Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Websites
Accomplishments
Affiliations
Hobbies
Languages
Timeline
Hi, I’m

GILBERT SAGGIA

Global Executive Leader
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
Grace Hopper
GILBERT SAGGIA

Summary

  • Strategic-thinking individual experienced in turning low-performing organizations into top revenue producers. Offering engaging and pleasant personality with expertise improving customer relationships.
  • Highly organized and detail-oriented Director successfully manages projects, plans productions and leads teams. Experienced in budget management and client engagement.


  • Innovative and experienced individual with expertise in project management and creative problem-solving. Skilled in project coordination, film crew management and innovative solution development. Committed to creating engaging and meaningful content for viewers.

Overview

29

Years of professional experience

15

Countries impacted

21

Startup companies impacted

20

$B + of value contribution over career

Work History

Titans D'Afrique
Nairobi

Executive Managing Partner
12.2018 - Current

Job overview

  • Titans D'Afrique, a management Investment Company
  • Drove strategic improvements to enhance operational and organizational efficiencies and drove investments into company initiatives and or investments by over 50%
  • Oversaw the growth of portfolio companies by 25% quarter on quarter
  • Signed multiple agreements such as Ethiopia Coffee Value Chain Activation with Government of Ethiopia to increase coffee revenue from $800M to $3B, achieved
  • Setup several special purpose vehicles to jointly drive global business with other nation states
  • Led the formation of an Executive Enablement Advisory unit, culminating in signing a global partner agreement with Thunderbird School of Global Management, of Arizona State University USA, for Executive Education programs
  • Saved both Kenya and Ethiopia public a combined estimate of over $250M in contracts though negotiation training under the program "Executive Global Contract Negotiation"

Merchant Connect Corporation
Wilmington, DE

Chairman and Founder
10.2021 - Current

Job overview

  • Micro-SME digital platform built to connect micro-retailers to regional supply chains offering better inventory pricing and financing
  • Spearheaded signing of agreement with major telco provider across Africa for 11 countries to reach over 80M customers
  • Secured early funds to cover business obligations
  • Early version of the platform achieved no1 most downloaded business App in Nigeria
  • Hired and signed agreements for product build within timelines

Edge Cards

Chairman and Co-Founder

Job overview

  • A pre-paid card company in partnership with KCB, East Africa's largest bank
  • Signed partnership with KCB to be an own-brand prepaid card under the bank, focused on digital natives
  • Grew user base partnerships to over 200K
  • Oversaw the building of a diverse team to handle customer reuests, realising decrease in customer complaints by 60%
  • Led investment rounds and negotiated successfully for foreign private capital injection into the firm www.enhancv.com
  • E q q e

Economic Grid
Nairobi

Chief Executive Officer & Founder
08.2019 - Current

Job overview

  • Global publication focused on geo-economic grid between Africa and Asia, 204B$ corridor with China alone)
  • Launched the first economic platform focused on narrative, investment matching and economic public discussions Grid Lecture Series)
  • Oversubscribed GLS lectures
  • Oversaw investment forums of total deal values $180M

Damu

Board Director
07.2010 - Current

Job overview

  • Digital blood management company
  • Developed it to be first digital blood exchange platform in Africa, ensuring both private and public hospitals work as one network of blood units as national strategic asset
  • Contributed to values, goals and strategic vision of organisation and tripled customer base growth to 120 new hospitals signed up within two year of main operation
  • Assisted in leading successful investment rounds into the company, leading to first capital injections from global private funds

SAP

Managing Director

Job overview

  • East Africa
  • Reshaped the strategy to consisteltnly increase pipeline by over 50% quarter on quarter, using an initiative self-envisioned dubbed Pipelne Week
  • Diversified the business from over-reliance on public parastatals, towards a 50 50 split with other Enterprises
  • Increased business coming from out of Kenya by 55%, to mitigate risks of over-reliance on one country in the East Africa territory
  • Improved CXO relationships with 100% CEO touch on all the accounts
  • Negotiated software contracts to ensure a mix of at least 25% services on all non-SMB deals
  • CXO relationship management at top customers,
  • Doubled the total sales volume and recapitalized the company within 3 years
  • Contributed in redefining brand strategy, equities and core positioning and realigned its target group, resulting in top 3 in the key enterprises

ORACLE CORPORATION

Country Managing Director

Job overview

  • As Head of Sales it included people and sales team management to deliver on revenues targets and strategic business objectives, driving doubling of revenue within two years to over $100M
  • Drove CXO relationships with 100% touch on CEOs with the C Quarterly
  • Breakfast initiative targeting the government and business leaders, and drive joint business initiatives
  • Implemented process improvement to shape company culture, optimized procedures for higher efficiency and help company evolve and grow, such as monthly town-hall to create dependable feedback loops
  • Increased team collaboration by 50% by observing each employee's individual strengths and initiated mentoring programs to improve areas of weakness, creating initiatives such as "Walk in my Shoes" programs
  • Increased gender diversity at the management level to 50 50 from no females, by launching staff appraisals on merit and with clear guidelines on management qualities required
  • Increased revenue by over 300% over a two year period, by focusing on value creation for the customer rather than product
  • Increased services revenue by over 500%, by launching an initiative dubbed "Service Attach"
  • Initiated major rebranding of the company including investments into new state of the art office that positioned as consistently top 2 consideration for
  • CxOs in the Enterprise space
  • Doubled the partner program with an increase of 60% in numbers and 80% in revenue contribution, giving the company a healthy mix of margins and risk

