Nizar Assanie
Managing Partner
Strategy and Due Diligence
My journey to become a Managing Partner at Sandstorm began over a decade ago when I help found IE Market Research Corporation (IEMR): a global telecoms and technology strategy consulting firm. As a founder in a start-up, I learnt one thing very quickly: no matter how good your product, if you cannot show your face in front of the customer, it will not sell!
In my role as Vice President of Research at IEMR and then Chief Operating Officer, I came in touch with almost all aspects of the telecoms and IT value chains where I assisted my clients in formulating new product strategies and tactics based on one operational principle: show me the evidence.
I have worked with global players in the telecoms hardware and software space including in verticals such as NFV, SDN, OSS/BSS, managed security services, big data analytics, IoT, WiFi offload, mobile chipsets, base station antennas, network equipment, VSAT, customer management systems, carriers' enterprise business models, carrier logistics, private / public cloud business vendor models, and more.
I have learnt that in order for companies (from start-ups to multi-billion dollar organizations) to be successful, they need to adopt what I call a “continuous due diligence” approach to new product development and execution. I know that so much of the telecoms and IT software and hardware landscape is littered with products / platforms / solutions that were developed by product teams without any regard to researching actual demand for their product in the marketplace or what their competitors might be doing. Don’t even get me started on the Venture Capital landscape!
I have also found that the world of telecoms and IT product development and management is so full of analyst and marketing department spin that many entrepreneurs and management teams start believing their own marketing kool aid. As a matter of principle, I cut through the marketing fluff to ensure that Sandstorm only invests in companies that add disruptive value to their domains.
I have a BA (Econ.) from Dalhousie University and an MA (Econ.) from Queen’s University in Canada.