Inspired by many great instructors in her life, Heba Eldien grew up wanting to be a teacher. In high school, Heba helped run an onsite day care facility at her school. “We did it all,” she explained, “from developing lesson and meal plans to planning outings. We were running a real business with a real budget. The best part, though, was to see the excitement on the kids’ faces each time they’d learn something new.”
While the world may have missed out on a truly great teacher, Heba Eldien aptly brought all of her passion for teaching, leading, and managing to the world of business. Today, as Director of Operations at Cloudforce, she not only presides over an explosive 314% company growth in just three years, but also helps shape and nurture an award-winning “Best Places to Work” culture. Her zeal to inspire also helps fuel numerous Cloudforce for Good outreach initiatives that foster education, internship, and employment opportunities in Prince George’s County, and beyond.
Heba’s meteoric career began with a shift in majors as a college sophomore. “Early in my college career, I realized the many opportunities in the field of Finance, so I changed my major from Early Childhood Education,” said Eldien. “I was always good at math, which, after all, is the foundation for so many career paths related to business growth, productivity, and analytics. Statistics was actually my favorite subject in college.” Recognized for “Excellence in Finance,” Heba graduated with honors from George Mason University and went to work at SAIC (now Leidos) as a financial controller for several Department of Defense (DoD) projects. She quickly ascended to senior project management roles, ultimately working as Deputy Program Manager on U.S. Army programs.
In 2016, Heba left the federal sector to help lead the rapidly growing cloud consultancy, Cloudforce, to Microsoft Gold Partner status with Advanced Specialization in Azure migrations. Through it all, Heba has always appreciated the common denominators connecting her financial roots to the engineers she oversees. “Math grounds solutions, just as engineering grounds the cloud solutions we create. I’ve always done my best to listen and learn all I can about those I work with and for. Learning others’ jargon and putting yourself in their shoes can be empowering to the people you deal with. It lets them see you as someone who cares and who wants to help.”
Above all, Heba defines her greatest role as single parent of a precocious 12-year-old daughter. “I feel strongly that being a parent makes me more effective in my leadership role because I have genuine empathy for the need to achieve a good work/life balance. Parenting also teaches you to focus in on the core of any issue or problem. And then there’s the motivation to create a better world for my daughter to live in.”
To learn more about the Cloudforce team, click the link below.
Before joining Cloudforce as Content Specialist, Leslie worked in corporate and ad agency settings, and as owner of her own freelance writer/producer business. Throughout her career, she’s written spots and informercials for the likes of Isaac Hayes, Larry King, Brian McKnight, and Tom Bodett, to name a few. Her passion for inspiring, informing and entertaining also led to several fundraising and awareness video efforts for the Northern Virginia Urban League and Northern Virginia Family Services. As a proud Syracuse University graduate, she also served as Alumni President for the Washington metropolitan area, where she helped establish a scholarship program for area students attending S.U.
When we look back on 2024 regarding technology advancements and changes, there is likely one prevalent topic that will continue to pop up: AI. This year has been defined--and perhaps even...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t the future; it’s happening now—like RIGHT now. From virtual assistants to algorithms powering the apps we use every day, AI is reshaping EVERYTHING around us...
AI—it's arguably the single largest paradigm shift in technology since the mobile boom almost 20 years ago. In fact, with the capability and capacity to redefine how organizations, entities, and...
