Sami Awad

Oversaw business development and new business integration measures with a clear focus on increasing market share and strengthening customer loyalty. Expand business into new categories, acquire new companies, and lead integration efforts. Defined KPIs, monitored staff performance, and introduced process improvements. Supervise proposal teams and account managers.
• Define business development road-map, introduce processes to support business growth, and nurture high-level relationships with key decision-makers within partners and clients.
• Assessed geographical expansion projects in India and Africa, in addition to facilitating a feasibility study for establishing a plant in Iraq.

Oversaw marketing programs for FHH portfolio, defined comprehensive business development strategies, directed departmental teams for achieving growth targets across all categories, administered marketing budget, and effectively allocated resources. Led contract negotiations with clients and partners. Astutely systemized and fully integrated marketing into the organisation echo system. Evaluated campaign and sales performance.
• Successfully coordinated growth efforts for increasing market share across the different categories and established a result-focused operating framework for the marketing function.
• Delivered a sales growth of over 60% for the entire range, especially baby diapers; negotiated the media contract and brought 10% annual improvement for media rates.
• Instrumental in developing the group annual operating plans and forecasting, as well as supervising field execution and improving alignment with the operating units.
• Encouraged marketing teams to adopt a field-based approach to innovate, as opposed to conceptual thinking, leading to increased cross-functional collaboration and co-ownership of P&L accountability.

Directed marketing vision and strategy development by leveraging years of brand building, pricing, consumer understanding, advertising, media, budgeting, and project management experience. Gained deep understanding of customer experience, identified market needs, and greatly enhanced market share. Introduced marketing planning processes such as cycle plan, innovation management, monthly marketing reviews, field marketing calendars, marketing tool kit, and annual marketing conference.
• Orchestrated the successful growth of the tissue business unit by over 75% during my tenure.
• Directed the re-launch of brand ‘Fine’ with a mega pan-Arab campaign that delivered 12% growth for that year.
• Championed numerous innovations within the tissue segment and established an effective strategy for advancing the full portfolio based on valuable consumer insights.
• Encouraged the close coordination and interaction between the head office and the field to create co-ownership of initiatives.
• Administered process to select a partner creative agency and conducted consumer research to establish data-driven decision making for new products and campaigns.

Responsible to focus company and bottler resources in realizing the company volume and profit objectives and provide on-going direction / leadership in setting the right strategy and building execution capabilities throughout the respective geographies of responsibility. Also establish a differentiated competitive advantage that allows the company brands to effectively and profitably go through the market place to finally reach consumer hands while ensuring value maximization for customers, consumers, bottlers and company. Major achievements include:
• Worked with all bottlers in the area to develop ‘09 business plan with full alignment on key business strategies and initiatives.
• Focused budget allocation on key business drivers to increase spending efficiency and maximize ROI.
• Worked closely with bottlers to identify organizational gaps and opportunities to increase market competitiveness.

Responsible for developing the commercial agenda for the Levant region. Lead the development of the Levant beverage marketing annual operating plan. Support the development of the price/pack strategy. Identify business opportunities and develop recommendations. Lead the development of the Levant markets media plans. Drive consumer research agenda to better understand consumer behavior. Lead the relationship with the advertising, research and PR agencies. Develop the structure of the marketing team and responsibilities. Analyze market data and identify trends and opportunities. Major achievements include:
• Lead the development of the marketing calendars for all markets for 07.
• Developed the Syria beverage price/pack portfolio which lead to solid volume and market share growth beyond set targets.
• Lead the no sugar strategy the development of the health and wellness portfolio for Lebanon.
• Launched Pepsi Max.

Heading PepsiCo operations in Nigeria, which is the biggest beverage market for PepsiCo in Sub Sahara Africa. Responsible for managing the relationship with the licensed bottler and ensuring the development of local bottler capabilities across all business aspects (marketing, sales, operations … etc.). Also responsible for developing implementing and evaluating the annual commercial plan for the Nigerian market and setting the strategic direction for the business on a rolling 3 year basis. Major achievements include:
• Achieved highest ever volume in the Nigerian market in 2004. Growth vs. previous year of 10%. This growth was coupled with consistent market share gain.
• Introduced a monthly sales and marketing tracking system to identify market opportunities and keep the focus on driving business results.
• Launched one of the most successful consumer promotions ever in Nigeria with substantial impact on volume and share.
• Launched Mountain Dew, one of PepsiCo’s core global brands.

Lead the development and execution of local tactical initiatives and the roll out of global marketing initiatives. Develop the annual marketing operating plan and its budget and participate in the development of the strategic business direction. Manage the marketing mix. Analyze sales data, share trends, consumer KPI’s and market situation and recommend action plans. Conduct sales rallies and develop merchandising materials. Major Achievements include:

• Lead the work on analyzing pack/price portfolio, which paved the way for a new long-term package strategy for Pepsi Cola in Jordan.
• Lead the planning and execution of two major and very successful consumer promotions.
• Introduced the monthly field performance tracking system to keep the sales team focused and identify opportunities in the market place.
• Increased the efficiency of our media spending through media deals that were based on full year planning.

Develop product’s marketing and sales plans, deploy them and monitor their effectiveness to ensure the achievement of the organizational goals. Coordinate with suppliers on marketing support, product and market development and training programs. Supervise the sales effort by training the sales staff and helping them in focusing and targeting high potential clients. Attend national and international fairs to follow the latest trends of the industry. Major Achievements include:

• Established the office furniture retail division in the company from a mismanaged entity to a division with a good contribution to the organizational turnover.
• Exceeded the set volume targets by 10% in 1999.
• Established the furniture projects division and brought it up to be a serious contender in the field of turn key projects.

Develop marketing plans for our products in different markets to sustain healthy growth figures and to realize full market potential. Follow up distributors’ performance and coordinate with them on developing the market and improving results. Assess different markets potentials and develop plans to penetrate new markets and expand our operations in existing ones. Coordinating with our direct operations offices on issues related to product and market development. Major Achievements include:

• Contributed to the development of a product line that is catered to the GCC market which gave us a competitive edge.
• Managed to re-activate the Jordanian market through re-focusing our effort on better customer service.
• Expanded our distribution operations in Saudi Arabia through following a distributor protection policy.