Jazz’s Frontline Heroes | Conversations@Jazz

We hope you’re staying home and staying safe. In this episode, we bring you a delightful and inspiring conversation with the light-hearted soul, Khalid Shahzad, Chief Technology Officer at Jazz, about how his team has stood firm and held their standards as high as ever in the difficult recent weeks.

In the past few weeks, Khalid and his team of 700 have kept connectivity seamless and online for the 63 million customers Jazz has nationwide, kept a high level of safety standards for Jazz’s employees and subcontractors, and did all of it in what Khalid describes a “self-motivated culture that grows out of their own ambition to provide connectivity across Pakistan.” With over 99% availability achieved through the rigorous efforts of the front line force, Khalid took us under the tip of the iceberg.

Narrating a heroic tale from the front, Khalid appreciated the efforts put in by the Central B team which “spent the time from dawn till dusk” to upgrade 18 sites overnight. Khalid contributes this to the culture of “self-motivation that floods Jazz and the technology department even more so”.

Speaking to us about how tough coping with COVID-19 has become operationally, Khalid Shahzad enlightened us on how Jazz has seen frontline heroes emerge and conquer mountainous tasks. Though as work became tougher for employees working in the field, it did for the ones working from home as well. “People think that perhaps it’ll be easier relaxing at home and doing your work but I believe it becomes more difficult because you need to be extra careful when planning,” said Khalid, “When you’re in the office you have a margin to make small mistakes, you’re right there you can fix them quickly. But when you’re sitting at home, you only get to do it once.”

Khalid believed in his team’s efforts, ambitions and explained how while in the beginning, he may have been insistent on keeping major sites like the Network Operations Center manned at all times, it did not take him long to realize that different times call for different methods.

As the lockdown kept extending due to rising cases, so did the need for connectivity, but Khalid maneuvered through this by keeping thorough channels of communication, stern, and understanding leadership. We thank him for taking the time to tell us just how important Technology’s role is every passing day of our lives.