Safak Ozgun

I was brought onto WD to develop their channel marketing strategy and execution across the Middle East and North Africa region, with South Africa being added to my region a year later. I was responsible for planning and executing channel marketing programs throughout the region with very close coordination with sales teams, deploying international field merchandising teams, and manage major tradeshows and events. Some of my achievements in this role include:

- Working closely with sales teams, I helped deliver a growth of over 60% in Africa region.
- I developed an international field merchandising team of over 10 people across UAE, Oman, Algeria, and South Africa
- Working with major partners like Jarir Bookstore, I helped drive demand for WD Apps which won us the Highest Growth Achievement award in Saudi Arabia.
- I designed in-store kiosks which were adapted globally and have now been implemented in over 200+ stores across the world.
- I executed social media campaigns which drove our Facebook fan-base from 250 fans to over 15, 000 fans in the UAE
- Delivered the 60 Seconds to Convince pitch at Distree Africa which won the company the Best Innovation Product via live voting by the audience, and was nominated for the Best Presenter award at the event.

In this role I worked very closely with our distribution partners to drive the business for VAIO products across Oman, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan. This role involved very close coordination with channel partners, and planning and execution of country-wide growth plans. Below are some of my key achievements in this role:

- Played a key role in relaunching B2B business in Pakistan through building relationships with key corporate customers in Pakistan to drive growth of over 100% in country
- Designed end user campaigns with key retailers to drive a growth of approximately 25% year over year in Lebanon and over 100% in Oman
- Developed social media campaigns which built our Facebook fan base in Lebanon from approximately 100 users to over 10, 000 users.

In this role I was responsible for coordinating our field merchandising teams across the Middle East region. I was also responsible for tracking in-store activities, executions, managing POPs, and managing all of our events and exhibitions in the UAE. Some of my key achievements are:


- Developed HP Merch Lab which was an online tool used for company-wide reporting and coordinating of our trade marketing activities and resources
- Successfully managed several events such as Gitex Shopper 2007-2010, Dubai Film Festival, Arab Media Forum, Mother & Child Exhibition, and Hot 100 Awards

This role being my first one in my career, I was hired by HP to take on field merchandising responsibilities in key accounts such as Sharaf DG, Virgin Megastores, and Geant hypermarket.