Iram Ali

Head of Leadership and Customer Enablement for the VP, AWS

Iram joined Amazon Web Services in May 2017, and currently serves as the Head of Leadership and Customer Enablement for the Vice President, US Federal and Nonprofit/ Nonprofit Healthcare Organizations. In this capacity, she leads a team focused on providing creative and innovative solutions for customer issues that positively impact the customer experience and relationship. Iram comes to this role after leading AWS’ public policy efforts in defense and national security for three years. She was responsible for executing and managing key public policy objectives to further drive commercial cloud adoption among the Defense and Intelligence Community customers.

Prior to Amazon, Iram was the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense/ White House Liaison to the Department of Defense from March 2014 through January 2017. Appointed by President Obama, she served Secretaries Panetta, Hagel and Carter, and was part of the Secretary's Senior Leadership Team. She was responsible for the hiring and management of almost 300 Department of Defense Presidential appointees, including the vetting, nomination and Senate confirmation of 22 Presidential appointees and the Secretary himself. She also served as a consultant to the Secretary and his senior staff in matters of strategy, workforce planning, priority setting and administration.

Prior to working at the White House and the Pentagon, Iram was the Director, Government Relations-Intelligence and Security at BAE Systems, Inc. Here she managed critical customer relationships with the Intelligence Community, and successfully created strategic plans and business winning campaigns, and leading the pursuit of business opportunities from identification through contract execution.

From 2011 through 2013, Iram was the Chief of Policy (Legislative Affairs) where she supported the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in all legislative activities, including confirmations, budget issues, and member engagements. She has also served in leadership roles on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, specializing in HUMINT, Counterterrorism and Intelligence Community Management issues. She previously held policy and HUMINT positions with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and is a certified interrogator and strategic debriefer.

A native of Detroit, Michigan and fluent in multiple languages, Iram holds an MBA in Global Management from Lawrence Technological University, and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Wayne State University.