charged change how staying close, telling the truth, and reframing loss unlock real momentum. We dig into the plumbing behind modern life: how integration lets AI agents act, why enterprise data is the new fuel, and what breaks when that layer is weak. He explains WebMethods and StreamSets in plain language that anyone can grasp.

Rami also tackles the big question on everyone’s mind: Will AI take jobs? His answer is grounded and actionable roles will transform, new ones will appear, and the safest hedge is mastering critical thinking, creativity, and social skills. We touch on Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 as a living blueprint for transformation at national scale, and we explore how racing 5Ks under 17 minutes trains the same mental muscles leaders need at work: pace, focus, and edge without collapse.

If you care about the future of integration, AI, and practical leadership, this conversation brings the strategy and the story. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with your favorite takeaway we read every one.

Transcript

Veteran Leader’s Origin Story

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yalla? A true veteran of the Middle East technology landscape with a career that spans over three decades building and transforming businesses. His journey is a masterclass regional growth from his early days at Exact Software and Cisco to leading county manager for SIP in Kuwait. That experience culminated in nearly a decade of leadership at Software AG, where he was senior vice president for the Middle East and Turkey. When he's not navigating the future of data, he's an avid runner. He says this helps him stay sharp and focused. We are thrilled to welcome director of for web methods and stream sets for IBM, Rami Kishli. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being with us. Rami, you've been through the biggest names locally and internationally. Can you run us through this?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, so uh the one thing that I don't like uh talking about my career is I kind of disclose my age when talking about my career, but uh it's okay. Uh I started in Lebanon. I graduated in a very technical field, computer and communications uh engineering, Lebanon, where I come from. And um it was a very technical field of study as you can imagine, but I've always had this commercial inclination in me. And I've had uh a couple of not so successful attempts at being an entrepreneur before before uh entering uh uh the the actual professional world. Um different industries. I had a restaurant that was a total bomb with a couple of friends in Lebanon, and um actually there was a learning experience out of it is that um if you want to do something you really need to know why you would be successful, what's your differentiation? Okay, and the when we did that uh restaurant, me and a couple of uh colleagues at school at the time, we were just imitating a very successful uh restaurant in the neighborhood. So we just did a little cut and paste of that, made it a little bit nicer, cleaner, more shiny, and disaster. So that was the the first uh learning experience uh pre-uh career actually. But I started my official career after uh the the failed attempts. I started um uh uh just after college in 1994. Lebanon was uh a very different place at the time, but also similar in many things. Uh and uh uh I started with a technical role because I thought this is where I should start. So I started a technical role in a company, a Lebanese company that was specialized in the printing industry, but from a technology perspective. So the software, the machinery, everything that goes uh around in the printing industry. I remember I I used to uh go to these customers with this very large tool bag with with uh with so many different tools and uh work on these massive machines, set up their software and uh do the wirings of them. And I I'll tell you one thing else I remember I was not at all good at this. But what I found out is that the customers also, although I did not do a good technical job, they trusted me because I started having discussions with them on where they can take this, what's the next step they can do, how they can evolve their business. So we started having business discussions uh after putting up the fire that happened in the machine, and those discussions led somewhere. So uh I got a lot of advice at the time. I was I was a little bit adamant. No, I started computer engineering. I should be a technical person at least for the 45 years of my career, then we'll see how that goes. But I don't think I would have lasted five years. So uh I immediately six months down the line in this job, um the the um the owners of the company, the Lebanese company I used to work for,

