Digital Media Consultant
Independent
Total years of experience :27 years, 0 Months
Consulting for media organizations, publishers and content-driven tech startups in the MENA region
on: Digital Content Strategy, Social Media and Marketing Strategy, Business Development, and Organizational Structure in digital set ups among other disciplines.
Reporting into the Vice President of International Media, I was part of both the International Media
and Middle East leadership teams. Leading an organization of 25+ employees across three countries (Egypt, Jordan and UAE) covering the entire MENA region and South Africa
in both Arabic and English languages.
Key Tasks:
- Strategy: Defining and delivering the content strategy for the MEA region with a focus on
original content, video and social media, in line with Yahoo’s international editorial strategy
- Partnerships: Responsible for contract negotiations for content partnerships within the MEA
region, agency/vendor selection, talent negotiations and management, and supervising a freelancer
network. Contracts include: content agreements and SOWs
- Monetization: Working closely with MEA commercial team to deliver content marketing and native
advertising experiences.
- Budget: Managing a USD seven-digit content budget for the region
Reporting into the Head of Media for Middle East & Africa and managing a team of 20+ employees in Egypt and Jordan. I was also Country Ambassador for the Yahoo office in Cairo, with a dotted reporting line into MEA region Managing Director until moving to Dubai
Key Tasks:
-Strategy: Defining and delivering the content strategy for Yahoo’s Arabic websites in MEA region
-Partnerships: Lead on identifying and negotiating with new content partners to build Yahoo Arabic network with support from Business Development team
-Monetization: Lead the editorial team in ideation of monetizable content executions with coordination with MEA commercial team
-Operation: Manage the Yahoo Cairo operation with +170 employee office. Liaising with the Egyptian government through Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and internally with Yahoo EMEA leadership team
-Resource Management: Put together a team of editors, multimedia producers and socialmanagers
Reporting into the COO and managing a team of 50+ media/editorial employees working on six websites in both Arabic and English
Key Tasks:
-Strategy: Defined and delivered strategy for the company flagship websites that included:www.Akhbarak.net, www.FilGoal.com, www.FilFan.com, www.Contactcars.com
-Marketing: Put the strategy for social media organic growth and worked closely with marketing team on offline promotions and content partnerships
-Monetization: Managed Value Added Services (VAS) for Egypt’s three telecom companies (Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat) through Sarmady as a third party content provider.
Reporting into the Content Manager and managing a team of 3 bilingual editors
Key Tasks:
-Operation: Manage the websites of the former Arab Radio and Television (ART) networkin Arabic and English and Sarmady’s English content properties
1996-2003 Radio Programmer/Show Host/ Producer, CKDU Radio station, Halifax, Canada.
Produced, programmed and hosted CKDU’s first Arabic speaking radio show in Eastern Canada, Radio Egypt. Duties included:
Arabic music selection for old and new artists from the Middle East, Conducting interviews with major academic, artistic, and sports personalities in Cairo and Halifax.
Editing, compiling, and broadcasting news from the Arab World among other newsroom duties.
Covering musical and cultural events and conducting interviews with Arab singers who visit Halifax.
Training new programmers and hosts.
Through Arab Eyes is the first English language continuous 14-hour radio brodacasted specialty program in Canadian community radio dedicated to Middle East issues. It included segments about culture, politics, religion, history, popular- culture, and art in the Middle East.
Al- Maraya is the first monthly Arabic newspaper in Eastern Canada. Duties included reporting local sports events and editing sports news from the Arab World.