Heads Up with Walid Abu-Hadba, Chief Product Officer, Sage

Walid joined Sage in May 2021 and the Executive Committee of Sage in January 2022, having previously spent 20 years at Microsoft, where he was corporate vice president responsible for the developer and platform evangelism group, before joining ANSYS INC as chief product officer. Most recently he was senior vice president, Oracle Developer Tools. He also holds several senior board advisor roles in the technology sector and patents in the field of AI.­

Walid brings with him extensive industry experience and leadership skills. He is passionate about driving strategy and building the culture that delivers tangible, customer-centric solutions. Our Global Technology Partner, Stuart Ridley, sits down with Walid to discuss Agentic AI, his priorities for the next year and what qualities he values in leaders.

What changes to your industry do you anticipate over the next two years and are you excited by this?

We’re entering a new era of software development — one shaped by Agentic AI, where systems can autonomously take initiative, complete tasks, and even collaborate across platforms. This represents a fundamental shift from reactive tooling to proactive digital agents. For Sage, as a leader in financial and accounting software for small and medium business, this means that understanding customer pain points can unlock value across the entire financial workflow and the difference between small and medium businesses may start to blur.

I’m incredibly excited by Agentic AI and how it could redefine productivity and customer value and all the feedback we get from customers is that they love how the software and Sage Copilot where it is available, saves them time. But Agentic, also demands new thinking — not just technically, but organisationally. Companies have to be ready and those that move early to embed these capabilities into their product DNA, while ensuring safety and transparency, will set the pace for the next decade.

What are your three key priorities in the next 12 months?

First, operationalising and further embedding AI across our entire product portfolio. We’re moving to scale — ensuring our AI delivers real, measurable outcomes for users. We have an AI development approach, our AI Factory and an infrastructure, the Sage Network Platform that enables us to develop at pace.

Second, building AI fluency across the organisation is critical. This isn’t just a data science initiative — product managers, engineers, and commercial teams need to speak the same language and building those bridges across functions and teams is a priority for us.

And third, deepening and broadening partnerships to stay ahead of emerging trends and be a market leader.

What type of people do you like to work with, and what makes them good leaders?

I really like people who know the technical detail of what they’re doing, but who can also talk about it in a great way. I look for people who lead with curiosity, clarity, and courage. Good leaders today must be adaptive — they need to thrive in ambiguity, think systemically, and inspire action across silos so that teams can execute. It’s also important to have a variety of people on a team, I don’t like homogenous teams and the best leaders are usually people who avoid that too.

The best ones I’ve worked with combine incredible insight and depth of scientific understanding for what they do and visionary leadership. This might require people to be direct or say the unpopular thing, but I’ve seen it deliver real success when leaders are not afraid to do what is needed to drive a company forward and improve products and profits.

As a leader, what skills do you continuously work on to keep you at the top of your game?

I love technology and I’m always on the go, so I spend a lot of time coding and researching. I have to stay hands-on enough to maintain technical credibility. Understanding what’s possible — and what’s meaningless hype — helps me make better strategic bets.

Reading broadly and listening are also critical at senior levels. Understanding the nuances of external and internal dynamics and being able to quickly understand what they mean for your organisation or team is essential. I am also a big listener. The more senior you get, the more you risk being insulated from hard truths. Staying grounded in real user feedback and frontline insight is essential.

And finally, storytelling is critical — motivating the teams around the goals and objectives can be enough, but you also need to be able tell the story that gets people excited to galvanise teams behind a shared vision.

What’s your next big objective?

The next big thing I’m focused on is shaping a product ecosystem that’s not just intelligent, but agentic — where autonomous systems don’t just assist, but actively execute and optimise workflows on behalf of users.

This shift has major implications for how we design interfaces, measure success, and manage trust. It’s an exciting challenge — and one that will define the next generation of software and software companies.

What keeps you awake at night?

The pace of change is both thrilling and relentless. What keeps me up is ensuring we’re making bold enough decisions — not just reacting to disruption, but leading it.

I also want to make sure that young talent across the world, have access to emerging technology and can take advantage of it.

What is the best way to switch off in your free time?

I really enjoy food. I’m a huge fan of hosting, eating at good restaurants and enjoying food with family and friends. If I am ever visiting one of our offices, we always go out for a meal. It relaxes everyone and then we can all chat and talk more easily.

How do you integrate diversity and inclusion strategies into your leadership approach, and what impact do you believe this has on your organisation’s culture and performance?

I believe in sponsoring and nurturing talent from the start. That means actively opening doors, advocating for underrepresented talent, and ensuring they’re positioned for high-impact roles. In our organisation, we are sponsoring female talent and developing bespoke programmes to make sure they stay at Sage and can develop technically and as leaders.

Diverse teams challenge assumptions, de-risk decision-making, and ultimately build solutions that reflect the world we serve. The impact is cultural and commercial and to everyone’s benefit.