From Technical Misfit To Sales Mind

SPEAKER_00 4:30

also they they uh were paying a lot of damages on the machines that I was uh uh ruining. So uh they advised me, and I um decided that was good advice to actually shift to a commercial role. And that was the probably the uh beginning of my commercial career, which led to where I am today, to my uh uh to my 30 plus years in business as a uh business, as a seller, as a sales manager, and as a eventually a uh leader. So that was uh where I started, and um one year down the line after uh that first job uh I wanted really to explore something other than Lebanon, and um it was tough at the time, as uh all of us would remember. If uh and so I had family in Kuwait, so I decided to take a flight, no job, just taking job. I did not have a job at the time. I had family, so I had a place to stay, and I um took the short flight uh to Kuwait and started looking for jobs um in Kuwait. Eventually, um my my next gig was at something similar to what I did in Lebanon, but in a purely commercial uh position. And the learning here uh the pattern you'll see is that in in every step of my career, everything I did, there was something of a lesson learned, or of something of a of that developed me as an individual, as a professional uh in the world. And uh in that phase, I learned a lot from my manager at the time. He uh he was probably the most aggressive salesman. He's a manager, he was running the GM of the company, but he was also the best salesman I have ever seen. He his intensity in selling is something that I don't think I've seen a repeat of until today. So I've learned a lot from that uh uh aspect: the intensity, how to deal with difficult situations with customers, how to close a deal. But I also learned a lot of what not to do because he was uh a he he was the one-man show. It was a company of 50 people, and he was doing everything. He could not manage to delegate anything to anyone. Uh so the learning was on both sides of the uh coin here. And then after five years in in this uh job, uh learning a lot, discovering a lot, uh winning a lot, and losing a lot, as uh you would do in a sales profession, uh I decided to do something that was a major leap of faith, which was start my own company. And um I I did that with the um uh uh with partnering with a an uncle of mine who was living in Kuwait and who happens to be a Kuwaiti. So we set up this company. It was in uh the uh 90s, so it was still in the early days of the internet, okay, and everybody was building websites that do different uh things. So we called the company the family name, my my mom's family name and my uncle's uh family name was Hadid. So we called it Hits H-I-T-S. Oh no. Can you guess the HITS HIT Hadid? Yeah, because you hit it stands for something. That's is it the Lebanese proverb? No, no, it was Hadid Internet Technology Services. Acronym. I was so proud of this name, that's why I'm uh uh I'm I'm uh trying to see if you figure it out. So we called it HIDS, Hadid Internet Technology Services. Just the two of us at the beginning started from the apartment I was living in. So a classic startup story.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Okay, what were the services or the products?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Um so two things basically web design. Okay, you laugh, but this was really a big thing at the time. It was still new, yeah. It was still new, and especially websites that do not just display information, that do something interactive. So uh, for example, if you uh go to a bank, you will find a loan calculator. That was like almost science fiction at the time. That was like something really big. And we developed this kind of uh interactive dynamic websites uh uh using the technologies that were uh popular at the time, Java, still popular actually, uh until today's Java, JavaScript, ASP.NET. And uh the other thing we did is we developed our own IP for HR. So we developed a kind of a mini HR package uh on our own, and um we we used to customize it and sell it to uh customers. So that was my uh startup, and here uh it's a completely different life because the first few months and years of a startup, the top of mind is always how am I going to manage to pay salaries at the end of the month? Exactly. And I mean we started two of us, but then we hired employee number one, employee number two, uh still in touch with them until today. Nice, and uh so it's a it's so much excitement and so much fun, but it provides a pressure. I mean, we talk a lot about pressure in the corporate life, but the pressure of actually making it through the months is quite a different flavor, it's much harder, different flavor. I don't know if it's harder or um less hard, but it is it is so different. So it's it's a different flavor of uh pressure than corporate uh pressure as we uh

The Kuwait Leap And Sales Intensity

SPEAKER_00 10:40

as we know it. And uh I I remember this was like 20 years ago, 20, 20, if I'm doing the math right, 20 plus years ago, and I remember the first PO we got for hits, and to get the PO we actually had to move from my apartment to an actual office because the company would not give us a PO without an actual address. So we needed to within 48 hours or we would lose the order. Move everything. Find an office, furnish an office, do an office to register an office. So we uh we we did that in record uh time, um not as polished as this uh place here, but uh something that you could live by, and we got our first PO and it was a major bank in Kuwait, a website for I I I I remember it was called Al-Mustaqbal because it was for the youth. Okay, and we the the the price tag on a P PO was around $2,000, but we celebrated that me and my uncle like a million dollars. It was like we we made it. It was the feeling of that we made it, we're there, we can retire now for $2,000. Uh and um we uh we came we grow, we we grew after this first PO. So it was not the first and last. So we grew, the company became successful, and a few years down the line we actually uh needed to grow some more, so we sold part of the company and uh we went on a tour selling it to external investors that was super fun and super insightful for me as well. Going uh uh building a prospective for the company, talking about, and this is uh uh something that was also uh uh new for me because in when you talk to investors, you don't talk about what you did, you talk about what could happen in the future, and you sell the future. And we we I've always uh had the opportunity to sell the past or a product, but never the future. So building a prospectus and going to institutional investors and uh pitching the company was this uh this part of my life, and I was in the late, mid to late 20s, so uh really something that was an amazing experience. And eventually we sold part of the company uh and in uh five years, again five years. I don't know why I have the secret number of five years. It uh it kind of recurs in in my career uh and five years later we actually um sold the company to another uh private investment firm that came and bought the whole thing, and um uh we we had a nice exit out of that company. I think it is still operating today, but under a different uh holding group, a different brand, and they don't do websites, of course, and then websites are done with the press of a button now. Uh but uh yeah, that was uh the my stint at being an entrepreneur, and it's something that I would not trade for anything. Um and then I entered the corporate life after this step. I entered the corporate life uh by uh I was hired by a company, a Dutch company that is specialized in software called Exact Software, and I rank weight uh for exact software, and it was my first uh time at really being in a corporate environment. The new thing here was structure, was organization, was process, was things that you do not get when you're an entrepreneur, or you you don't get when you are uh ruining uh machines in Lebanon, you don't get the process side.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

