New Relic appoints Simon Rizkalla to drive APAC observability push
New Relic has appointed Simon Rizkalla as Vice President of Customer Advocacy for Asia-Pacific and Japan.
Rizkalla brings over 25 years of experience in enterprise SaaS, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure to his new role. Prior to this appointment, he served as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at HybridAI, and has also held senior sales and leadership positions at Cisco, Red Hat, and Alcatel-Lucent in the Asia-Pacific region.
In his new capacity, Rizkalla is based in Singapore and will lead customer advocacy efforts across Asia-Pacific and Japan. His responsibilities include partnering closely with customers to support the acceleration of technology adoption, addressing critical business challenges, and aiding organisations in surpassing their observability objectives.
Regional strategy
Rob Newell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific and Japan at New Relic, emphasised the importance of the role and region. He stated:
"The depth and breadth of experience that Simon holds-particularly within the Asia Pacific observability space-makes him a perfect fit for the role. Asia Pacific is a critical growth region for New Relic. I have no doubt that Simon's passion for leading high performing teams, coupled with his ethos of making customer success the heart of everything he does, will take our team and valued customers to new heights."
New Relic's Intelligent Observability Platform is designed to help businesses reduce disruptions in digital experiences. The company's most recent 2025 Observability Forecast for Asia-Pacific highlighted a regional trend of increasing observability adoption, particularly as organisations monitor artificial intelligence initiatives and deploy a broader range of observability capabilities to improve reliability and reduce operational outages.
Customer focus
Rizkalla will engage directly with customers to facilitate the deployment of New Relic's solutions. He commented on the evolving role of observability in the region:
"Observability is far beyond an operational hygiene practice. It's a strategic capability central to how companies manage risk, ensure reliability, innovate with AI, optimise costs, and comply with regulation. Now is the time for Asia Pacific organisations to embrace observability. I couldn't be more excited to join the team and help customers realise what they can achieve with our platform."
New Relic's platform aims to provide organisations with the capabilities to process and analyse telemetry data, with the goal of maximising operational value and controlling costs. According to the company, its platform is used by global firms operating in sectors such as retail, transport, hospitality, and technology, to drive digital transformation and improve customer experiences.
AI and digital transformation
The findings in New Relic's 2025 Observability Forecast for Asia-Pacific suggest that organisations in the region are proactively investing in observability tools to support new digital and AI initiatives. By monitoring complex digital environments, these companies aim to reduce the likelihood of service interruptions and optimise their business outcomes.
Rizkalla's background in leading technical and commercial teams is expected to be central as New Relic expands its approach to supporting customer success across Asia-Pacific and Japan.
