Nagib Tharani

Product Manager in TMT & SaaS

Latest From the Blog

My Visit to Doha, Qatar as an EIR

I was invited to attend an inaugural event in Doha called the Research to Startup Program (RTSP) by the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP). The event was about looking at opportunities for the potential commercialization of technology developed at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) alongside a peer group of entrepreneurs and amazing mentors from all over the world. I had never been to the Middle East, as least for anything other than being in transit.

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Learning Goals for 2017

Each year I try to learn new stuff, but it’s been a long time since I did a relatively deep technology dive. I already knew a bit of Ruby, HTML and CSS, and last year I took the plunge into Javascript and built out some prototypes using Meteor. I used codementor when necessary. It was an amazing resource to get help. I set a budget of US$1000 to be used incrementally in 15 min slots.

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Projects I'm Working On

Services

I've worn a variety of hats and am deeply conversant with all business functions.

International Expansion

Global expansion tailored for your business. Whether B2C, B2B or Enterprise. I have worked with inward investment teams at IDA Ireland, UKTi, Invest-HK, DFAIT & AusTrade. I leverage local government resources where appropriate. This really is a catch all and leverages everything over my career. I'm the guy you send into a field, far, far, away who can wear many hats and kick start your operations. I did a lot of telecoms/data field engineering spanning over 30 countries early in my career.

Business Development

Greenfield Sales and setup of Channel & Strategic Partnerships where no playbook or template exists. Where repeatable, I create the process before handover to a sales/AE/SDR team. I started out as the director of International Business Development at Clio, but International Expansion better reflected my remit. Early on, as a pre-sales engineer, business upsell is always close to your heart.

Business Operations

Company infrastructure & governance for both greenfield startups to international subsidiaries. Where appropriate I engage specialist tax, legal and regulatory help. I write your v1.0 executive and employee handbooks: From hiring and departmental logistics and tooling, management reporting, CRM, bookkeeping, support and everything along the way. On the staff side, I provide guidance covering expense policies, vacation, culture and benefits. I am heavily biased towards SaaS based tools.

Product Management

From startup (primary), through venture backed companies in a product ownership role. At larger companies, I typically handle international product requirements as they apply to a given market. Having studied as an engineer, I work well with developers. Being left handed, if the stereotype holds, means I appreciate art and design more. And that informs my appreciation of UX and UI.

Marketing Operations

From acting as a spoke to an existing marketing operation to adapting their capabilities for international markets and helping to streamline content operations for print and web. I particularly enjoy acquainting marketing teams with the wonders of the A series of paper formats. I'm fluent in all aspects of demand generation. Did you check the UTM source tag in the URL that possibly brought you here?

Program Management

$MM P&L Responsibility. Primairily in TMT from both the vendor and operator perspectives. Because I can code I handle both Technical Program Management ("TPM") and non TPM roles and can fully appreciate engineering impact as it applies to program scheduling. As to getting stuff done, I don't care for MS Project, other than to create a gantt chart for proposals. I love Asana and their perspective on ownership

Sales Engineering

Also called Solutions Engineering. Or Pre-Sales Engineering. In either case I sit comfortably with all parties to demonstrate, support, inspire and on-board prospects or customers. My career started out in telecomunications engineering as an SME.

Development

This isn't my primary skill, but more a hobby that I apply to my own projects. A key advantage it affords me is a deep understanding of industry software and integration potential which is useful when I'm engaged in a product management or pre-sales capacity. I'm competent in Javascript, Node.js, HTML5, CSS3 and appreciate the importance of good design.

Entrepreneurship

I founded startups, worked in venture backed ones, and acted in a corporate intrapreneurship capacity at larger companies. My passion is in the "Prosumer" segment, or the consumeration of IT. In English: well designed easy to use software that is a delight for people to use and builds a community.