Oracle announces new regional head, replaces long-serving Arun Khehar

Oracle has appointed Leopoldo Boado as the senior vice president, Business Applications for Eastern, Central Europe and Middle East Africa (ECEMEA) region. Boado replaces long-serving ECEMEA SVP Arun Khehar, one of the most visible tech executives in the region.

Boado is the immediate former Europe SVP for Applications at Oracle. Before that he was the company’s country manager for Spain and regional VP Eastern & Central Europe, Iberia and Benelux.

Meanwhile, Marwan Alzughaibi has joined Oracle as the new business applications leader for Saudi Arabia.

The appointments follow the announcement that Oracle’s first cloud data centre for the region has gone live in Jeddah. The company’s infrastructure roadmap for the region includes three more ‘cloud infrastructure regions’ for the GCC – one additional region in Saudi Arabia and two in the UAE.

“With over 1,100 cloud applications, we are geared to provide businesses with an unparalleled choice through the world’s most complete and innovative suite of applications. This puts us in a unique position to deliver the business resilience and innovation that our customers need,” said Boado.

Oracle Cloud continues to grow its customer base in the Middle East. DP World, Emirates NBD, Dubai Airports, Galadari Automobiles, Nissan Middle East, Emaar, AW Rostamani, Kamal Osman Jamjoom Group, Ducab, du telecom, First Abu Dhabi Bank and others are all using Oracle Cloud Applications.

Read: Exclusive: Oracle’s global cloud leader on why he is betting big on the Middle East

Public cloud spending in the Middle East and Africa region is expected to grow from $2.7bn in 2020 to $5.3bn by 2023, according to IDC. In the UAE, spending on the public cloud is anticipated to reach over $827.57m by 2023.