Amir Ahmed Khan
Incidents & Escalations Leader
Raleigh,NC
Summary
Forward-thinking and innovative leader with over 25 years of industry experience, including 15 years in escalation and incident management. Specializing in strategic problem-solving and critical customer management, excelling in transforming business challenges into solutions through strategic projects and business capability modeling within large global technology organizations. Demonstrated strategic approach to managing critical situations, coupled with creative thinking and out-of-the-box problem-solving, enabling excellence in building and leading new escalation teams.
With a tactical ability to unravel complicated problem statements and collaborate with cross-functional teams, driving process improvements and enhancing operational excellence. Dedicated to promoting multi-skilled team competencies through mentorship and inspirational leadership, resulting in successful thought leadership initiatives and process improvements that ensure operational excellence and accountability. Having led teams across various regions globally, possessing adept skills in incident management and communications, guiding teams to effectively navigate complex challenges and deliver exceptional results.
Overview
28
28
years of professional experience
6
6
years of post-secondary education
5
5
Certifications
Work History
Global Escalations Manager
Splunk Inc.
06.2023 - Current
- Consistently raised the bar, increasing customer satisfaction score by 10% and saving $20M ARR in the past 3 quarters.
- Recruited new escalation and incident managers, revamped training programs for at-par delivery, and built high-performing escalation teams through strategic recruitment and ongoing mentorship.
- Managed customer escalations with a focus on bringing structure, executive attention, and additional internal resources to ensure prompt resolution and optimal customer satisfaction.
- Led process optimization efforts, resulting in streamlined escalation procedures that enhanced operational efficiency, reduced resolution times, and significantly elevated overall customer satisfaction levels.
Solutions Delivery & Escalations Lead
Cisco Meraki
11.2021 - 02.2023
- Spearheaded the growth and evolution of Cisco-Meraki's Support & Escalation team, driving them towards becoming the next generation of high-touch support for our valued customers, aligning with the company's vision for customer-centric service delivery.
- Took charge of reactive fronts, assuming ownership of account escalations related to customer solutions, service delivery, product, or design issues, ensuring swift resolution and customer satisfaction.
- Proactively collaborated with sales, success, engineering, product management, and other cross-functional teams to address potential customer dissatisfaction issues, monitoring high-impact cases and prolonged lifecycle cases to mitigate risks and enhance customer experience.
- Fostered cross-functional collaboration with internal stakeholders to continuously improve support processes and optimize the overall customer journey, in alignment with company objectives and customer-centric values.
- Engaged directly with CXOs of dissatisfied customers, gathering feedback on major product or service concerns to enhance their engagement with the support teams and drive improvements in customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Customer Solutions Delivery Manager
Cisco Systems Inc.
01.2018 - 11.2021
- Demonstrated a consistent progression to highly visible leadership roles throughout my tenure, including serving as Customer Delivery (CX) Manager where I provided country leadership to develop and modernize Product and Services CX strategy, driving improvements in customer experience across the entire ASEAN region.
- Cultivated robust personal relationships with customer CxOs to facilitate Cisco's Services penetration and foster long-term partnerships.
- Orchestrated a notable 15% increase in customer satisfaction and propelled Malaysia's services revenue from $22M to $50M in 2020, while maintaining a margin over 65% over a three-year period.
- Led the charge in spearheading Cisco's Malaysia Services (CX) business, surpassing top regional Service Providers and displacing Chinese vendors in Core and Access selling, prioritizing value over cost.
- Enhanced Cisco's ASEAN revenue prediction and collection model in 2019, ensuring accuracy in services revenues by developing and nurturing a frontline project delivery team, earning recognition as a regional champion for accuracy.
- Achieved 100% to-goal performance for 8 consecutive quarters, despite facing challenges posed by COVID-19 restrictions and intense competition in the SaaS sector.
- Scaled Cisco's Malaysia team to effectively address expanding business requirements and elevate the overall customer experience.
- Pioneered the introduction of a Project Management Office (PMO) unit, overseeing the revamping of implementation engineering and sustaining/operation teams to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
- Successfully secured culturally diverse top regional talent, comprising 30% offshore and 70% local workforce, and cultivated the next tier of management/succession to ensure long-term organizational sustainability and growth.
