Welcome to Avaya

Nidal Abou-Ltaif

Nidal Abou-Ltaif is President for Avaya International, where he is responsible for a combined operational region that covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.

Nidal joined Avaya in 2003 as the sales leader for the Middle East, expanding his role into a variety of leadership positions. Prior to joining Avaya, he held leadership roles with NCR and ATT.

Nidal holds a Master of Business Administration from Washington International University.

Frank Ciccone

Frank Ciccone is Senior Vice President of North America Sales where he is responsible for sales and delivery of product and professional services across all customer segments, both direct and partner-led.

Frank joined Avaya in 2019 with more than 25 years of sales and engineering experience. Prior to joining Avaya Frank led the Advanced Solutions unit at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, a group inclusive of Verizon's global Collaboration, Customer Experience and Security practices. In his 16 years at Verizon and several years at ATT, Frank held various VP roles in strategy, business development and operations in the Enterprise space.

Frank holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Manhattan College and a Masters of Business Administration from Hofstra University. 

Karen Hardy

Karen Hardy passionately leads the Global Marketing team at Avaya to advance our ability to deliver seamless communications experiences that matter for customers and employees--in the cloud, on-premise, or as a hybrid of both. She helps guide the company’s marketing strategy, brand vision and presence, thought leadership, and communication across audiences—all to drive brand engagement and loyalty, and business growth.

Karen has been with Avaya since 2011, serving in both Product Marketing and Product Management leadership roles. She brings deep domain expertise in customer experience and collaboration solutions. Previously, Karen led product marketing at Alcatel-Lucent/Genesys, Aspect and Datapoint UK.

She completed undergraduate studies at University of West London, and post-graduate work at The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Fred Hayes

Fred Hayes is Senior Vice President, Global Business Operations. He is responsible for functions including IT, Sales and Operations Planning, Manufacturing, Logistics, Worldwide Procurement, Supplier Quality, Order Management, Collections, and Real Estate.

Prior to joining Avaya, Fred was Vice President, Procure to Pay at Autodesk where he led a major transformation and significant improvement in cost savings and cash flow. He also spent ten years at Dell in multiple leadership roles, including Vice President, Global Materials responsible for the supply chain strategy, global inbound logistics and overall responsibility for continuity of worldwide supply. He previously held supply chain and operations positions at several high tech companies including HP, Compaq and Sun.

Fred holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Northeastern University.

Galib Karim

Galib Karim is Vice President of Americas International, where he is responsible for a combined operational region that covers the Caribbean, Latin America, Brazil and Canada.

Galib joined Avaya in 2010 as the managing director of Avaya Mexico after the Nortel acquisition. Since then, he’s expanded his role into a variety of leadership positions. Prior to joining Avaya, he held leadership roles at Nortel, Bay Networks and Intersys.

Galib holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences and Management from Tecnológico de Monterrey and leadership certifications from London Business School and Carleton University.

Dennis Kozak

Dennis Kozak is Senior Vice President, Business Transformation. In this role, Dennis is responsible for driving transformational initiatives that support Avaya’s strategic plan to enable sustainable global growth, and continue to deliver on its best in class subscription, cloud and on premise business models. 

Dennis joined Avaya in 2019, and was previously at CA Technologies, where he spent 23 years in various leadership roles, most recently as head of global sales, services and partnerships. His experience leading the next-gen portfolio strategy for CA Technologies included managing multiple cross-company digital transformations, optimizing operations and execution.

Dennis hold an MBA, Banking and Finance from Dowling College.

Kieran McGrath

Kieran is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.  His responsibilities include financial governance and management of Avaya's financial operations, including overall responsibility for the controller organization, financial planning, treasury, tax and investor relations. 

Kieran joined Avaya in 2019 and brings thirty-plus years of technology industry financial, operational and transformational experience in software as a service, cloud computing, and technology services. 

He most recently served as Executive Vice President and CFO at CA Technologies, and prior to that held several executive Finance roles at IBM.

Kieran holds a Bachelor of Science degree from St. John’s University.

Chris McGugan

Chris McGugan is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Avaya, leading technology strategy development to guide future investments.

Chris returned to Avaya after serving as an operating executive for ACM Consultants. He previously held leadership positions for Avaya’s Emerging Products and Technology, Contact Center Solutions and Marketing. Earlier in his career, he held executive and management positions at Belkin, Cisco and Motorola/Symbol Technologies, in addition to several board advisory positions at technology companies around the globe.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University.

Hardy Myers

Hardy Myers is Senior Vice President, Strategy & Business Development. He and his team are responsible for developing Avaya’s strategy and consummating key partnerships and acquisitions to achieve Avaya’s growth objectives.

Hardy joined Avaya in 2019, bringing more than 25 years of experience managing global technology and manufacturing organizations. He has demonstrated success in developing transformative growth strategies, M&A, financial management, and operational execution.

Previously, Hardy was with DVSAnalytics, Inc. where he served as CEO and member of the Board, and also held senior leadership roles at Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc., a Unified Communications (UC) software company, and Sound Advantage LLC, a speech-enabled UC software solutions provider.  

Hardy holds a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University.

Shefali Shah

Shefali Shah is Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel. She is responsible for Avaya’s worldwide law department and global human resources organization.

Shefali joined Avaya from Era Group, one of the largest helicopter operators in the world, where she served as SVP, general counsel, and corporate secretary. Previously, Shefali held several senior management roles with Comverse Technology, Inc. She began her legal career at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, P.C.

Shefali holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Boston University, and a Juris Doctorate in Law from Duke University Law School.

Faye Tylee

Faye Tylee is the Global Head of Human Resources. Faye is responsible for leading Avaya’s HR team, which includes strategic HR planning; mergers and acquisitions; international resource planning; new business and geographic expansion; and talent recruitment, engagement, development & retention.

Faye joined Avaya from Wyndham Hotel Group, a division of Wyndham Worldwide, where she served as executive vice president of HR. During her 16 years at Wyndham, Faye held several leadership positions including executive vice president and vice president of HR for Wyndham Destination Network.

Prior to joining Wyndham, Faye held various HR roles at RS Components. Faye is a native of the U.K. and studied Human Resources at the University of Northampton, U.K.