Drone Delivery Canada has added Michael Zahra to its management team, where he will serve as senior vice president of operations and strategy as company transitions its platform into commercial operations in 2019.
“We have known Mr. Zahra professionally for over two years in his former capacity as president of Staples Business Advantage Canada. At Staples, Mr. Zahra hired and developed key leaders in his high-performance team of over 1,200 people,” said Tony Di Benedetto, CEO of Drone Delivery Canada (DDC). “He was also responsible for oversight of the shipment of millions of products annually, from 10 distribution centres and a fleet of over 170 trucks nationally, with full profitability responsibility and revenues over $500 Million.”
Di Benedetto continues to explains Zahra’s logistics, engineering, sales and cross-functional business acumen will make him an instrumental member of the management team. “As we begin the New Year, DDC not only looks to provide a cost effective and highly efficient logistics solution to remote communities in Canada, but also to Canadian rural communities in the form of milk runs, as well as entering into licensing opportunities internationally,” he said.
Zahra has more than 30 years of experience as a senior executive. As mentioned, before joining DDC, he was president of Staples Business Advantage and also previously served as president of Yahoo Canada, president of Schlumberger RMS, in addition to senior positions at Alcatel and Motorola. He also brings close to 20 years of experience in various board positions.
“Through my prior mandate at Staples Business Advantage, I had the opportunity to work alongside Drone Delivery Canada and I immediately appreciated the technical innovation and commercial viability of what they were doing. I’m excited to work with the DDC team as we continue down the path of commercialization,” said Zahra.
Zahra has a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, an M.B.A. from City University, Seattle and a P.Log from the Logistics Institute. Additionally, he has participated in a range of business programs at institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Melon, Queen’s University, University of Toronto and the University of Virginia in Cybersecurity & Cryptography, Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, Lean Six Sigma, Leadership & Execution.
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