Michel Verzeide

Strategic Director of Infrastructure shaping resilient, scalable, and secure technology foundations that enable sustainable business growth. I combine long-term strategic vision with pragmatic execution, leading complex, multi-country environments with clarity and accountability. With a background spanning engineering to executive leadership, I build trusted, high-performing teams and foster a culture of ownership, discipline, and measurable impact.

I connect infrastructure strategy directly to business ambition — strengthening resilience, enabling expansion, and driving sustained high performance.

Infrastructure Director EMEA (Interim) at Nike EMEA (2024-01 – 2026-12)

• Provide interim executive leadership for the EMEA Infrastructure portfolio, covering Cloud, Workplace Engineering, Retail Platforms, Audio-Visual, and Network domains across a multi-country enterprise environment.
• Hold full accountability for engineering and operations performance, ensuring secure, resilient, and scalable service delivery aligned with regional business priorities.
• Member of the EMEA Technology Operations Leadership Team, driving global–regional alignment and contributing to technology strategy, governance, and investment direction.

Technology Network Director EMEA at Nike EMEA (2015-01 – 2026-12)

• Lead the EMEA-wide network and voice infrastructure landscape across Nike, Converse, and Jordan brands, translating business strategy into resilient, scalable, and secure technology foundations.
• Own end-to-end responsibility for telecom connectivity, routing, switching, wireless, and voice services across EMEA, driving vendor consolidation from 60+ to 5 strategic partners while ensuring optimal selection, cost-effective solutions, and high-quality delivery.
• Oversee infrastructure engineering and operations across 250+ retail stores, 12 corporate offices, 5 logistics centers, a 10-building campus, and 2 regional data centers supporting thousands of users across the region.
• Direct a distributed organization of 45 engineers (FTE and extended workforce), driving engineering excellence, operational reliability, and continuous performance improvement.
• Own a €13M regional infrastructure budget and lead strategic vendor partnerships, ensuring disciplined execution and strong cost governance delivering a 20% cost optimisation during the last 4 years.
• Deliver zero-disruption network and voice refresh cycles year-over-year while enabling aggressive retail expansion, new-build logistics centers, and secure rollout of next-generation technologies including POS and security platforms.
• Member of the EMEA Infrastructure Management Team, aligning regional execution with global strategy and fostering strong executive and cross-functional stakeholder engagement.

Infrastructure Technology manager Europe at Nike EMEA (2008-01 – 2015-12)

• Led Server, Storage, Network, and Retail Infrastructure teams, ensuring operational stability and engineering excellence across Europe.
• Managed European infrastructure delivery through a lean internal team and global outsourcing partners, governing performance against SLAs and business expectations.
• Aligned regional infrastructure strategy and design with global architecture standards and enterprise roadmaps.
• Drove structured service management reviews and partner governance to ensure high-quality engineering, delivery, and support services.
• Designed and implemented enterprise-grade server and storage solutions across the European footprint, owning initiatives from architecture through deployment and operational support.
• Combined deep hands-on engineering expertise with scalable infrastructure design, ensuring resilient and high-performing environments.
• Contributed to the global engineering function by influencing architectural standards and translating strategy into practical regional execution.

Server & Storage engineer Europe at Nike EMEA (2000-01 – 2008-12)

• Designed and implemented enterprise-grade server and storage solutions across the European footprint, owning initiatives from architecture through deployment and operational support.
• Combined deep hands-on engineering expertise with scalable infrastructure design, ensuring resilient and high-performing environments.
• Contributed to the global engineering function by influencing architectural standards and translating strategy into practical regional execution.

Desktop Engineer at Rijnhaave/Syntegra (1996-01 – 2000-12)

• Delivered enterprise workplace solutions for clients including Philips and Nike.

Technical Information & Communication Technology in Information & Communication Technology – MTS (1989-01 – 1994-12)

HAVO – Goudse Scholen Gemeenschap (1986-01 – 1989-12)