Saviynt has appointed cybersecurity executive Kamel Heus as Vice President of Sales for the Middle East and Africa (MEA), strengthening its leadership team as it expands its identity security business across the region.
Based in Dubai, Heus will oversee Saviynt’s operations across the Middle East and Africa, including Turkey, with responsibility for new business, customer renewals, account expansion and regional channel development.
His appointment comes as organizations across the region increase their use of cloud services and artificial intelligence, creating new demands for identity security and stronger controls over access to enterprise systems and data.
Saviynt said Heus will play a key role in expanding its partner ecosystem and building its local go-to-market team. He will also lead efforts to grow the company’s presence in Saudi Arabia and increase local hosting capabilities to support data residency and in-region delivery requirements.
Pete Angstadt, Chief Commercial Officer at Saviynt, said the company sees significant potential in the MEA market.
“MEA represents a significant opportunity for Saviynt as organizations across the region accelerate their digital transformation and increasingly look to AI to transform how they operate and grow,” Angstadt said.
He said Heus’s experience and knowledge of the region would help the company strengthen relationships with customers and partners while supporting its long-term growth strategy.
Heus joins Saviynt with 20 years of enterprise cybersecurity sales experience spanning the Middle East, Africa and Europe. He has held senior positions at Thales, Centrify, now Delinea, and Sophos.
Before joining Saviynt, he served as Vice President, EMEA at Thales, where he led the company’s Identity and Access Management business across the region.
Heus said the growing adoption of AI was making identity security increasingly important for businesses in the region.
“The Middle East and Africa have become one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity markets in the world, and Identity sits right at the center of it, especially as AI agents enter the enterprise,” he said.
He said his priorities would include strengthening Saviynt’s local operations, developing its partner ecosystem and helping organizations manage secure access for employees and AI systems.
The company is also focusing on the emerging security requirements created by AI agents, which can access enterprise applications and data and therefore require identity governance and lifecycle controls.
Saviynt’s Zuma platform is designed to provide visibility into AI identities and enforce least-privilege access controls throughout their lifecycle.
Heus holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Computing from Université Grenoble Alpes in France and has been based in Dubai for more than a decade.
Saviynt said the appointment will support its efforts to deepen customer and partner relationships and expand its regional capabilities as cloud adoption, AI and digital transformation reshape enterprise security across MEA.
