McAfee appoints new Regional Director for Middle East

Based at McAfee's regional headquarters in Dubai Internet City, Diab will be responsible for the company's business strategy and development and for extending McAfee's reach and presence across the Middle East.

Diab joins McAfee from 3Com, where he was responsible for rebuilding the company's presence in the Middle East. Prior to this, he held a number of key sales positions with HP and Compaq.

In his new role, Diab will help to drive and expand McAfee's regional channel community, continuing to provide the highest quality of service for the company's customers and partners in the region. With more than 17 years of experience of the Middle East IT industry, Diab will be spearheading the local team to drive growth and build on McAfee's regional successes to date. Diab also brings to McAfee strong networking experience and exceptional market knowledge that is key as McAfee continues to expand its security offerings, most notably following the company's acquisition of Secure Computing in late 2008.

"Becoming part of the McAfee team is a very exciting prospect for me and I look forward to working as part of an organisation with a pinpoint focus on growing its business and staying at the forefront of the IT security market." said Hamed Diab, Regional Director McAfee Middle East. "The Middle East presents a great opportunity for McAfee to demonstrate its wide range of complete security offerings to key markets across the region. This is something that will be facilitated by our strong regional partner network and on-the-ground support, enabling McAfee to work with organisations in the Middle East on a proactive basis to help them meet their security challenges head on."

McAfee has further strengthened its organisation and reinforced its commitment to the Middle East region by making Jan van Vliet McAfee's Vice President for emerging markets. In this position, he will be responsible for overseeing the region including the Middle East and other emerging markets. The company has also appointed Daan Hakkert as Regional Director of channels for emerging markets. Daan will focus on actively recruiting channel partners throughout the region, focusing on key growth markets including Qatar and Oman.

David Quantrell, EMEA President, McAfee comments, "The Middle East region is one of the fastest emerging markets globally and therefore very significant to McAfee's security business overall. The regional business environment is dynamic and local and international companies now see comprehensive security solutions as essential rather than optional."

"McAfee has witnessed growing demand across the region, most notably in the area of data protection, driven by the growing awareness of the need for encryption. Regional companies are constantly looking for the best solution to protect their data and their business and at a time when the financial crisis is putting pressure on everyone, McAfee can deliver security solutions that represent great protection and a worthy investment," Quantrell added.