BIO

Yolanda Delport is the General Manager of Market Strategy for Al-Futtaim Trading Enterprises. She was previously Marketing Director for Al-Futtaim Automotive. Working at the divisional level, Yolanda was responsible for the Al-Futtaim Automotive brand as well as driving a strong focus on Customer Engagement as a key differentiator for the group. Deployment of marketing methodologies and adoption of best practice in order to support the Auto brand marketing teams rounds off this interesting and diverse portfolio. With an early career start in the field of engineering, the former BMW and Ford employee then went on to hold leadership roles in marketing for international blue chip companies, spanning over 20 years of working experience in Southern Africa, Australia & New Zealand as well as the Asia Pacific Region as far as Japan. Yolanda joined Al Futtaim – one of Middle East largest family-owned conglomerates – as the marketing lead for Al-Futtaim Technologies. Her understanding of multi-cultural dimensions and business ethics of APAC nations, deep knowledge of IT software and its viable applications, alongside an ability to develop and implement strategic business and marketing processes helped her to support Al-Futtaim Technologies’ product growth targets. She was then assigned to the Strategic Development Team of Al-Futtaim’s Automotive Division – a team focused on future business directions and the development of best practice business processes. This was followed by a secondment to the Honda Division as General Manager, Marketing until her most recent move back into the divisional office as Marketing Director, Automotive Division. Prior to moving to Dubai, Yolanda worked for Microsoft Australia, where she was responsible for market share growth of the Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP product lines in Australia and New Zealand.