Managing Director
Saatchi & Saatchi
Total years of experience :33 years, 4 Months
Saatchi & Saatchi is a Publicis Groupe advertising agency with presence in more than 82 countries with flagship clients such as Toyota, HP, Head & Shoulders, Pampers, Olay, Gilette, Ariel.
Position/Title: Managing Director- Saudi Arabia
Duties & Responsibilities:
a. In charge of both Riyadh and Jeddah offices.
b. Restructured the offices around the business needs of the clients (Samba, Arial, Head & Shoulders, Pampers, Mead Johnson, Lurpak, Puck).
c. Recruited more than 16 executives to rejuvenated the Saatchi brand in the Saudi market.
Achievements: Established the One-Creative-Platform (OCP) to cross-breed creative talents across the portfolio of our clients. Grew profit margin from -1% (2010) to +16% (2013)
In charge of growing all sectors of the business including voice, data and B2B. Heading Marcom, Product and Services, PR and Business Intelligence units.
• Grew unaided brand awareness from 42% to 79 % in 13 months
• Reconnected almost 30% of churns and reduced churning rate from 26% to 17%.
• Grew company ARPU from $6 to $8.5.
• Re-branded the business division of the company to deliver a tailor made and focused service to corporations and SME’s.
Second Opinion was setup to become a leading brand consultancy practice to service major local and international corporations in the Middle East.
Clients ranged from advertising agencies, broadcasting, confectionary business, FMCG clients, office supplies brands, government projects and other security printing corporations.
Second Opinion’s fields of expertise included branding, marketing consultancy, strategic communication issue solving, PR consultancy, portfolio building, corporate communication.
Group Account Director on Orbit Satelite TV:
-Managed 13 teams within the Orbit regional group for the Orbit business.
-Was instrumental in increasing Orbit's subscriber base and contributed in developing the image of the brand.
-Together with the Vice President Marketing of Orbit worked on all regional image campaigns and implimented major promotions across the region.
-Worked very closely with all country marketing managers (13 markets) to develop sales and marketing tools for their relevant countries.
-Trained Customer Service personnel on all direct response promotions. This included sales pitches and closing deals.
New business development:
Actively contributed in structuring and building a New Business setup for the Promoseven Group in the UAE.
My task included the folowing:
- Recruitment and training of New business planning personel.
-Laying down a corporate New Business strategy, templates and scenarios.
-Establishing a Hit List model
-Identifying major spenders industries in the region.
My duties as Marketing Director was work closely with both the Vice President Sales and programing in the USA to promote the WorldSpace system and hardware in 7 Middle Eastern countries. My duties included:
- Establishing the marketing and communication startegy for the region in addition to the countries.
- Managing the marketing budgets and negotiating rates on media and production.
-Contributed in setting achievable forcast for the year with the sales force.
- Working closely with the Advertising agencies in all countries to execute the advertising plans
-Coordinating with the local distributors of WorldSpace and help them in distributing and promoting the product. This included salesmen training.
-Coordinating with manufacturing partners in Japan and Dubai Jabel Ali (Sanyo, Panasonic and Toshiba) at the level of product development.
Regional Account Director M&M Mars:
Worked on the following Mars confectionary products:
- M&M
- Snickers
- Bounty
Actively contributed in setting up a Mars/BBDO team in coordination with the regional client in Dubai and worked on all major consumer building promotions in all Mars Middle Eastern Territories.
Regional Account Director LG Electronics:
Was part of the Identity shift of the Group (from Gold Star to LG Electronics).
Worked on the strategic ID Shift from presenting the new ID to dealers to total branding campaigns in the region.
95-97: Account Director
Worked on the following businesses for the region with 3 diffrent teams:
- Burger King
- Haagen Dazs
- Shell Lubricants
93-95: Account Manager
Worked on the following businesses
-The Saudi British Bank
-Shell Lubricants
- Al Marai Dairy
90-93 Account Executive
Worked in the Publi-Graphics Uniliver team on the Lipton Tea Brand
Was granted the IAA advertising Diploma