Aiming to bolster the expertise of commercial operations team, Emirates Airlines has appointed three UAE Nationals into key country management positions overseeing operations in the Far East and Africa regions.
The new Emirati talent will take on leadership roles in the countries of Japan, Malaysia and Zambia.
Commenting on the appointments, Thierry Antinori, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Emirates Airline said: “The combined commercial expertise and industry knowledge our UAE Nationals bring to each role will be essential to meeting our challenges, and advancing new business development opportunities as we continue to develop and grow our operations in Japan, Malaysia and Zambia.”
He added: “Investing in our people is core to our strategy, and we are lucky to have tremendous resources within the commercial team to take on these roles.”
Emirates has appointed Abdalla Al Zamani to serve as country manager for Malaysia and will be the first Emirati to serve in that position. A long-standing Emirates veteran with a decade of experience with the airline under his belt, Al Zamani has held several leadership positions in India and Bangladesh.
A graduate of Emirates’ UAE National Commercial Management Trainee programme, Al Zamani was Commercial Support Manager in 2008 and was then appointed as Sales Manager Riyadh in 2010. He was later promoted to Manager of Ethiopia in 2011 and in 2014, he was appointed to manager of Phillippines.
To head up operations in Japan, Emirates selected Salem Al-Marri, who began his career with the airline as a route planning analyst with the Strategic Planning Department. He was later promoted to route planning manager in 2014.
Quite familiar with the country of Japan, Al-Marri spent a year as a research student at Kobe University, after which he enrolled in the ICS International Business Strategy MBA program at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
Lastly, Emirates has appointed Mohammad Bin Hafiz to oversee management of the airline’s operations in Zambia. Joining Emirates back in 2010 as a commercial support manager, Hafiz was later appointed to district manager Riyadh in 2013. In 2014, he was promoted to manager of Morocco.
Hafiz’s latest appointment follows the completion of his National Military Service, where his term ended in January 2018.