This is why uh I wanted to ask you you had a successful business and you had a nice exit. How did you decide to actually switch and move to corporate? Because someone else would think I'm gonna run this another time, I'm gonna invest another time, I'm gonna do something else. How did you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Uh that's something I I actually thought about. So you you it's not strange that you asked me this question. And I was debating with myself and with close friends and confidants: do I do this again? Do I do the entrepreneurial thing again? Or do I enter the corporate life? And there was a lot of pros and cons on both sides. There was a a lot of uh um things that were attractive here and there. But as I was debating, exact came knocking, and uh uh the the hiring manager at the time, he's still a very good friend until today, uh he charmed me basically. He charmed me into entering the corporate world, he gave me all the uh reasons and uh it worked out well, I have to say. And uh one thing I have uh kind of gone through uh and learned through my career is not every decision one makes in retrospect is the hundred percent right decision. And in hindsight, if you look back, there will be things that you think are right and things that uh you you you have decided on that were not spot on, probably. But um what I've learned and after my early years, because I used to eat myself up when I think I made the wrong decision, is that you make decisions based on the information you have at the time and you need to make that decision. And hindsight

Founding HITS And Scrappy Wins

SPEAKER_00 16:40

is always perfect. And you and the one thing that one should not do, in my opinion, is not have regrets, because the only thing regrets do is eat you up inside, and that is super counterproductive, and I'd rather focus on what I've learned, as you've seen. I've learned from every step I've taken, I've learned something that shapes me, and that is for me what's what's important, but no regrets, including joining the corporate world, which uh which happened with exact software. And I spent guess how many years in exact software? Five years. Five years in exact software, uh shifted actually between running Kuwait and uh running the uh region, uh along with uh uh Nizar who used to run the region and the gentleman who hired me into Exact. And uh learning the corporate world was tough at first because I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and entrepreneurs usually do not like rigidity, do not like structure. And uh so it's it's it's kind of a an inner transformation one needs to uh go through. And that's what uh I did in exactly and I embraced uh the uh the corporate life uh as it is with what's good and what's not good. But the good thing about corporate life uh uh if you ask me is that uh yes, there is a process, yes, in some cases it's rigid, but uh you you've got uh a lot of tools to use, while when you're an entrepreneur it is basically all on you, and it's you have to build everything, and there there are uh the it's fun, but it's not second, uh it's not always um smooth sailing. Uh so five years in exact uh software and uh super successful growth, so we really uh created a market for exact software which was not there. And um eventually I got a call that I couldn't say to. I was happy in exact software, but the call from Cisco was very difficult to uh say no to at least not have a discussion. And a discussion led to another discussion, and another discussion led me to uh join Cisco. And uh Cisco was quite different for me because uh also I I was um always selling business even from the days of HIITs, even from the days of the printing press, I was always having uh business discussions. Cisco was the first uh uh place where I had to send sell uh technical stuff, uh uh routers, switches, actual products, yeah. Yes, actual products, but but the the the pitch was pure technical. Quite technical, quite technical. And if you if you have noticed the that's not really uh my forty. I I I I like taking technical topics that are very complex. And elevating them. Elevating them and making them relevant to the business, simplifying them rather than complicating them and making relevant making them relevant to a strategy or a business. So um Cisco was different in that sense, uh, but Cisco was a great company, it is uh it is uh so customer-centric and so channel centric, uh going back in memory. And it was also the golden age of networking and uh so Cisco sold on the name alone a lot uh at the time. So uh one story I remember from uh the Cisco days is that uh uh we sold uh a very large deal to a customer in Kuwait, and uh my manager was visiting to Kuwait at the time, and we were going to meet the customer, and my manager asked me uh and I architected the whole deal, so so uh closed it, and he asked me, So uh uh before we reached there, can you give me an idea of what we sold them? And I said, I really don't know. And he said, You sold a X million dollar deal without knowing what you sold them, you must be either really good or or something else, and uh but that's that's that was life at Cisco at the time. You uh I I actually left Cisco after three years, very successful three years. I still until today do not know the difference between a router and switch, but in Cisco that at the time, yeah. And um Cisco after Cisco what followed was SAP. How many years did you spend at Cisco? Three years, not five. You broke the rule. Yeah, yeah, I I I broke the rule there. Uh so I I spent three years uh in in Cisco and uh joined SAP. I was running Kuwait for SAP another three years, so um uh not not five anymore.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

