Basheer Cassim
French, 39, Vice-President International Business at Proxim Wireless, London Business School MBA. Enthusiast about taking innovations to markets. Can invest time, money and network of contacts to take a business to the highest levels
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Work status: | Employed Full-Time |
| Industries: | Cleantech, Computing, Financial, Information Technology, Internet, Media, Mobile, Nanotech |
| Skills: | Business, English, Entrepreneurship, Event planning, French, Guerrilla marketing, Investment, Languages, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Negotiation, Public Relations, Public speaking, Recruitment, Retail, Sales, Viral marketing |
| Location: | London |
| Groups: | CUE, CUTEC, IDEAS EMPOWERED, Ideas Empowered, London Business School Entrepreneurship Club |
| Interested in: | Brainstorming, Finding business partners, Finding cofounders, Finding experts, Finding team mates, Investing in projects, Meeting new people, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Raising money, Recruiting for my startup, Supporting my investments |
| Tags: | broadband, complexity, entrepreneur, investor, London, managing director, marketing, Networking, paris, Sales, security, seed financing, software, surveillance, telecom, wifi, wimax, wireless |
| Schools: | London Business School, Université Paris-Dauphine (Paris IX), University of London - London Business School |
FULL BIO
- Proven experience of taking a fast growth business to the next level
- Capable of building and leading broad, integrated cross-discipline teams to deliver a seamless customer experience
- Demonstrable ability to adopt and implement appropriate best practices
- Strategic thinking with strong analytical and project evaluation skills
- Strong sales & marketing orientation backed with financial/quantitative skills
- Enthusiast about taking innovations to markets
- Background in leadership roles with technology, telecoms, software businesses
- Broad international experience; Europe, US, Middle-East, Africa and Asia-Pacific
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Proxim Wireless, Paris-France, previously in San Jose (Silicon Valley- California) |
| Position: | Vice-President and Managing Director, International Business |
| Time period: | January 2003 - December 2008 |
| Description: | Proxim is a global vendor in wireless technologies for Enterprise, Governments and Telecoms (ISP Internet Service Providers, Fixed Line Operators, Mobile Network Operators GSM & CDMA) customers with Wifi Mesh, BWA WiMAX and telecom backhaul, design & management software and consulting services. Proxim has $100M sales and 350 staff
- Sales and General Management of operations in Europe, Middle-East, Africa and South Asia (Sales, System Engineering, Marketing, Customer Support and Business Operations with P&L responsibilities) o Building and managing a team of 55 people including 7 regional subsidiaries with Sales Directors and 30 Engineering and Services staff o Opened new geographies and establish local teams in India, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, Dubai-UAE and Saudi - Overseeing the region’s customer service, client support & maintenance contracts in relation with the central organization in US - Providing pre-sales technical design expertise, proof of concept, onsite network deployment services and ongoing maintenance services. - Responsible for Business Operations with order management in Europe, contract manufacturers in US, Taiwan, China & India and logistics partners around the world - Introduced a Partner Program to enhance loyalty and increase revenues to 300 integration partners (Emircom, Almoayed, Corvus, The Cloud, Alcatel-Lucent, etc.) and Telecom Operators o Established strategic partnerships with leading vendors IHV/ISV to create an ecosystem generating sales leads, solution sales and referral business (Pelco, Axis, Airwave NMS, Nomadix) - Managed the team which achieved the company’s best commercial results 3 years in a row o Building business models with Telecom Operators and supporting them winning frequency licenses o Increased sales coverage from 10% to 40% while concentrating on vertical segments (Internet Access Services, Voice/Data services for Operators, GSM/CDMA, Telecom Backhauls, Carriers and Video Surveillance) to achieve revenues growth from 20% to 50% of worldwide sales reaching $50M o We acquired company’s largest customers worldwide; Sify India (Telecom Operator) and Corvus Turkey (Video-Surveillance) o Took Proxim to #5 for WiMAX and # 3 for Wi-Fi Mesh market positions in EMEA o Created direct-touch sales teams with fulfillment through existing 2-tier Channels: Anixter, Ingram, Azlan-Techdata, FVC, 802Global and regional distributors. o Managed direct sales teams into Telecom Operators, Key Accounts and OEM: Avaya, Siemens, IBM, EADS, KPN, France Telecom Orange, Telefonica, Televersa, Batelco, Etisalat, Golden Telecom, etc. - Managed the Global channel strategy and opened new channels with local teams o Major focus on Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Asia with Digital China, Ingram Asia, NEC Japan, NCS Singapore, FVC Middle-East, Dimension Data Africa, etc. to serve Telecom GSM/CDMA, Voice, Data, and Enterprise clients |
| Employer: | Proxim Wireless, San Jose, Silicon-Valley California |
| Position: | Global Marketing Director |
| Time period: | January 2003 - December 2004 |
| Description: | Working on post-merger integration between Lucent-Orinoco, Proxim Wireless and Western Multiplex as part of the larger corporate restructuring initiative
o Worked with PLM to introduce new product strategies and marketing focus on applications rather than technology for the product lines Orinoco, Tsunami and Lynx o Aligned pricing and discounting policies for sales channels. Redesigned forecasting, revenue pipeline and special pricing policies and tools o Helped create Brand identities working with Agencies, positioning multiple product lines into coherent offering targeting the Telecom Operators, Carriers and Enterprise segments o Worked with Operations to design and launch additional Professional Services offering in the North America markets tailored for large enterprises, telecom operators or premium accounts. Created the “Extended Warranty”, “Premium Customer Support” and “Advanced Consulting Services” commercial offers for International Markets, increasing ARPU by 20% |
