23 April 2025, Wed |
12:23 PM
Saif Mashat has taken on a new role as Area Vice President for ServiceNow in the Middle East and Africa, effective April 1, 2025. In addition to continuing his leadership in Saudi Arabia, he will now oversee operations and strategy across the broader region. In a conversation with TECHx Media, he shared his outlook and priorities for the journey ahead.
Congratulations on your appointment as Area Vice President for ServiceNow in the Middle East and Africa. What key priorities will you focus on as you step into this role?
As I step into this role, my key priority will be to build on the strong momentum we’ve already established and scale that success across the broader Middle East and Africa. This means deepening our relationships with customers, delivering tangible business outcomes, and continuing to invest in the incredible local talent and strategic partnerships that fuel our growth.
ServiceNow is uniquely positioned to support transformation across the public sector, private enterprise, and banking industry, three pillars of economic progress in this region. With the Now Platform at the core, we bring an unmatched ability to unify experiences, streamline operations, and accelerate innovation at scale.
Our leadership in generative AI is a game changer. By embedding intelligence natively across our workflows, and by providing businesses with what is essentially an AI control tower, we’re enabling organizations to move faster, operate smarter, and create real competitive advantage.
In the MEA region, our ambition is clear: to be the trusted digital transformation partner for the region’s most forward-thinking institutions.
You bring a wealth of experience from your roles at companies like VMware, IBM, and Microsoft. How will these experiences shape your strategy for ServiceNow in the MEA region?
I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the world’s most respected technology companies, supporting customers across industries and stages of growth on their transformation journeys. These experiences have taught me a fundamental truth: technology alone is not enough. Real impact comes when cutting-edge innovation is delivered with a deep understanding of business priorities, overlaid with local context.
At ServiceNow, this perspective will continue to guide my strategy. I will lead with a customer-first mindset—listening carefully, learning continuously, and ensuring we deliver solutions that don’t just address immediate challenges, but also enable organizations across MEA to transform how they deliver employee and customer experiences.
In a region as diverse and fast-moving as MEA, success demands both global vision and local execution. My focus will be on bridging those worlds, pairing ServiceNow’s industry-leading Now Platform with the unique needs of our local customers, and driving sustained value across every engagement.
ServiceNow’s appointment of local leadership reflects a commitment to regional growth. How do you plan to engage with local customers and stakeholders to ensure ServiceNow’s solutions meet their unique needs?
Having led ServiceNow in Saudi Arabia for the past year and a half, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of being deeply embedded in the region, leading with cultural understanding, trust, and an unwavering commitment to partnership.
As we accelerate our growth across the Middle East and Africa, my approach will remain simple and focused: stay close to our customers and stakeholders, foster open and transparent dialogue, and work collaboratively to co-create solutions that align with their unique priorities and national visions.
We’re not here to offer one-size-fits-all technology. We’re here to build long-term partnerships grounded in shared success and measurable impact. The Now Platform is powerful, but its real value lies in how we apply it, together with our partners and customers, to solve the challenges that matter most and enable them to lead in a rapidly changing world.
In your opinion, what are the most significant digital transformation challenges businesses in MEA face today, and how can ServiceNow help address them?
Across the Middle East and Africa, organizations are under immense pressure to modernize at speed, while contending with fragmented systems, talent shortages, and rapidly evolving customer expectations. These are not small challenges; they strike at the core of operational resilience and future readiness.
What many leaders are seeking is clarity, a clear, executable path to operational excellence and service innovation. And this is precisely where ServiceNow delivers.
The Now Platform serves as a powerful unifying layer, breaking down silos, connecting workflows, and embedding intelligence at every step. By enabling AI-driven automation and end-to-end visibility, we empower organizations to move with agility, scale with confidence, and focus their talent on what matters most.
Looking ahead, what do you hope to achieve in the next 12 months, and how will you measure success in your new role?
The next 12 months will be focused on scaling our impact. This means deepening our presence across key markets in the MEA region, expanding platform adoption across priority industries, and elevating the success stories that demonstrate the transformative power of the Now Platform.
I will be particularly focused on four measures of success:
Ultimately, for me, success in this role means being a catalyst—for our customers, our partners, and our people.
Interview by – Rabab Zehra, Executive Editor at TECHx Media