I have to stop you here because I heard a story about your days at SAP Kuwait, something related to an intern you took to uh mentor him, etc.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Okay, uh I remember that story, but I'll have to check with you off the air how you got hold of that story. Uh yeah, so it's a little bit uh funny story, but also uh there

Scaling, First PO, And Partial Exit

SPEAKER_00 22:30

there is uh some meaning in it. So we we had this intern who was a fantastic sales guy when I interviewed him. He had this uh amazing sales affinity, but he was rough around the edges. So I decided to hire him as an intern doing sales, but to give him easy tasks, easy tasks, easy in controlled environments. So one of the things I did with him after he um developed uh and crossed the first three months is I gave an account, and the account, the CIO of that account, that customer, was a very good friend of mine, a super close friend of mine, but the gentleman did not know that. So the the intern was not told this piece of information because I wanted him to feel the heat of working with the customer and I wanted to get feedback on how he's handling the heat. And this went on uh for a while, getting good feedback on him, how he's engaging, and actually a deal developed at that customer, and everything was going great until we as a company needed to get that deal closed, and the intern was struggling to get the deal uh closed, and the CIO, who was my friend, who who I um I actually tasked him with uh working with this uh intern, was delaying the deal and giving uh the gentleman some stories of a hard time and we might look at competition. So I asked the guy to set me up with the CIO and let's go meet him and try to close the deal. Went there with the CIO uh met the CIO and the CIO was uh doing an act. Ah no, we cannot place the deal. So I got my patients ran out at one point in time in the meeting, and I said, You need to place this order by the time we reach the office. We're leaving now. By the time we reach the office, you place this order, or Monday morning you're answering to me. You understand that? And we left. And the intern was a little bit surprised, but um well, let's see. He said, but will they place the order? I said, We'll you'll see. We got to the office, the order was waiting at uh at the office for us, um and life was great. Until a few months down the line, I got a very angry call from a very senior customer who is telling me you you need to make sure that this guy from your company does not step foot in our offices again. He said, Tell me what happened, and he explained to me. And apparently, the gentleman told the guy, you place the order or Monday morning, you'll answer to me. He understood this thing I did as a closing technique, and uh that was not the greatest of end things because the customer was really upset. Uh and uh you can't blame the guy because he he thought this was an actually this this is a coaching experience for him. So that that's the story you heard. I still don't know how you got it, but uh um yeah, it's a it's a funny story.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

It's a very funny story.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Okay, so this is this is SAP, correct? This is SAP. I was running Kuwait and Bahrain for SAP, and um um in SAP I had spent around 20 years in Kuwait, and I was actually considering at the time to make a move beyond Kuwait to do a region role. Okay, and um I had opportunities within SAP to do so, but um uh some time down the line uh I was contacted by Software AG, and Software AG offered me a region role to run their business in the Middle East uh and to move over to uh to the UAE to Dubai uh for that role. And uh a lot of people advised me against it because at the time software AG was not doing well at all in in the region. They were uh they they had basically very little presence in the region, um customer issues, uh retention issues. So the company was not in a good place, and I'm talking in 2013. And uh leaving SCP and joining uh software AG at the time, both Germans, but it looked from the outside as a very rash decision, and a lot of people advised me against it, especially as it uh it included a move for me and my family from one country to another. But uh there was a lot of upside to the move. And uh when when people asked me why what was your decision criteria, and I told them uh software AG was not in a good place, which means the only way is up to the case. Exactly.