| Employer: | Metro Group, London - UK |
| Position: | Director, Internet & Digital Media |
| Time period: | January 2001 - December 2002 |
| Description: | Metro is the 4th largest newspaper group globally, with 10 million readers in 21 cities
- Director for new business unit providing digital news content over Internet and Interactive TV to readers and consumers worldwide - Development of the “Metropoint” Brand, working with Agencies to establish Marketing and Brand values and increase awareness - Started Interactive Television trials with VIASAT Scandinavia and re-launched Metro Internet sites - Worked with local teams to generat initial revenues and marketing efforts to raise awareness. Established partnerships with Media Companies (Everyday.com, Allocine), Wired News companies (Reuters, AFP, ITN) and technology providers (Noname4US, OpenTV, Tele2) - Created the Master Business Plan for International and helped its implementation across the organization in 15 countries. It included changing the planning of all editions, improving content management and strategic planning to increase profitability by cutting costs |
| Employer: | Gateway Computers Europe, Uxbridge, London area, UK |
| Position: | Marketing Director, Enterprise Division |
| Time period: | January 2000 - December 2001 |
| Description: | Gateway is a pioneer in direct sales of computers and IT equipments with 25.000 staff and $2bn revenues
- Helped design and build Enterprise sales across Europe, reaching 50% of sales at end of 2001. We maintained consumer sales (B to C) while managing cultural change across the organization to sell to Enterprise and SMB customers (B to B). This was done by creating the Opportunity Management team to handle large or strategic sales and establishing new channel strategies - Built methods and tools to model costs, pricing and profitability for complex decision-making - Product Management of the E-Series Product Lines targeting enterprise customers, localizing and implementing marketing campaigns to generate awareness and demand - Have also designed Price positioning for all markets and developing more competitive strategies |
| Employer: | Dell Computers Europe, Bracknell, London area, UK |
| Position: | Sales & Marketing Manager, Enterprise Group |
| Time period: | January 1997 - December 2000 |
| Description: | DELL is world leader in computing solutions, has 36.000 staff and $31bn in revenues worldwide. The Enterprise Group includes the Storages, Servers, WorkStation, Desktop and Laptop Lines of Business
- Manager of the European Bids & Tenders team (70 people, incl. 22 Managers in 18 countries) o Supporting strategic sales portfolio worth $6 000M for very large accounts and projects (Barclays, Nestlé, BMW, AXA, Governments, Public Administrations, etc.) o Directly involved in the most complex business deals; sales strategies, financial modeling, global pricing programs. Contract negotiation, presentations to customers and negotiations o Worked with Product Management to coordinate competitive positioning, branding, awareness creation, market analysis, product definition & roadmaps, product & services pricing o Project-managed the design, development and implementation of an ERP strategic sales tool ($3m and 15 people). A general forecasting, costing, pricing and sales tracking system, with approval procedures, margin management and customer databases (Oracle DB, Onyx CRM, SAP EDW based). Proposed, created and implemented innovative marketing and project pricing tools for all business units in Europe, improving profitability and commercial success rate o Member of the team implementing RAD Acquisition-Retention-Development marketing programs to the entire Enterprise division (4000 people), enabling efficient allocation of sales resources for the highest return on $ spent. - 1997-1998 Controller & Finance Director, WorkStation Division o Financial management of highest growth business in DELL EMEA. Responsible for the competitive positioning and all financials, including planning, forecast, guidance, monthly P&L and all Balance sheets items for the WS business o Managed business performance and profitability to target for 18 Business Units, from $0m in 1997 to $200m of total revenues in 1999. Showed ability to influence all levels of management and impact results even through numerous conflicting priorities o Managed a team of Financial Analysts and Marketing/Pricing Analysts o In addition, was Manager of the European Pricing Team. • Responsible for the WS initially and then for the full European Pricing Team doing competitive positioning, market analysis, Pricing, promotions, discount structures and implementation to all Products & Services divisions. • We have delivered optimal marketing positioning, leading to the #3 position in the WorkStation market and #2 position for Storage 8 months after launch o Completed the Managing@Dell leadership programme for high-potential manager. |
| Employer: | Rockwool, Paris, France |
| Position: | Finance & Treasury Manager, France, Spain & Italy |
| Time period: | January 1994 - December 1997 |
| Description: | World leader in insulation materials with 5.000 staff and $1.000M in revenues
- Treasury Manager responsible for working capital, cash-flow, currency and interest rates risks, hedging and options, relationships with banks - Proposed innovative Finance policies for managing risks using hedging and options. Implemented the changes across the full worldwide organization, headquartered in Denmark, and all its 30 subsidiaries - Working with the Finance Director and successfully completed merger and acquisition activities in France & Italy, including pre-acquisition audit, negotiating and structuring funding and financing |
EDUCATION
| University: | University of London - London Business School |
| Time period: | 1999 - 2001 |
| Degree: | MBA |
| University: | London Business School |
| Time period: | 1999 - 2001 |
| Degree: | MBA |
| University: | Université Paris-Dauphine (Paris IX) |
| Time period: | 1991 - 1993 |
| Degree: | Finance, MSc |
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