Google Opening Middle East Office in Egypt
Angelo Embuldeniya emailed me this morning with some clues that Google will be basing their Middle East marketing & sales operations in Cairo, although they already have a Research and Development Lab based in Israel. On Angelo’s blog he states that the Arab world had expected Google to open their regional office in the elegant area of Dubai (UAE), but Google has decided on Egypt.
Angelo writes on Stravinsky’s Sizzlin’ Shack (warning, two or more pop-up windows served):
According to some sources, a few months ago, Google Egypt hired a Country Manager (Sherif Iskander — mentioned here) who also serves as a regional manager and is now looking around for suitable candidates to fill the posts of Associate Product Marketing Manager and Product Marketing Manager. An unofficial Google page at Wikia.com details why Google should choose Egypt as their Middle Eastern base for regional operations and at the Wiki’s talk page, someone also notes the hiring of the regional manager for the Middle East and points to the vaccant positions.
It seems that although the official Google jobs site lists the vacancy for a product marketing manager for their office in Egypt, the listing fails to mention that posting may require travel between London and Cairo, the same job posted on monster.com states that the job is located in London although it is for Google Egypt. I’m guessing here, but I think that Google is planning on pushing Arabized/localized versions of their enterprise solutions like the OneBox & Google Earth. One of the reasons as to why Google might have chosen Egypt for their Middle Eastern regional office over Dubai, is since Yahoo already has a footing in terms of advertising sales & marketing operations for the region over at Dubai’s Internet City.
