As part of our #WM2026 Women in Leadership series, Womenontop speaks to Nondumiso Zibi, Director of Support Engineering at AWS, about her leadership journey, the lessons she’s learned in the technology sector, and her passion for building high-performing teams. She shares her perspective on authentic leadership, empowering others, and inspiring more women to pursue leadership roles in STEM and beyond.
1. Tell us about your role and the impact your work has on your organization or industry.
I serve as Director of Frontline Support at Amazon Web Services (AWS) EMEA. I lead a team of cloud support engineers who work directly with our customers to resolve issues when AWS services experience disruptions. Our mission is to enable customers to build and run their applications in the cloud with confidence. We are the first line of response to ensure customer services are fully operational.
The impact of our work extends far beyond troubleshooting; we are helping organizations of all sizes, from startups to enterprises, realize the full potential of cloud computing. Every problem we solve accelerates innovation for our customers and strengthens trust in the cloud as the foundation of modern business. In an era where businesses depend on cloud infrastructure for everything from real-time payments to AI-powered customer experiences, the reliability and speed of our response directly shapes how confidently organizations invest in their digital future.
2. What are the biggest strategic decisions you are focused on right now?
Right now, I am focused on transforming how we deliver support in the age of AI. This is a dual challenge: our customers are integrating AI into their workloads at an unprecedented pace, and simultaneously, we are reimagining our own operations using AI to deliver faster, more accurate support.
The strategic decisions I’m navigating include how to upskill thousands of engineers to support emerging AI services, how to blend human expertise with AI-powered tools so customers get the best of both, and how to scale our support model for a world where the complexity of customer workloads is growing exponentially.
We are moving from a model where humans troubleshoot every issue from scratch to one where AI handles routine diagnostics and our engineers focus on the complex, judgment-heavy problems that truly need human expertise. The result is faster resolution for customers and more rewarding work for our people.
3. How do you approach making difficult business decisions under pressure?
I ground my decision-making in data and customer impact. When under pressure, I first seek to understand the scope of the problem: who is affected, what are the risks, and what are the trade-offs. I lean heavily on input from my team, because the people closest to the work often have the clearest perspective.
I also believe in being decisive rather than perfect; in fast-moving environments, waiting for 100% certainty can be more costly than making a well-informed decision and iterating as needed. We operate in an industry where a single hour of delay can impact thousands of businesses, so speed with data-driven judgment is essential. Finally and most importantly, I always ask myself: “What is the right thing to do for the customer?” That question cuts through noise and brings clarity even in the most complex situations.
4. What major shifts are you seeing within your industry, and how are you preparing for them?
The most significant shift is the rapid convergence of cloud computing and AI. We are in a new digital era where AI is no longer a niche capability; it is becoming embedded in virtually every workload and business process. Customers who were running traditional applications two years ago are now deploying AI agents, building with large language models, and rethinking their entire technology architecture.
To prepare, AWS is investing heavily in training our teams on AI technologies, rethinking our support frameworks to address AI-specific challenges like model performance, token economics, responsible AI governance, and building deeper partnerships to ensure our frontline teams have the knowledge and tools to guide customers through this transformation. We are also rethinking what “support” means in a world where customers interact with AI assistants before they ever reach a human engineer. The bar for human expertise is rising, and we are rising with it.
5. What role does technology, innovation or digital transformation play in your business strategy?
Technology is at the very core of what we do. By democratizing technology for nearly two decades and making cloud computing and generative AI accessible to organizations of every size and industry, AWS has built one of the fastest-growing enterprise technology businesses in history.
Millions of customers trust AWS to accelerate innovation, transform their businesses, and shape the future. With the most comprehensive AI capabilities and global infrastructure footprint, AWS empowers builders to turn big ideas into reality. We are also living this reality internally.
We have deployed AI across our own operations: from intelligent diagnostic tools that analyze issues in seconds rather than hours, to AI-powered quality systems that ensure every customer interaction meets our standards. Our engineers now work alongside AI teammates, combining machine speed with human judgment. This internal transformation gives us authentic insight into what our customers experience as they adopt AI, because we are on the same journey.
6. How do you measure success beyond financial performance?
Customer experience is our leading indicator of success. We measure how quickly and effectively we resolve customer issues, how satisfied customers are with their interactions, and whether we are truly enabling them to achieve their goals.
Beyond metrics, I look at the growth and development of my team: are we building the next generation of cloud and AI experts? Are our engineers learning, thriving, and feeling empowered? In the past year alone, we have retrained our engineers on AI technologies, created entirely new career paths that did not exist before, and built a culture where continuous learning is not optional but celebrated. When our people grow, our customers benefit, and that creates a virtuous cycle that no financial metric alone can capture.
7. What leadership principles guide your decision-making every day?
Amazon has 16 leadership principles that, as an Amazonian, you are required to abide by. In fact, we hire according to our leadership principles.
“Are Right, A Lot” is the principle I come back to most often. Leaders need to exercise strong judgment and good instincts. They need to seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. I believe in using data to inform my decisions whilst also trusting my instincts that come from deep experience and genuine customer obsession.
Every day, I challenge myself and my team to make decisions that serve the best interests of our customers, even when those decisions are difficult. In the AI transformation we are leading, this means sometimes choosing quality, good governance, and long-term trust over short-term metrics. It is about having the courage to be decisive, the humility to listen, and the discipline to follow through.
8. Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of your industry, and what advice would you offer the next generation of women leaders?
What excites me most is the democratization of technology. Cloud computing and AI are making powerful capabilities accessible to anyone with an idea and the determination to build. We are entering an era where a small team anywhere in the world can leverage the same infrastructure as the largest enterprises, and that levels the playing field in extraordinary ways. A startup in Lagos or Johannesburg can now build AI-powered products with the same tools as a Fortune 500 company in New York.
My advice to the next generation of women leaders: Be unapologetically bold. Do not wait for permission to lead or for someone to invite you to the table; pull up a chair. Invest in your technical depth, because competence builds confidence. Surround yourself with people who challenge you and champion you in equal measure. And remember that your unique perspective as a woman in technology is not a limitation; it is your superpower. The industry needs diverse voices to build technology that serves everyone, and your voice matters.
Short bio
Nondumiso Zibi is Director of Support Engineering at Amazon Web Services (AWS), leading cloud computing teams across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). With 18 years in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), she brings deep expertise in cloud computing, IT infrastructure management, and digital transformation, resolving complex customer challenges and developing regional business solutions.
As a thought leader, she regularly speaks on cloud computing, organizational transformation, and diversity in technology leadership. Her unique blend of technical expertise and strategic business insight makes her a sought-after voice at technology conferences, leadership forums, and industry panels.
