Zahra is a technology leader and is the Executive Vice President and CEO of Salesforce UK & Ireland. She was appointed in March 2021 to lead the company’s operations across both key growth markets.
Prior to this, Zahra spent 22 years at Accenture and most recently Zahra led Accenture Technology in the UK/I for almost four years and served as an executive board member / director on the board of directors.
As Technology leader she was a transformative force. She was unrelenting in making the service more market-facing and repositioned the business within the ecosystem, notably with the award-winning Kaleidoscope concept. At the same time, she was personally engaged across a range of clients across automotive, legal, government, banking, energy & life sciences where she was instrumental in some of the most significant client relationships and client transformation activities.
During her 22 years, Zahra gained transformation experience across a number of clients and industries including grocery retail, oil and gas, retail banking, healthcare & telecoms. She believes that success comes not only from deep technology expertise, but also an understanding of the value it can bring to customers, employees, partners and anyone involved in its use. Zahra has worked with clients to help define value and achieve it by connecting them to vast ecosystem of technologies, from cloud and ERP platforms to artificial intelligence engines or extended reality.
Zahra has pioneered a number of ‘firsts’ – from convening the UK technology ecosystem at the award-winning Kaleidoscope to patented uses of cloud technology for energy industry divestments.
Zahra is strong advocate for diversity and inclusion and has held a number of D&I leadership roles globally and within the UK/I. She has written on diversity for publications, including Management Today, Forbes and The Telegraph.
She currently sits on the boards of TechUK, Cancer Research UK and Movement to Work.
Zahra has been widely recognised throughout her career as an industry leader, including being named as number thirteen in Computer Weekly’s ‘Most Influential 50 People in UK Tech 2022;’ also in Computer Weekly’s “50 Most Influential People in UK Tech 2021,” and Women in IT’s “Woman of the Year – 2019” finalist.
Zahra lives between London and Northamptonshire with her husband Stephen and enjoys spinning & running.