CISCO SYSTEMS

Regional (General) Manager

Job overview

  • Increased revenue to over $100M from $20M when joined, a period of 4 years
  • Increased mix of service business by 200%, to a ratio of 40 60, by guiding service provider and public sector enterprises focus on value
  • Improved team productivity by 45%, through constant sales training and constructive performance improvement dialogues www.enhancv.com

SIEMENS N.V Herentals

Sales Solutions Manager

Job overview

  • Siemens COM and Carrier Business
  • Drive Emerging Markets MEA innovation solutions in mobility and career business, and achieved doubled new customer market growth, thus increasing sales by 70%
  • Evangelised for update of mobile and carrier network products that realised 30% in incremental upsells especially in dormant accounts, following introduction of new features or updated specifications
  • As lead solutions manager, supported accounts in North Africa and Middle
  • East that brought deal values over $120M

SIEMENS LIMITED, Siemens Business Services

Business Development Manager, Business Leader

Job overview

  • Siemens IT Subsidiary
  • Generated new business with marketing initiatives and strategic plans, and grew ICT business from zero to $4M in year 1
  • Identified and pursued valuable business opportunities to generate new company revenue and improve bottom line profit, like starting new FSI unit that built country-wide ATM network for Cooperative Bank in Kenya
  • Built a team of engineers and customer support from scratch to support the new business and brand

Cisco

Sales Manager & Client Director
07.1994 - 08.2001

Job overview

  • Nairobi
  • Sales Management responsibility for Service Provider SP business in
  • Emerging
  • Increased telco business to over $60M from $6M within two years
  • Improved productivity per head from $3M to $10M average in 2 years
  • Lead from the front in bringing about a service business ratio reversal, with service being larger than products at 2 1 in telco sector
  • This ensured healthy margins and stickiness
  • Achieved a telco account in each and every country in the territory, a total of 6 from 2 before

SIEMENS ATEA N.V

ICT Telecom Solutions Consultant

Job overview

  • Nairobi / Herentals
  • Telecoms and ICT Support Management Role
  • Network & Software Design and Support work transfer experience; supporting company infrastructure with more than 3,000 users
  • Through own initiative, built the first software driven service ticketing system that improved productivity of attending to client faults by over 200%, and increased customer satisfaction

Education

Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor

Executive Leadership Master Certificate from Leadership
05.2014 - 03.2015

Tulane University, A.B. Freeman School of Business

Master Certificate of Business Administration from Business Administration
01.2004 - 01.2005

University of Nairobi
Nairobi

Bachelor of Science from Science - Medicine & Surgery
08.1994 - 01.2001

Skills

  • Process Improvement
  • Meeting Leadership
  • Stakeholder Relations
  • Public Relations
  • Business Process Modeling
  • Performance Optimization Strategies
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Business Consulting
  • Revenue Growth
  • Profit Growth Strategies
  • Organizational Structure
  • Executive Assessment
  • Operational Efficiency
  • Strategic Planning
  • Defining Company Vision
  • Departmental Coordination
  • Develop Business Structures
  • Results Orientation
  • Systems Thinker
  • Analytical and Critical Thinker
  • Change and Growth Management
  • Corporate Strategy and Development
  • Capital Expenditure Planning
  • Leadership and People Development
  • Balanced Work Ethic

Accomplishments

  • Created dynamic marketing and branding strategy for Oracle Corporation East Africa, including setting up new Africa headquarters in Nairobi, and heavily promoted it, drawing in over $100M in revenue pipeline and increasing growth by 40% within a year.
  • Increased revenue pipeline for SAP East Africa by 320%, by designing and implementing a unique program called "Pipeline Week".
  • Within a year of launching Titans D'Afrique, signed 4 global contracts worth over $50M in value, increasing company valuation by 300%.

Affiliations

  • Kenya National Chamber of Commerce

Hobbies

Golf

Languages

English, Swahili
Native language
English
Proficient
C2
Swahili
Advanced
C1
French
Elementary
A2

Timeline

Chairman and Founder

Merchant Connect Corporation
10.2021 - Current

Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Economic Grid
08.2019 - Current

Executive Managing Partner

Titans D'Afrique
12.2018 - Current

Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Executive Leadership Master Certificate from Leadership
05.2014 - 03.2015

Board Director

Damu
07.2010 - Current

Tulane University, A.B. Freeman School of Business

Master Certificate of Business Administration from Business Administration
01.2004 - 01.2005

University of Nairobi

Bachelor of Science from Science - Medicine & Surgery
08.1994 - 01.2001

Sales Manager & Client Director

Cisco
07.1994 - 08.2001

Chairman and Co-Founder

Edge Cards

Managing Director

SAP

Country Managing Director

ORACLE CORPORATION

Regional (General) Manager

CISCO SYSTEMS

Sales Solutions Manager

SIEMENS N.V Herentals

Business Development Manager, Business Leader

SIEMENS LIMITED, Siemens Business Services

ICT Telecom Solutions Consultant

SIEMENS ATEA N.V
GILBERT SAGGIAGlobal Executive Leader