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Women's Day Supplement
A HANDS-ON APPROACH Amel Gardner, VP and GM, Infor Middle East & Africa speaks about what has driven her on her professional journey
What made you choose technology your professional path? How has this journey been so far in terms of achieving professional success and personal happiness? I started out as a civil engineer. I was drawn to this career path because I’m an execution-focused person: I like to see concrete things happening as a result of executing a plan. I gained my first experience in the technology sector when I became a senior sales engineer for the fibre optics company, Corning, in the United States. Learning about fibre optics from scratch and growing the business in South America, Europe and Asia made me realise that you can learn anything, and should not be intimidated by taking on new challenges. Through this role I also became interested in technology, and particularly Information Technology which I knew would transform the world. I wanted to be part of something that was cool and high-growth, which for me meant the IT industry – and so I made that leap. I joined Dell as international development manager in Texas, and later had the opportunity to move to the UAE, where I gained further experience of leading technology organizations in Middle East and Africa, before taking on my current role with Infor in January 2021.
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CXO DX / MARCH 2022
