*Please note that the feature in the March issue is inaccurate. This is the amended version. The updated version will be printed in the April edition.
Country General Manager for Egypt in Microsoft, Mirna Arif is a great inspiration to women everywhere. Her success story is one of passion and risk-taking. eniGma’s Omnia Zaied got to learn how Arif managed to become who she is today.
Talking to Arif, I tried to understand how someone could become so successful at such a young age. Through our hour-long chat, I learnt a few facts about Arif, facts that we can call the secrets to her success.
Arif is ambitious. After graduating top of her class with a degree in computer science from the American University in Cairo in 2002. She immediately got an offer from Schlumberger Information Solutions to work as an Account Manager. She went on a four-month training program in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and came back to work her way up at Schlumberger until she became the Regional Sales Director of East Mediterranean & East Africa. She then moved to London as Sales Director for UK & Ireland where she spent four years, until she became Global Marketing Director of Schlumberger, and there she was the youngest person in the headquarters.
Two years after her graduation she started studying for her MBA. “I was doing my MBA while pregnant with my first daughter, and managing my day job as sales manager in the morning. I was the only one at the gynaecologist’s office waiting room with a laptop! Five days after having my baby, I was back in class,” she recalls.
Arif is a risk-taker. After 12 years at Schlumberger, she returned to Egypt to work at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources as Minister’s Assistant for Investment & International Cooperation. “In hindsight, that was my true inflection point. Taking that role and coming back to Egypt, and leaving my 12 year corporate career, I was jumping into the unknown headfirst. I really wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for that leap of faith” Arif recounts.
Arif trusts her gut feeling. That was evident again when she decided to leave the government role and move to the Gulf to join Emerson Automation as Regional Manager for the Gulf region in 2015. And it was evident once more when she decided to return to Egypt in mid 2017 to take on the role of Digital Transformation Director for North Africa & Turkey at General Electric. And finally, when she decided to join Microsoft and move once again, this time to Dubai, to become the Surface Group Director for Middle East & Africa, only to move back to Egypt a year later to become the Country General Manager of Microsoft in Egypt in March 2020.
Arif loves challenges. “If it’s not challenging, it isn’t fun,” she says. Throughout her career, moving from one role to the other, there was rarely a new position that didn’t come with its own set of challenges. She always questions herself, “Am I good because I am in my comfort zone or because I actually have what it takes to do the job?” and she is never afraid to put herself to the test. She was especially tested when she decided to leave her global position at Schlumberger to work with the government in Egypt in 2014, leaving the comfort of a corporate job to join a public sector role she wasn’t familiar with. “I am who I am because of what I learnt throughout my different roles and from the various inspiring people I worked with” she recounts.
When she took over her current role at Microsoft, the challenge was a magnified one. Not only was she venturing into a totally new industry, she was doing that while a global pandemic was looming on the horizon. “I was scared, but to me that’s the best feeling ever. Whenever I decide to make a move, I ask myself whether it scares me enough to do it, I only go for it, if it does. This is how you grow.” she says. When Arif took on her GM role with Microsoft Egypt, the offices were closed and everyone was working from home. She made use of that time to get to know everyone and scheduled as many team meetings as possible to get to know the team and to learn more about the business and how she can support them.
Arif is a great boss. “You gain respect through what you do, not through what your title is,” she affirms. “We all wear different hats. Being the GM doesn’t mean that I am better than anyone, or that I know everything. It means that for now I am wearing this hat which comes with a certain level of responsibility and accountability, while other people are wearing different hats and playing different roles. We all need each other, I need them more than they need me actually, I can only succeed through empowering them and I am lucky to have such an amazing team,” she adds.
To Arif, it’s all about the people. It’s all about finding the best person for the best job and enabling them to do what they do best. “I do get the imposture syndrome sometimes, and I am so happy I do because this is how you learn and grow. I am an eager learner and I always ask for help when I need it. No one knows it all and my job is not to know everything. It is to empower the best person for the task. Whenever I feel I need support I reach out and ask for help” she says. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t make mistakes. She views failing or making mistakes as part of the learning journey. She takes a moment to go through the steps that led to the mistake, so she can learn and avoid doing it again. “I was very happy to find that this is part of the culture at Microsoft. We have a learning culture and a growth mindset. We don’t penalise people for making mistakes, we coach them. You can’t go back in time and change what happened, but you can prevent it from happening again,” she explains.
Arif is a patriot. She has proved that over and over again, especially while holding her position at Microsoft Egypt. “It is a privilege to be able to do that role in my own country, to drive impact and make a difference in the community” “Microsoft has been partnering with the Egyptian government for a long time. We are collaborating on key digital transformation projects in the country,” she says. We are currently partnering with the Ministry of Finance and the Egyptian Tax Authority in the e-invoicing project; and we have a long standing partnership with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in various digital transformation projects across the various sectors. Being the largest cloud provider in the world today, Microsoft is a leader in advanced solutions like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology on leveraging AI in Agriculture, and using machine learning for crop detection and water management. With Covid 19, Microsoft role was similar to that of a first responder but in the digital world. “Our main focus was to support the government, and all public and private sector entities to ensure business continuity. Education was a prime focus for us and we collaborated with the Ministry of Education, offering Office 365 to 20 million students for free to empower their remote learning journeys. We also collaborated with the Ministry of Higher Education and enabled all universities and institutes through a remote learning platform.
“Egypt is the land of opportunities and we have a great potential to become the digital hub for the region. Digital transformation sits at the forefront of the government agenda and Egypt’s vision 2030. With a strong Digital strategy driven by all government officials,” she says.
Arif is a super single mother. Having had her two kids at the beginning of her career, she learned to multitask and to manage raising the kids while advancing in her life. It wasn’t easy with all the relocating, but she still managed to make the best of it, with the help of her mother. To Arif, it is very important to become friends with your children. What makes it all worth it, is when she feels they appreciate everything she does, and learn from it. She concludes, “I want them to feel empowered and to believe that they can do whatever they set their minds to. That is how my father raised me.”