Full Exit And Corporate Transition

SPEAKER_00 27:50

So you have uh margin to to do some actual positive things there. Exactly. So um I took the jump, I uh moved uh my family uh from Kuwait to uh UAE. Yeah, my both my sons were actually born in Kuwait, so uh they the all they've known was Kuwait until that time. They were young, so um and uh it was easier because they were young uh at the time. So we made the move in 2014 and I joined software AG and um not three years, not five years, but ten years in software AG. It's an incredible journey in software AG because uh we started with very little we uh uh ended up being the leader in the space in a few years, flagship accounts everywhere. Um you you would see software AG in every major account in the in uh the region. So it was a really really uh successful era for everyone who was involved. The team was wonderful. Uh we we had uh amazing sense of belonging. We it it's like there was a cause. So we were working not just to work for uh a company, but we we we were we we had a cause, we had a reason of why we're waking up every morning and do what we do, and this reason was to really make a difference. And everybody was subscribed from the secretary to the person who works in the canteen to every seller to every technical person, everybody was subscribed, everybody believed we could make a difference, everybody be believed we could create a unique time for all of us, and we did, and that was uh um a ten year ten year story and uh um a few years, a few difficult years at the beginning, but then once the wheels started turning, it uh just kept accelerating and accelerating. rating and um yeah that's uh the last stop and it in a in a manner of speaking i'm still still I'm still there today today in a in a in a different context with a different hat but it is sort of sort of the same job as as you mentioned you said the only way is up correct so IBM today acquired software AG and I think this shows the growth and the success you actually added with the team to software AG can you tell us how the acquisition happened and what was the actual decision that moved IBM to actually acquire software AG in a fast I think the timeline wasn't that big as well correct um the timeline at least from the outside was quite quite fast um the first time I heard of the acquisition was actually in December 2023 and I happened to be in a customer meeting and my phone was ringing off the hook and I usually when that happens you would realize either something is really wrong or something new happened or people wanted to tell you something and really people wanted to tell me that this acquisition was public. I didn't know until that moment and uh at that time it was when I first heard it it was a shock because nobody expected it at that time it it it was not uh something that you people were seeing in the horizons. You know some acquisitions are you can see it comes so straightforward you see them coming are so uh uh guessable this was not one of them so uh um myself included being on the inside uh as well so um yeah the the first was shock and the uh the second uh was uh bittersweet a bittersweet type of moment because um software ed for 10 years felt more than a company and I kind of gave you a little bit of why was that it was it was a special period for everybody who uh was part of this journey and um initially the the first feelings that were processed here not just by me uh by uh most of the people who um who were part of this were the feeling that we've lost this baby and in times of change people actually and I've learned that in this uh in this period is that people tend to focus on something that has been lost even if the something that has been gained is a much bigger much bigger gain and fixating on something that you have lost and not something uh intrinsic it's it's it's a it's an idea

Exact’s Structure And Growth

SPEAKER_00 33:20

it's an idea that was lost here it's it's a sentimental belonging to a period that ends and periods do end uh and um it took me 48 hours to re-um adjust and really focus on the future and I after 44 uh 48 hours I realized how how bright this future is and actually I had a discussion uh with uh with my boss and and um uh in software G at the time and he was commenting that um we need to look forward we he was telling me uh the the pep talk uh around uh this next uh step and I did tell him at the time I remember that clearly we're in a call uh because he looked at me and he he he was saying you look a little bit not your usual self I said yeah I and that that's me I need 24 to 48 hours to look at the past and after this period of reminiscing I'll move forward I move forward and 48 hours later uh I was back and uh started uh understanding started rationalizing and understood how important this is for us individually for IBM for the market at large for our customers this was a a this is a major may was a major and still is a major milestone I think for this technology which we call integration and which we this technology which is basically the foundation of so many things that we do and it's it's one of those technologies that is so good that it is invisible you don't see it. If you do anything in your normal life which makes your life easier and better probably my bet is somewhere in there is an integration that is making it realizable for you. And this this partnership or this acquisition by IBM who was already a leader in the space and the acquisition of the other leader in the space I think it created a completely different game in the world of integration and for us to get the opportunity and here comes the part where you don't look back you look forward to have an opportunity to be part of this especially in a world today that is being shaped by AI and cloud and this so many technology transitions that are not just critical to customers critical to humanity at large to be part of that journey that transition is I think a privilege and and that's my uh thinking around uh the the uh the acquisition of web methods and stream sets by um IBM okay we're gonna talk more technology and technical in a bit but I just want to ask a specific question on the acquisition so your manager or your boss the then has Pep talked you and you discussed this but how did you lead the team through an acquisition like this uh yeah so the the I was telling you about the reminiscing about the past and the fact that I needed 48 hours um many of our team members needed more than 48 hours and I'm thinking of a few right right now as we speak so it was actually a case study in change management it if you want to write a book about change management an acquisition is the right place to start because uh it's it's so it's such an emotionally charged time when uh people move from one organization to another not by choice because an acquisition you can move in your career and I've uh taken you through the choices

