Technology & Digital Transformation Leader
Building secure, resilient and future-ready enterprise technology across infrastructure, cybersecurity, cloud, identity and AI-enabled transformation.
Certified
Profile
Senior technology leader with experience guiding complex, multi-entity environments across higher education and diversified group organisations. Focus areas include enterprise architecture, datacenters, networks, identity, cybersecurity, cloud, disaster recovery, service operations and responsible AI adoption.
The work sits deliberately across two disciplines. On one side: architecture and engineering — virtualization and hyperconverged infrastructure, multi-site disaster recovery, Zero Trust security, identity and access management, Microsoft 365 and Azure, enterprise networking and unified communications. On the other: strategy and governance — budget ownership, RFP authoring and vendor evaluation, compliance, service management and the AI adoption roadmap.
That combination is the point. Infrastructure decisions are business decisions, and the leaders who can hold both the technical detail and the commercial case are the ones who deliver programmes that actually land — on budget, on schedule, and without disrupting the people who depend on them.
Operating focus
Enterprise architecture
Datacenter, hybrid cloud, HCI and multi-site resilience
Security leadership
Zero Trust, managed SOC, IAM/PAM and compliance
Transformation
Modernisation, automation and enterprise AI adoption
Commercial governance
Budget ownership, RFPs and vendor performance
Education
Expertise
Enterprise technology only works when the layers hold together. These are the domains I own end to end — from physical infrastructure through to the AI capabilities running on top of it.
Career
From hands-on engineering to owning the technology function for a multi-entity group — each role adding a layer of scope without giving up the technical detail.
Abu Dhabi University & NEMA HoldingAbu Dhabi, UAE
Aug 2016 — Present
Group IT function reporting to the Group Director of IT & Digital Transformation, NEMA Holding. Centralised Shared Services model across Abu Dhabi University, NEMA Holding, Liwa University, KGC and affiliated entities.
Abu Dhabi UniversityAbu Dhabi, UAE
2006 — 2016
A decade of progressive responsibility from hands-on engineering to institutional IT leadership.
ADNOC DistributionAbu Dhabi, UAE
Feb 2003 — Oct 2006
Computer College of India (CCI)Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Jun 2000 — Nov 2002
Industry recognition for security and IT leadership
2024
CISO of the Year
Future Workspace Summit & Awards
2024
IT Manager of the Year
CIO Connect Summit & Awards
2023
Technology Accelerator of the Year
SME Tech Innovation Summit & Awards
2021
Workplace Transformation of the Year — Education
Future Workspace Awards
2017
CIO 100 & CXO 50
IT Leadership Middle East (CPI / CXO DX)
Featured projects
A selection of the infrastructure, security and transformation programmes I have architected and led — each with the constraint it had to solve and what it changed.
Identity & Security · 2024 — 2026
Enterprise IAM, PAM and SSO for ~10,000 users, with automated employee and student lifecycle management across the group.
Cloud & Security · 2023 — 2025
Advanced Microsoft security, Defender and enterprise identity capabilities rolled out across the full staff and student estate.
Cybersecurity · 2024 — 2026
Managed SOC, application penetration testing, Active Directory and AD CS hardening, firewall modernisation and Zero Trust initiatives.
Networking · 2023 — 2025
Modern enterprise wireless infrastructure with NAC, certificate-based authentication, segmentation and a managed service architecture.
Infrastructure · 2022 — 2025
Servers, storage, virtualization and hyperconverged infrastructure modernisation with architecture optimisation and a hybrid operating model.
Resilience · 2024 — 2026
Multi-site disaster recovery across group entities, including an international datacenter migration and defined RPO database backups.
Collaboration · 2025
Teams Phone integration with a Microsoft-certified SBC, Direct Routing and enterprise voice modernisation across campuses.
IT Operations · 2021 — 2025
Infrastructure monitoring, IT service management and operational visibility improvements across the group estate.
