Meet Khamis

1) Could you share a bit about your journey and your career and how you ended up in your current leadership role?

It was a long journey where I had the chance to meet great people who influenced me and my career and helped me to grow. During that journey I was and still attached to open source technologies and I had the opportunity to use multiple of them and become one of the open source advocates and then co founded the Jordan Linux User Group at around 2004. I also had the chance to be a developer and a system administrator at the same time, which helped me into looking at things from different perspectives.

That was on the technical/Engineering side, on the career side I had the chance to work and play different roles, not only as a developer and system administrator but also as a technical team lead, configuration manager, release manager, projects manager, development manager, QC manager, support manager and partially a product manager.

This helped me also to wear different hats, to look at projects/solutions from different angles, to understand different people’s concerns and issues, and to communicate with different people and teams smoothly. I am still looking to gain more knowledge in whatever role I play.

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2) What do you enjoy most about your role?

I enjoy multiple things, but the main thing I enjoy is being challenged whether technically, managerially, professionally or even personally. I enjoy challenging situations, as it help me to show my capabilities and skills, and at the same time help me to shape, improve and develop them, since we always lack something and the more experience we get, the more we learn.

Also, I enjoy working with an enthusiastic and self-motivated people like the team I am working with right now, they add a lot to me, and I hope that I’m meeting their expectations, and adding value to them in the same way they do to me.

Finally, I am now doing what people used to do with me before, as they helped me grow; now it is my turn as I am trying to help my team grow. I work with them to overcome weaknesses and develop strengths.

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3) How would you describe the company's overall culture and values?

It's a multinational company with rich and diverse cultures. This is something new to me, as in my previous work experiences I was never exposed to this size of diversity, which was a bit challenging at the beginning, but I am getting used to it.

Due to the distributed nature of the company, where we have offices and teams working with us in different countries, this adds also the challenge of remote/online communication, which also was challenging at the beginning.

One of the things I like about BlackStone, is that we do not have rigid structure and we focus on delivery and customer success instead of focusing on bureaucracy and long unwanted processes. That doesn’t mean we do not have processes, but the processes are implemented and modified to cater towards the goal of delivering successful projects, maintaining great people and create long-lasting relationships with the customers.

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4) What do you believe sets our company apart from competitors in the industry?

?I see that we are agile, dynamic, flexible, and can adapt easily with the customer’s and market’s needs.

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5) Can you share any recent accomplishments or success stories that you are particularly proud of?

I cannot share specifics, but I can say that during my time here my team had many projects, and we were able to maintain a fruitful relationship with our strategic customers, and with the help of my team, we were able to deliver different solutions successfully, and expand on existing projects and solutions. I hope that I will be able to increase my team’s size, as I personally am looking forward to take more work and deliver more successful projects.