Sahil Dhawan, President and Head for India, Middle East & Africa Business at Tech Mahindra, outlines a strategic roadmap to lead MEA’s digital transformation by prioritising executional excellence, dynamic regional partnerships, and hyper-personalised engagement.
As you step into this new role, what are your immediate priorities and long-term goals for Tech Mahindra?
My immediate priorities center around three key areas: enhancing customer relationships, accelerating strategic partnerships, and embedding a culture of executional excellence across our MEA operations. By focusing on these areas, we aim to position Tech Mahindra as a premier digital transformation partner, delivering measurable outcomes that align with the unique business priorities of the region.
In the long term, our vision is to create a future-ready organisation that not only nurtures local talent but also fosters innovation, particularly in areas like AI and sustainability. We see significant opportunities for growth in the MEA region, and our success will be measured by our ability to generate localised economic and social value while effectively leveraging our global capabilities. This dual focus on local impact and global strength will drive our strategy and ensure that Tech Mahindra remains a leader in this dynamic market.
What unique perspectives or experiences do you bring to the table, and how do you plan to shape Tech Mahindra’s culture and customer engagement in the region?
Having worked across global markets and diverse verticals, I bring a balanced perspective that combines execution excellence with customer empathy. My experience building high-performance teams and driving transformation programs enables me to align our regional strategy with evolving market dynamics. At Tech Mahindra, culture and customer centricity go hand in hand. I aim to cultivate a culture of ownership, agility, and collaboration, where teams are empowered to drive outcomes and innovation is rooted in the business context. Customer engagement in MEA must be hyper-personalised, and we’re enhancing our go-to-market playbook to reflect that.
How would you describe Tech Mahindra’s strategic vision for the MEA region, and which markets are currently your key focus areas?
Our vision is to become the digital transformation partner of choice for enterprises across MEA by driving innovation with purpose. We are aligning ourselves with the region’s bold economic and digital ambitions—‘Vision 2030’ in the Gulf or the digital economy aspirations in Africa. Key focus areas include the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the GCC, where we see strong momentum in cloud, AI, and cybersecurity. We’re deepening our footprint in Africa through capability hubs, partnerships, and domain-led services. It’s a region where local relevance and trusted delivery matter most.
What sectors or industries in MEA are driving the most demand for your digital transformation services, and how is Tech Mahindra tailoring its offering to meet these needs?
In the MEA region, we are witnessing significant demand for digital transformation services primarily driven by the public sector, telecom, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), energy, and manufacturing industries. Governments are at the forefront, implementing nation-scale digital initiatives that aim to enhance operational efficiency, while enterprises are keenly focused on improving citizen and customer experiences.
At Tech Mahindra, we are responding to these needs with a tailored, verticalized strategy that emphasises domain-specific solutions. For example, we offer AI-driven citizen services that enhance government interactions, core modernisation solutions for BFSI clients to streamline their banking processes, and innovative digital twin implementations in the utilities sector that optimise resource management. To ensure that we effectively meet the unique demands of each sector, we’ve embedded local delivery frameworks and fostered strong partnerships that allow for contextual execution of our services.
As industry convergence grows, we are actively co-creating with our customers to develop cross-sector innovations that specifically address their challenges in this rapidly evolving landscape.
How does Tech Mahindra plan to expand its presence and partnerships across the region, particularly in emerging markets within Africa and the Gulf?
Expansion in MEA is being driven through a combination of local talent investment, partner ecosystem development, and industry-specific growth plays. In the Gulf, we’re deepening our collaboration with hyperscalers and digital platform providers to deliver end-to-end transformation. We’re investing in local capability hubs in Africa to nurture talent and support digital skilling. Strategic alliances with local system integrators and government bodies are also helping us unlock emerging opportunities. Our goal is to build a resilient, inclusive presence that aligns with national visions and creates long-term value for customers and communities.
Can you share some recent client success stories or major project wins in the MEA region that highlight your impact or differentiation?
We measure our success by the tangible outcomes we help our customers achieve. Recently, we enabled a major European telecom operator—active in the region—to reduce operational effort by 30% and accelerate time-to-market by 20% through intelligent automation and AI-led service transformation. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we support a leading national oil company in scaling its digital innovation agenda by modernising its IT landscape and embedding analytics into core operations. Additionally, we’ve helped a global automotive manufacturer achieve a 26% improvement in delivery velocity and a 38% boost in code coverage, powered by AI-driven engineering and agile transformation. These successes reflect our commitment to translating AI’s potential into responsible, measurable outcomes. Our focus in MEA is on delivering projects and becoming long-term strategic partners to enterprises shaping the region’s digital future.
What role is Tech Mahindra playing in enabling MEA governments and enterprises to adopt emerging technologies like AI, 5G, and cloud computing?
Tech Mahindra is actively collaborating with governments and enterprises across MEA to help them harness the full potential of emerging technologies. A standout example is our work in Saudi Arabia, where we helped bring a special economic zone city to life through a fully immersive metaverse experience, built on Unreal Engine. Designed to attract global investors and high-net-worth individuals, the digital twin of this next-generation city allows users to explore, engage, and experience its offerings virtually, setting a new benchmark for urban innovation. Beyond this, we enable public sector organisations to leverage AI for citizen services, deploy private 5G networks for critical infrastructure, and migrate core systems to the cloud for improved agility and scalability. Our role is to ensure that technology adoption is not just futuristic, but also responsible, secure, and aligned with national visions across the region.
How is your team addressing the region’s growing cybersecurity challenges, and what solutions are you offering to protect digital infrastructure?
Cybersecurity is no longer a support function—it’s central to trust, compliance, and business continuity. MEA faces rapid digitalisation, which makes proactive cyber defence critical. At Tech Mahindra, we’ve built a strong portfolio of managed security services, threat intelligence, and zero-trust architecture solutions. We enable customers to embed security by design, modernise legacy environments, and comply with local data regulations. Our regional capabilities and global threat response frameworks allow us to deliver scalable, real-time protection. Cyber-resilience is a boardroom priority, and we’re helping organisations shift from reactive to resilient.
Sustainability is gaining importance in digital transformation agendas. How is Tech Mahindra integrating green tech and ESG principles into its MEA operations and solutions?
Sustainability is a core component of our business strategy at Tech Mahindra. In the MEA region, we recognise a strong synergy between digital transformation and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, particularly in sectors such as smart cities, energy, and government projects. We integrate sustainable practices into our delivery models by adopting green IT strategies, implementing energy-efficient infrastructure, and offering low-carbon cloud solutions. Additionally, we empower our customers to monitor and optimise their carbon footprints through data-driven ESG dashboards, enabling them to make informed decisions toward sustainability.
Internally, we adhere to local sustainability mandates, focusing on reducing emissions and ensuring responsible sourcing practices. Our commitment is clear: we aim to enable sustainable growth for our customers while upholding our responsibility as conscientious corporate citizens.
With the increasing importance of local talent development, how is Tech Mahindra investing in upskilling and building digital capabilities within the region?
Talent development is central to our growth in MEA. We are partnering with local universities and skill development platforms to co-create training programs in digital technologies—AI, cybersecurity, cloud, and more. Our localised learning initiatives, mentorship programs, and internships are designed to build a pipeline of future-ready talent. We are also focusing on establishing Centres of Excellence and delivery hubs to offer practical experience and enhance customer engagement. We aim to create jobs and digital careers that drive innovation from within MEA.
