Patrick Naef scoops CIO of the Decade in the category of International Orientation.

DUBAI, UAE - 18 OCTOBER 2011 - Divisional Senior Vice President IT for The Emirates Group and Head of Mercator, Patrick Naef, has been named Chief Information Officer of the Decade by CIO, Europe's leading IT magazine for Chief Information Officers and top business executives. Presented at a ceremony held recently in Cologne, Germany, Patrick won in the category of 'International Orientation' and was identified as being among the world's best CIOs by a jury of 70 experts from leading academics and industry practitioners. As Head of IT for The Emirates Group (comprising Emirates airline, dnata and more than 50 Group subsidiaries operating across the international aviation, travel, tourism and leisure industries), Patrick Naef is responsible for the team providing business technology solutions and systems which support the daily global operations and future growth plans of the Emirates Group - an international conglomerate employing more than 57,000 people and generating annual revenues in excess of US$15.6 billion. Standing alongside other industry greats including Audi's CIO Klaus Straub and Guss Deckers CIO for Airbus, the award honours Patrick's visionary style, solid leadership abilities, and gives recognition to his 2,000-strong Dubai-based IT team. Patrick has exhibited world-class IT leadership at the Emirates Group by simplifying IT platforms, streamlining applications, reducing costs, and delivering world-class services. Headquartered in Dubai, the Group and its subsidiaries are active in many locations worldwide and Emirates flies to more than 100 destinations in over 60 countries. "This award is testimony to the great achievements of our people, not only in IT but in other departments across the Group. Together our IT team aspires to achieve operational excellence, high performance, and technology value delivery in relentless pursuit of enhanced business results," commented Mr.Naef. "I feel honoured to be recognised amongst a stellar group of finalists and previous winners who have made a significant impact in their role of Chief Information Officer, in managing their company's enterprise-wide information systems. These are the born leaders who illustrate the growing significance of the CIO role and the impact it has within their organizations and to the international industry as a whole."

CIO of the Decade in the Category of International Orientation, Patrick Naef, along with Guus Dekkers, the CIO of EADS/Airbus.

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Dubai / Kuala Lumpur - 13 October 2011 - mercator, the commercial arm of the Emirates Group IT, has reached a major milestone with Malaysia Airlines, its largest full-service bureau customer, which recently processed its 100th million airline passenger coupon. Malaysia Airlines partnered with mercator in 2006 and has been leveraging on its technologies and bureau services to manage its passenger operations. With steadily increasing passenger numbers over the years, today mercator processes more than 23 million transactions annually for Malaysia's national airline based in Kuala Lumpur. As Malaysia Airlines has grown, adding more interline agreements, so too has mercator's role in enabling its customer to optimise the management of revenues via their RAPID revenue accounting solution. mercator's ability to deliver its client with continual product and service excellence has resulted in the airline awarding an extension to the current contract with mercator for an additional three years, until 2015. Mohd Azha Abdul Jalil, Chief Financial Officer, Malaysia Airlines said, "We are pleased to continue and strengthen our partnership with mercator, for our Revenue Accounting using mercator's RAPID system. This has enabled us to concentrate on our core business. mercator has also been able to achieve on-time weekly and monthly close, therefore enabling us to have faster and more accurate revenue data." RAPID, mercator's revenue accounting solution allows airlines around the world to utilise mercator's advanced processing system. By allowing this key business function to be handled by an expert team in Dubai, airlines can leverage mercator's revenue accounting knowledge and save on passenger coupon processing costs. RAPID transforms financial data into the crucial decision support and strategic information that an airline needs to excel. They are designed to meet every need of any airline, regardless of its size or the market in which it operates "Like Malaysia Airlines, mercator is also experiencing positive growth across the business. RAPID is one of our top performing products used to manage the revenue accounting function for more than 50 air carriers worldwide," said Duncan Andrew Alexander, Vice President mercator. "Malaysia Airlines, one of our biggest customers, has helped RAPID develop into the industry-leading product it is today. The extension of the contract with Malaysia Airlines further strengthens our already close relationship and demonstrates their confidence in our ability to provide quality business solutions." mercator is continuing to expand its global footprint, with full service carriers and hybrid, low-cost and regional carriers across six continents relying on its technologies to fuel the success of their passenger and cargo operations.

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Since unveiling Avantik at last year's World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London, mercator have signed another nine airlines and undertaken a restructure of senior personnel.

mercator, the commercial arm of Emirates Group IT, last year unveiled Avantik, a passenger services system specifically designed for low-cost, hybrid and regional carriers at the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London.

In the 12-months following, Avantik has added a further nine airlines to what was already an impressive customer base. This has supported mercator's strategic growth plans, and enabled it to further strengthen its foothold in key markets across the Americas & Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific regions.

Divisional Senior Vice President Emirates Group IT and Head of mercator, Patrick Naef said that "Avantik's success is due to the unique value proposition it offers the new generation airline sector.

Unlike other products on the market, Avantik was built on the latest technology systems architecture using Microsoft Technologies. As such, it is much more adaptable to airlines' evolving business models as it's easily configured, offers fast multi-language user interface changes, and has simplified end-user training and support.

These capabilities have made it attractive to new generation carriers across the globe seeking to profit in the ever changing landscape of air travel."

While product research and development for Avantik continue to be managed out of mercator Asia located in Bangkok, Thailand - product marketing and sales are centrally managed from mercator's Dubai-based office. Recent changes made to mercator Asia's leadership and operational structure included the appointment of a new CEO and the establishment of a new Managing Director & Head of Product Development position.

The changes were designed to enable mercator Asia to concentrate on developing the Avantik product further to create even better value for mercator's existing and future customers.

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