Ex-Avaya Services Chief Pops Up At UC/CC Services Specialist

The former head of Avaya's global services organization, one of several top executives to have exited Avaya in the past two years, is now in a C-level role at Aspect, a Chelmsford, Mass.-based specialist in customer contact, enterprise workforce optimization and Microsoft platform products and services.

Mohamad Ali has joined Aspect as CEO of the workforce optimization division, a newly created position, the company said Tuesday. Aspect's current CEO, Jim Foy, will become CEO of the company's interaction management division and be Aspect's executive chairman.

Ali described his new role as a "particularly exciting opportunity."

"Aspect early on saw the promise of integrating unified communications and collaboration enterprise technologies with next- generation customer experience in optimizing customer-company interactions," Ali said in a statement.

[Related: 30 Notable IT Executive Moves: May 2012 ]

Ali, who is based in the Boston area, was senior vice president and president, Avaya global services, from April 2011 to March of this year, and from July 2009 was Avaya's senior vice president, corporate development and strategy, in charge of M&A and strategic partnerships. He also spent five years at IBM in various executive positions covering business development and strategy, overseeing key IBM acquisitions such as Cognos, FileNet and Ascential Software.

Ali is one of several well-known Avaya executives who has left the UC giant in recent years, a group that includes former top technologist Alan Baratz; former UC and technical operations chief David Downing; former R&D boss Daniel Berg; former global channel chief Jeremy Butt; and former U.S. sales vice president Steve Fitz.

Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya, meanwhile, has made several hires of late, including Ali's replacement, Michael Runda, senior vice president and president, Avaya client services; and Pierre-Paul Allard, senior vice president, corporate strategy and development.