After the silent exit of Bruce Howe from the helm of Microsoft Devices East Africa, formerly Nokia sometime back, Microsoft has filled that void. Bruce Howe moved to Malaysia, still within Microsoft where he is General Manager, Nokia Malaysia Singapore & Brunei. The replacement is a lady sourced from within the company. The new General Manager for Microsoft Mobile Devices Sales East Africa, Mariam Abdullahi was previously head of operator channel for Sub Saharan Africa at Microsoft.
The Nairobi office heads four countries; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, and Mariam will be guiding the team in sales, marketing and retail execution. It has been a wait and see scenario, what move Microsoft was going to make as they consolidate business under the Microsoft brand. Some employees were going to be let go as Microsoft trimmed the duplication of work which came as a result of the merger.
Nokia research was going to be one of the major casualties as the company closed the division in Nairobi and some employees blended in to the mother company. It will be an interesting space to watch as Microsoft harmonizes production and team while at the same time seeping the Microsoft culture into what was formerly Nokia. Of course at the expense of dropping the Nokia culture.
Mariam Abdullahi is a BSc Computer Science graduate from Brunei University, United Kingdom and comes to the position with over 15 years of experience in the ICT sector and has worked in Europe, Asia, US and Africa.