Cisco Years And Technical Pitching

SPEAKER_00 38:00

I've made to move in an acquisition it even if it's the better thing for you ultimately you do not move by choice you you you you move because some someone else made a choice and it's a really right choice and it's a really rational choice but someone made that choice and then you can affect you and you join the bandwagon that's the first emotional baggage people struggle to deal with and uh it takes time to adjust okay you you you did not make the choice but why don't you think about what that means to you rather than just sticking to the notion that you did not make the choice and that's what a uh a lot of my team members uh struggled and the one thing that really um helped us through this is that we were a very close team so we were a team that uh went through a lot together through a lot of ups and downs together in the past uh 10 years not all uh happened to be there for the 10 years but we were a closely knit team and uh when we did the transition we were always together we were always in communication we were always discussing uh everything and I think that helped us a lot because I can imagine if we if everybody was somewhere else it would have been uh much much more difficult so um looking back and and uh we were just talking before we went on air uh uh today is my one year official anniversary of uh of uh joining IBM so it's uh it's kind of a uh interesting moment to to do this uh recording today of all days um looking back I think it was as it was very very smooth it was uh very uh professionally done it was a complex because I am did not acquire software G it acquired a business unit a part of software G a couple a product products out of software G so there is a lot of complexity involved with that but uh in in in uh if I look back at the past year it took us a few weeks to feel settled down it took us a few weeks to feel part of IBM which is a very large organization compared to a company like Software AG so you would imagine that it takes a lot of time to feel at home I don't think it took us at all a a long time we were welcome from day one we f we felt this uh um uh uh welcoming approach uh to us we were uh uh we were embraced we we immediately became part of the uh family of IBM and uh we became IBMers so um here we are one year later Rami did you cut people loose through the acquisition no there we there were people who did not want to who did not want to join but no we did not the it was not that kind of acquisition there are people who uh um elected not to join the team that uh uh uh joined us in the end in IBM uh and there were people who remained in software AG because software edge did not disappear so there there had to be people who stayed so uh software ed as an organization remained with its people so not not the uh I think software edge at the time of acquisition was uh 4000 plus people less than 2000 joined IBM as globally I'm saying so it was that kind of acquisition so uh the the people who joined became IBM and nobody was let go out of these people so Rami we're gonna run through a segment called 15 rapid fire questions some of them are yes or no some of them are either or short answers the first answers that actually come to your mind ready do you have the do you have a choice of not answering any no okay some of these are quite easy for someone as experienced as is as experienced as you and some of them are a bit tricky. Okay okay have you ever taken a major career risk without any safety net absolutely should the company always pay for a business class upgrade on long flights no I don't think so do you believe a leader should be a specialist or a generalist I think a leader should be much more than both of those a leader is so many things and maybe we can talk about that separately but I think uh it's a big topic leadership is failure the best teacher in business one of the best are you an early adopter of technology in a geek way yes in a geek way I um explore new technologies as gadgets I don't necessarily uh get them too much into my life but I like exploring and learning about these new things.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Okay is it easier to manage a team in person than remotely for sure 100% I I agree I agree on this. Do you believe the best ideas are spontaneous or meticulously planned?

