Bakhtiar, Samira Panah

As General Manager of Media & Entertainment, Games and Sports at AWS Industry Business Unit, Samira Panah Bakhtiar leads a high-performing, multi-generational team of builders and champions diversity. For close to two decades, her work at AWS and Cisco, where she served as Director of Media Operations, led to strategic alignment and business transformations with some of the world’s largest entertainment companies. She has a proven track record in tech strategy, business development, and sales – focusing on introducing innovation and enhancing operational efficiency in the areas of content production, media supply chain, broadcast distribution, OTT, interactive experiences, and content monetization. Passionate about advancing the status of women in technology, she is a presence in media, tech, and the NYC-based entrepreneurial community, as well as throughout major nonprofits and social impact organizations. In her personal time, Samira loves spending time with her family (including her 6-year-old son and 2 year-old daughter), traveling (she just got back from Patagonia!), watching live sports (especially basketball- Go Warriors!), binge watching everything on the streamers she works with, dancing to EDM, and hitting up the culinary scene with her husband, Koorosh, a restaurateur in Manhattan.