ZURICH, Switzerland — July 15, 2025 — Microsoft Switzerland today announced the appointment of Mohamad Ali Mahfouz as Area Services Lead and member of the Swiss leadership team, effective July 1, 2025. In this role, Mahfouz will report to Catrin Hinkel, CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, and lead the company’s services strategy across the Swiss market, with a focus on accelerating AI transformation, deepening customer partnerships and driving commercial cloud growth.
Mahfouz brings more than 20 years of experience at Microsoft, where he has held leadership roles across engineering, Azure sales, consulting, and enterprise sales. He began his career at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and most recently served as data and AI sales lead for Microsoft Switzerland, leading the enterprise sales organization with a focus on analytics and AI-driven growth. His career also includes cross-solution technical leadership and industry advisory, with impact across sectors such as retail and consumer goods.
“This appointment reflects our commitment to recognizing and elevating talent from within,” said Catrin Hinkel, CEO of Microsoft Switzerland. “Ali’s deep understanding of our customers, his strategic mindset and his passion for innovation make him the ideal leader to guide our services organization into its next chapter.”
The Area Services Lead role has evolved to meet the changing needs of Microsoft’s customers and the broader market to accelerate their AI and Agentic transformation. As part of this evolution, Microsoft has unified its former Industry Solutions Delivery consulting sales teams and Unified sales teams into a single services sales organization under the One Services Portfolio. This consolidated model simplifies customer engagement, improves coordination, accelerates value realization, and enables the delivery of tailored, outcome-based solutions powered by Microsoft Cloud and AI.
“Having spent the majority of my professional journey at Microsoft, stepping into the role of area services lead and joining the Swiss leadership team is both a personal milestone and a profound honor,” said Mahfouz. “Services are central to our customers’ AI transformation journeys, and the One Services Portfolio enables us to deliver even faster value and a more seamless experience. I’m excited to help lead this next chapter for our customers and partners across Switzerland.”
Mahfouz holds a master’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Washington, an executive MBA in management and corporate finance from HEC Lausanne, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the American University of Beirut.
The leadership team of Microsoft Switzerland now comprises the following members: Catrin Hinkel (CEO), Roger Altorfer (Director Customer Success Unit), Martin Haas (Director Small, Medium, Corporate Business), Marc Holitscher (National Technology Officer), René Hürlimann (General Manager Solution Sales), Michael Isaac (Head of PR & Communications), Ann Jameson (Sales Enablement & Operations Lead), Mohamad Ali Mahfouz (Area Services Lead), Moritz Oberli (General Manager Public Sector), Andrew Reid (Global Partner Solutions Director), Shipra Singh (Head of HR), Martin Stefik (CFO), Karim Tejani (Head of Legal), Christian Thier (Financial Services Industry Lead), Stephan Timme (General Manager Enterprise Commercial Business).
