Mohammed Rizwan, director of IR, JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai
ABOUT MOHAMMED
Mohammed has been involved in the IT industry since 1999, and first joined the JW Marriott Marquis as part of the pre-opening team in June 2012. Before that he worked as the cluster systems manager at the JW Marriott Hotel, Kuwait City Courtyard by Marriott. Mohammed also has a Master of Business Administration in System (MBA-SYS); a Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology (PGDIT), a Diploma in Information Technology (DIT) and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).
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WHY WAS HE NOMINATED?
Over the past 14 months, Mohammed has been a key driver in getting the hotel’s systems up and running, with 14 F&B outlets, 804 rooms, and over 7000sqm of catering space all needing a total of 31 separate IT systems. Mohammed has excelled at bringing all these moving parts together and ensuring that the hotel operates without any defects or down time. Mohammed has also worked to ensure that the necessary guest data protection is in place, and he and his team have worked to ensure that all the safe guards and processes are in place to safely handle guests and company private information.
WHAT DID HIS TEAM SAY?
“We all know how IT / IR can be fun, at the same time, and mostly when used in business it can be frustrating – think about non-functional printers, about system not working the way they were designed or how the employees would like them to work, and on and on; add the fact to plan and open the tallest hotel in the world, one of the largest in the UAE and GCC markets, add hiring about 1,300 new team members all wanting the latest, easiest systems and ways how to do business so we can please our guests, add the fact that our guests today all seem to be super IT/IR “gurus”, wanting the latest and best IT and communications gadgets and you might guess it – you face a huge task and responsibility.
“Well, bring on our Rizwan and be amazed, blown away! Try and amaze him with new IT/IR developments – well, too late, he knows them all as he continuously keeps himself current with the latest and newest; try and throw dozens of tasks at him at the same time – well, no issue, here is a super calm, great listener and quick thinker, who digests issues very quickly and either has a solution or will take note and come back within the same or next day; bring on so many tasks and issues as the opening of this mega hotel included and you see a super well organized person who never loses sight of pending items and who will be pro-active to get back with resolutions; bring on over 100 newly hired managers, all trying to make the IT/IR – team believe their issues are the most important, add internal company rules and regulations, plus supplier issues, and you find a super quick, can-do, smart and also political astute person who is a master in multi-tasking and getting things done!”
“Rizwan’s leadership, smartness and great contributions did not pass un-noticed when he won Marriott International’s top IT/IR leadership award. Most of all, however, we enjoy Rizwan very much as an important team member who is one of the greatest leaders I have seen and experienced on any team I had in my 24 years being GM; I can only congratulate him super much, am very, very proud to have him on our team and would love him to get recognized even more – he truly deserves it.”
Rupprecht Queitsch, general manager
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