Nexwave appoints Justin Shagam as director of growth and partnerships

Aims to build Microsoft's premier AI-native, data, apps and cloud partner for Australia and New Zealand.

AI consultancy Nexwave has appointed Justin Shagam as its director of growth of partnerships to accelerate the company’s growth strategy and expand its network of strategic partnerships.

With more than 25 years of IT leadership experience, Shagam joins nexwave following a decade at Microsoft where he helped organisations realise business outcomes through Cloud, Data, and AI transformation programs.

At Microsoft he held several senior roles including cloud and AI platform lead, technology strategist, and strategic partner recruit lead.

His career spans Asia, EMEA, and the US, building a strong foundation in strategic consultancy, enterprise architecture, and delivery within both client and service provider environments.

Shagam told CRN Australia why he decided to join Nexwave as director of growth and partnerships.

“I spent 4 out of 10 years at Microsoft building the Azure Strategic Partner Recruit function for Australia and New Zealand,” he said.

“During that time, I was fortunate to help enable and scale new Azure partners in the region. A cohort of partners that went on to become some of the most impactful Microsoft partners across Australia and New Zealand.

“During my time in the Partner Recruit role, it became clear, the ingredients and qualities needed to build a market-leading Microsoft partner business, and I saw all of these and more already present at Nexwave.”

In his role, Shagam aims to to build Microsoft's premier AI-native, data, apps and cloud partner for Australia and New Zealand.

“We'll be doing this by putting our customers first and helping them unlock tangible value through the Microsoft Cloud, Data and AI platform,” he said.

Matt Salmanzadeh, co-founder and director at Nexwave said, “Shagam’s depth of Microsoft experience and commercial leadership will help our customers move faster and with greater confidence as they embrace AI and data modernisation.

“He embodies our philosophy of customer first. Microsoft always.”

Evaluating the channel ecosystem, Shagam said he has seen a huge amount of acquisition activity in the channel, with large local and global SI's aggressively acquiring Microsoft partners.

“This (in my opinion) continues to create a gap in the channel and presents an increasing challenge for organisations looking to engage nimble and specialist AI-native Microsoft partners,” he said.

“The ability to effectively fill this gap is our biggest opportunity at Nexwave.”

In terms of challenges, Shagam noted his work in the strategic partner recruit team taught him that it takes time for new partners to establish credibility and trust both with customers and Microsoft itself.

“Having said that, the team established at Nexwave includes not only former Microsoft employees and previous leaders of Microsoft partners, but also industry practitioners who bring domain knowledge and unique perspectives to the challenges our customers face,” he said.

“This combination of understanding how to navigate Microsoft, true AI-native specialisation, and proven domain experience is already accelerating our journey and time to value for customers.”

Shagam said having been on this journey many times as a "Microsoftie", he is most excited to have the opportunity to build and scale a highly impactful Microsoft partner from the inside.

“I'm also excited about the opportunity to be part of the nexwave team, not only for the opportunity to work closely with both Matt Salmanzadeh and Carl Lowenborg again,” he said.

“But also to learn from the “nexxies” who bring both strategic foresight and engineering firepower to everything they do.”

He begins his role on December 8.