Digital Transformation · 2023 — 2026
Modernisation of interactive teaching spaces, auditorium AV and LED across the campus estate.
Capability map
Not a logo wall. This is how the estate is actually organised — each layer with the platforms I architect, operate and hold vendors accountable for.
The hybrid platform layer where identity, collaboration and workload hosting converge.
Controls spanning endpoint, perimeter, identity and application layers under a Zero Trust model.
One identity fabric driving authentication, authorisation and lifecycle across every system.
Compute, storage and virtualization engineered for availability, density and lifecycle economics.
Segmented, identity-aware connectivity across campuses, buildings and device classes.
Observability and service governance that turn infrastructure into a measurable service.
Core business systems and the integration fabric that keeps their data consistent.
Applied AI and automation across productivity, operations and security workflows.
Impact
The operating footprint behind the work, kept to the outcomes that hold up over time rather than a snapshot quarter.
0+
Years in technology
Infrastructure, cybersecurity, compliance and digital transformation
~0K
Users in enterprise IAM & SSO scope
Staff, students and affiliated group users across a single identity fabric
0+
Interactive classrooms modernised
Teaching spaces standardised across the campus estate
0.0%+
Service availability maintained
Sustained across core enterprise systems and infrastructure
Public-facing figures are limited to durable, non-sensitive outcomes supported by the 2026 CV.
Certifications
Security governance, infrastructure and network certifications maintained alongside continuous professional development.
ISACA
Governance, risk management and information security programme leadership.
(ISC)²
Security architecture, engineering and operations across all eight domains.
Dell Technologies
Zero Trust reference architecture and design principles for enterprise environments.
EXIN
Service management lifecycle and IT operations governance.
Cisco
Enterprise routing, switching and network fundamentals.
HPE Aruba
Enterprise wireless design, deployment and troubleshooting.
VMware
Virtualization and cloud infrastructure management.
Nutanix
Hyperconverged infrastructure architecture and operations.
F5 Networks
Application security management and local traffic management.
Ongoing programmes across cloud, AI and leadership
“Technology leadership is not only about deploying infrastructure. It is about creating secure, scalable and resilient platforms that enable people, improve operations and prepare organisations for what comes next.”
Shabeer Mangattu ParambilTechnology & Digital Transformation Leader
Availability, recoverability and security are the foundation everything else is built on. A capability that cannot survive a bad day was never delivered.
Every design decision carries a cost and a risk profile. The right answer is defensible in an engineering review and a budget review alike.
Programmes finish; capability compounds. Building engineers who can own what they deliver is the highest-leverage work a technology leader does.
Knowledge & insights
Practitioner writing on the problems that do not fit neatly into a vendor datasheet — security architecture, identity, infrastructure economics and enterprise AI.
Zero Trust assumes you control the endpoint. A university does not. What the model looks like when a third of your devices belong to people who graduate in four years.
ESC1 through ESC8 turned certificate services into a domain-escalation path. A practical account of assessing and remediating a live enterprise PKI.
Federation gets the attention, but lifecycle automation is where identity work converts into measurable risk reduction and reclaimed licensing spend.
Rack space, power, licensing and support renewals rarely appear in the same business case. When they do, the infrastructure decision usually changes.
Data classification, access boundaries and acceptable-use policy are the prerequisites nobody budgets for — and the reason most AI pilots stall at pilot.
A5 versus A3 plus add-ons is not a licensing question, it is a security architecture question with a licensing invoice attached.
Multi-site recovery across entities with different platforms and regulators — what changed between the documented RPO and the tested one.
Compliance matrices, weighted technical scoring and the requirements language that separates genuine capability from a well-written proposal.
The technical migration is the shorter half of the programme. Notes on sequencing change so that 8,000 people arrive with the platform.
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Contact
Open to meaningful conversations about technology leadership and transformation — enterprise infrastructure and security programmes, advisory work, speaking engagements and vendor partnerships.