Welcome to my personal blog. My name is Charbel Aoun and on this site I will share my thoughts and hopefully stimulate some debate around subjects I am passionate about including digital transformation, smart cities/infrastructure, the Internet of Things (IoT), sustainability, leadership and business in general. I hope that you will find it interesting; please comment so that we can have a conversation. I’d appreciate the encouragement and sometimes I need putting straight!

I am what journalists might call a seasoned smart city and digital transformation professional. I have worked in the sector for nearly a decade, and have seen it grow from a marketing idea into something which I genuinely believe can make positive impact on dealing with the problems caused by urbanisation and population growth. I hope you will take it at face value when I say that smart cities and digitisation really are my passion and that being part of this movement gets me up every morning.

In my working life I am board member of the Future Cities Catapult and Advisory council member of few startups. I was (CSO) Chief Sales and Strategy at Enevo Inc., a technology startup  founded in 2010 to provide smart solutions for waste management and recycling industry logistics. As such, Enevo promises to help the environment as well as save time and up to 50% in direct costs.

I joined Enevo from Schneider Electric, where I spent three years as President/ CEO of their Smart Cities business. Working as part of a focussed team committed to smart cities, we raised the profile of Schneider Electric so that it has become recognised by leading industry analysts as the global number one player in Operational Technology (OT), and number three in IT/ OT.

Prior to that, I was Managing Director in Cisco, and ran the Smart & Connected Communities (S+CC) practice in the EMEA region. During my 5 years at Cisco, I was one of the architects of the S+CC vision and a key driving force of many S+CC activities in Europe as well as in new economies. I’ve also worked across multiple geographies in business development, strategic alliances, technology and management consulting, solution and technology innovation as well as in large project implementation/delivery.

Before 2007, I spent 5 years with Accenture UK in various senior roles such as eDemocracy practice lead, International Director of Technology and Operation. And before that, I was VP International Operations for a New York-based start-up.

Between my private and public life, I try to find time for my other great passion; photography, hiking and reading. You’ll find some of the images I have created on this site and in my blog posts. I hope that you enjoy viewing them as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Thank you for visiting!