SPEAKER_00 43:55

I would like to say spontaneous but

SAP, Mentoring, And A Sales Lesson

SPEAKER_00 44:00

I also think it's a combination some I don't think idea ideation is restricted to this criteria. It can be a great idea that's spontaneous but it's a it could be a great idea that was the result of a a process a planning a discussion a brainstorming so I would not attach it to any of those okay is it possible to have too much data oh yeah yeah painful not just possible true tabul or fatus tabul is it harder to fire someone or be fired I think to fire someone is harder the only thing I would add here is not to make it personal. Do you check your work email on weekends I look at my phone what I do is if it's something that is critical I would know from the email and I try to avoid it as much as possible unless it is quarter end.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

That's important. Should every CEO have a strong social media presence? Yeah I think so is a handshake still more important than a digital contract I'm old fashioned in this way but yes. Is it harder to manage a budget or manage people? Manage people because budgets don't have emotions do you believe you have a good work-life balance to an extent it is it gets disrupted every now and then but to an extent yes perfect those were the 15 rapid fire questions and I think you've answered successfully we're gonna move a bit to the IT market and the technology uh landscape in the region so I need you to break down what web methods and stream sets do in simple terms so the people can actually know what we're discussing.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

So my son actually asked me what do you do and um I explained my role but he said what are the things that you guys sell and the best way I explained it to him is I opened a phone the the um the smartphone I opened an app that we use regularly and I use the app and I said what happens underneath is what I do and that's the products that we sell and the he said so you design apps and I said no we don't design the app what we do is and I chose this world deliberately we do the plumbing that makes what you want to do with the app possible if you want to pay money on the app there is plumbing underneath if you want to do a service that you regularly use in Dubai there is connections underneath and these connections are necessary because every organization uses its own applications, its own data and there has to be this layer so that you build services on top and you as a consumer use services. That's the best way I could explain it to my son and that's the best way I can explain it for anyone because that's exactly what it is now my son thinks I go and lay down pipes in the city of Dubai but that's that's uh another story but yeah integration is the invisible technology it is it is so critical especially in an age where AI is becoming increasingly every day more and more in the fabric of our lives why is it more important today? Because um think think of AI AI needs a lot of data a lot of enterprise data it is trained very well on public data but it is not trained at all on enterprise data and that is integration think of agents we we talk a lot about AI agents that do something for you that book an Uber or prepare I an itinerary for you these agents need APIs needs integration needs orchestration so that they do the tasks that we need them to do. So that's the the how I would put integration in words so at face value it might not appear to be the most exciting technology but I think this is what technologies that are under the hood and they they they they don't get that reputation excitement behind them.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

They're not marketed enough but they're that important.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

But they do the things without them the foundational technologies integration is one of them without them isn't this nothing works and I I I actually can say that statement factually without integration nothing works.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Do you think AI is taking jobs away or is it making it more efficient?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

AI and jobs so uh one of the things uh um I do I'm gonna answer this question but I want to start with a segue uh so uh I do a lot of mentoring for students typically students in their last uh few years before graduating so I work with universities with even schools sometimes and I do sessions for students we have discussions we do one-on-one mentorship and one-to-many mentorship sessions I do this as a personal thing I do it because I enjoy it I learn from it I learn a