Senior Escalation Manager (Critical Accounts Program)
Cisco Systems Inc.
01.2008 - 01.2018
- Promoted to spearhead strategic corporate ownership of managing escalations and systemic issues – Partnered with cross-functional teams to improve communication and evaluate and promote lessons learned processes
- Collaborated on 91+ customer escalations globally, working with large Cisco customers representing $413M in revenue
- Oversaw disaster response initiatives for global customers and supported new product launches for pre-chasm lines or acquisitions, designing solutions to meet customer needs while helping local sales team overcome market competition
- Led quality assurance for Cisco's collaboration and storage solutions globally, challenged with addressing major product stability and customer SAT issues
- Scaled and owned multiple cross-functional, high impact enterprise initiatives requiring transformational and collaborative change leadership to manage customer experience, reduce risk for Cisco, reduce time to market, and improve quality
- Designed systemic improvement program to improve the quality of software releases for Cisco's Nexus Switching platform, achieving higher market share and enhancing market traction
- Built successful Pre-Sales quality assurance model, matching customer requirements with product features and partner/SI delivery skills capabilities during initial sales cycle
- Spearheaded programs to improve customer service and UX delivery while improving quality
- Developed key performance indicators (KPIs) for 3 critical and high-value Pre-Chasm Cisco products (Contact Center, WAAS, and Meeting Place/WebEx)
- Reduced customer escalations from 122 (UCC), 80 (WAAS), 230 (WebEx) to less than 15 per product in 12 months
- Reduced post-sales support costs by 10%, to below 20% after introducing standard quality checks
- Developed modern quality assurance model, including Pre-sales requirements matched with product features and partner/SI delivery skills capabilities.
Systems Engineering Manager
Cisco Systems Inc.
05.2000 - 01.2008
- Recruited to establish a new sales engineering organization, expanding corporate footprint across emerging markets by supporting product and services account managers
- As Systems Engineering Manager developed team vision, business development strategy, staffing/training models, and secured strategic relationships with C-level clients and channel partners
- Directed technical sales teams working directly with customer executives on enterprise, public sector, and service provider markets selling new idea/solutions
- Increased customer satisfaction by 15% within 16 months in region dominated by European vendors
- Selected as pioneer in emerging markets, recognized for leadership in services led sales, driving value over price, 2008
- Developed innovative training and hands-on lab program to transform onboarding and new systems engineer development programs, providing a roadmap to take them from the classroom into the field, 2006
- Filed for 2 US Patents in collaboration with Engineering for IP RAN optimization solution helping customers leverage Cisco's equipment for routing mobile traffics via IP's prevalent in a region known for expensive bandwidth, 2001.
Education
MBA - Organizational Leadership & IT Management
University of Redlands, CA
Redlands, CA 08.1998 - 02.2000
Bachelor of Science - Electrical & Electronics Engineering
NWFP University of Engineering And Technology
Pakistan 09.1991 - 12.1995
Skills
Escalations Management
Strategic Problem-Solving
Process Improvement
Negotiations
Data Analysis
Incident Management
Conflict Resolution
Crisis Management
Customer Experience (CX)
SaaS (Software as a Service)
DMAIC (Six Sigma)
Apollo RCA (Root Cause Analysis)
Kepner-Tregoe (KT)
Stakeholder Management (CXO)
Certification
Six Sigma Certification – Black Belt, Process Improvement
Target Position
Incidents & Escalations Management Director
Timeline
Global Escalations Manager
Splunk Inc.
06.2023 - Current
Solutions Delivery & Escalations Lead
Cisco Meraki
11.2021 - 02.2023
Customer Solutions Delivery Manager
Cisco Systems Inc.
01.2018 - 11.2021
Senior Escalation Manager (Critical Accounts Program)
Cisco Systems Inc.
01.2008 - 01.2018
Systems Engineering Manager
Cisco Systems Inc.
05.2000 - 01.2008
MBA - Organizational Leadership & IT Management
University of Redlands, CA
08.1998 - 02.2000
Bachelor of Science - Electrical & Electronics Engineering
NWFP University of Engineering And Technology
09.1991 - 12.1995