Taking Over Software AG In The Region

SPEAKER_00 50:00

lot from the students and I hope I give something back to uh these students and the topic of AI and jobs is there every time it's the question I get the most and I get it with the the way it's asked is with genuine concern about the future because um I'll give you an example of how this question is asked today we are studying for and preparing ourselves and thinking of I'm studying this because I want to do a job in the future and I'm not even sure if that job when I enter the job market will be there. What are we doing? Are we doing the right thing and that's such a complicated question and um and I think that is true and that's the answer to your question. Yes jobs will be lost and jobs will be created on both sides. So that jobs for sure jobs it's not just in the future we are we are already seeing certain jobs being lost not to the extent uh in the future when I say lost it's not like people will be jobless but they'll have another they will they'll shift yeah but guess what this has happened in so many other technology uh transitions I don't think as acutely as with AI uh but it has happened so many times and we've adjusted to the new jobs to the um to to uh so three things I think will personally prepare us not not us but I'm talking about the new generation it's a bit too late for you and me but uh for for for for university for uh students and that's what I answer them when when they ask me what do we do now and I say really focus on th three things critical thinking master difficult to master but at least really embrace the art and science of critical thinking second of all creativity work on becoming resourceful and creative and not creative in the artistic sense of the word but creative in the business or whatever field you're into creativity is something else and the social ties the social interactions that make us who we are and these things at least until now I don't think AI will take over these things and if we arm ourselves as individuals with with with these roots with the this is what will equip us in an era where there is absolutely no doubt about jobs being I don't like the word lost I would not use the word lost being transformed jobs being transitioned to something else and I think that's what we will increasingly witness but jobs that were not at all on our minds and I don't think we can imagine them today will be created and uh I don't think the a podcast host job was there 10-15 years ago true right and it's it's one of the that's my side job that's your side job eventually to become your primary job but uh let's see but but you know some of the uh podcasts host globally um are some of the most influential figures as well not just jobs uh a very classic example is a professional youtuber or tick tocker these jobs were not there true ten years ago the uh or even less and the new jobs will be created along the same lines yeah so what are your thoughts on leveraging AI and what Saudi Arabia is doing with the 2030 vision that it has so I think the 2030 vision I've actually read the document so many times and I think it's such an inspiring document it's uh such an articulate detailed vision of a national transformation at all levels at all pillars uh it's it's a uh it's worth reading and it's worth studying and it's worth definitely for sure it's worth uh uh embracing and uh the the other thing that I feel lucky to witness is as part of my job ever since the the um uh uh vision document was uh announced I get to feel it because I I can see things happening actually on the exactly you can see the uh you you can see the transformation in action every day if you happen to do anything in this uh nation in this proud nation in this ambitious nation you will get a feel of the transformative action every minute every hour and um that is remarkable I don't think um this is happened uh this has happened at this scale anywhere else in the world true true so I don't have much time left I have a couple of questions to discuss with you and it's gonna be on the personal side okay so I got to know you're a runner you like to run you do marathons you're a professional runner correct a couple of corrections uh first of all I'm a runner and a medium to short distance runner so I don't do long distance but I do them in a fast mode okay so I'm a uh race runner what you call a race runner professional I don't make money out of running but uh it's a hobby it's a serious hobby and I compete and I come do a lot of competitions races uh uh probably around six months in the year I do maybe 10-15 uh races a year I do other sports as well but running is my primary sports I I do a lot of pedal tennis I do a lot of uh cycling but running is my is the main first love does it help you stay sharp so running in the mode I explained which is the uh racing running is a huge

Ten Years Building A Market Leader

SPEAKER_00 57:00

physical but more importantly mental exercise because when you're running and I I said short to medium distances primarily 5k five kilometers or 10 kilometers when you're running five kilometers for me yeah but that's uh by any other definition that uh that is a short uh to medium distance but running at pace and my my record uh for the 5k is just below the 17 minute mark so it's really fast it is really a mental exercise of knowing when you where your edge is and all you're doing while running is trying to figure out if I run a little bit faster I will crash because you're not gonna be able to breathe but if I run a little bit slower I'm not gonna do my time I'm not gonna win the race and that mental negotiation is happening for the entirety of the time that you are running and it's kind of trying to find the edge as close as possible to the edge without crossing it. Exactly and um that um mental exercise of course gives a different perspective so after even a training session it uh I I would argue and it's just a feeling of mine is that if I don't do this intense exercise in the morning I lose a bit my mental productivity during the day. I feel that it might be a bit of an illusion but it might be true as well. It might be true as well yeah yeah but uh that's why I really make it a point to do at least some exercise every single uh day I only miss it in um force majeure uh circumstances so but otherwise I I'm there doing a run doing a pedal match doing a a uh a cycling session so there must be something every day for me so my last uh talking point is talk to me a bit about your work life balance do you get to see and sit with your family tell me more about this yeah so um I found a system and I think it's important to find a system to manage and this system differs in my opinion from one person to another and that system needs to balance between being highly productive at what we do and our work needs time and what we do needs a major investment in hours uh in mental capacity. But also give um give time for other interests than work, primarily family, sports, hobbies, you name it. And I think one common pitfall is in that that's a pitfall for someone who you would term a workaholic who only works. And that pitfall is that I would think and argue that an individual who does that is probably less productive at work than the individual who tries to find that system. I found my system years ago because I needed to, and I think it works. I uh I spend time with the family, uh of course, I um I do a lot of sporting activities, I do a lot of reading, I'm um I have to read something every single day, and um I pursue other interests, and I'm also traveling a lot, doing a lot of uh uh things that I enjoy at work as well. Uh so that balance for me is there. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Rami, it was a pleasure having you with us. It was an amazing conversation. I would have loved to take more time with it, but I think we're gonna see you uh in the next one because you have a lot of things to say as well. So thank you a lot for being here. I hope you enjoyed it. I did, thank you very much for having me. Thank you, Rami.