Ian Manning

Facebook

Head of Agencies Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan

Ian has 20 years experience working in Media and Marketing, having held senior positions in both Agencies and Media Owners in the UK, South Africa and Dubai including both global and local roles. Ian was recently responsible for the commercial launch of Instagram in MENA and is currently leading Facebooks Agency team across the region.

Mike Fairburn

Sony Music Entertainment Middle East

General Manager

Mike is the General Manager of Sony Music Entertainment Middle East based in Dubai, where he leads the company in a dynamic, fast growing region that spans a vast market comprising Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries and Pakistan amongst others. In a seventeen plus year career, Mike’s passion for music and entertainment has seen him run companies, departments and teams across a multitude of areas of the entertainment industry; from experiential programming, advertising and promotions, to artist partnerships, endorsements, sponsorships, tours and label management. Prior to moving to the UAE, Mike spent many years in London developing music and lifestyle properties for major brand groups including Diageo, Orange and LVMH. Mike specialized in bringing brands, labels, artists and content-owners together to develop integrated programmes in the UK, Europe and overseas. During this time, Mike also developed sports programmes, festival sponsorships and provided music consultancy to Orange UK and France Telecom. Mike is married and is the proud father of Ivy and Otis. He splits his time between family, work and health.

Jamal Al Mawed

Gambit Communications, UAE

Founder and Managing Director

Emirati/British/Palestinian hybrid with over 13 years’ experience handling the PR and Communications of multinational brands overseeing more than thirty countries, Jamal’s career before founding Gambit Communications took him to senior roles at leading brands such as Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and the Dubai Properties Group.

Pioneer in Social Influencer Engagement, Almawed has spoken at over 20 PR and Marketing summits across the world and is a university guest lecturer, senior judge for industry panels, magazine columnist and guest radio speaker for literary book reviews.

Selected by The Holmes Report in the prestigious EMEA ‘Innovator 25’ list for 2019 alongside names such as Greta Thunberg, and in the PR Week Power Book 2019, while in 2016 he was named by The Huffington Post as one of ‘Ten to Watch’ in the Middle East MarComms Industry. Early in his career he was the recipient of the MEPRA ‘Young Communicator of the Year Award’.

Tom Webster

CISCO

EMEA Paid Social Media Manager

Khaled Ismail

Tetra Pak

Regional Vice President - Communications

Khaled is the Regional Vice President Communications for the Greater Middle East and Africa region with over a decade of service in Tetra Pak. Formerly the Global Brand and Reputation Director for the Company, he is now responsible for Tetra Pak’s communications, advertising and sponsorships strategy, crisis management and security planning and execution throughout the region. He has more than 24 years’ experience, which started in advertising and then continued in international sales, marketing and branding in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Food Packaging Industries. Khaled has been in senior leadership positions with regional and global responsibilities in over 23 countries with multinational companies including Tetra Pak and The Coca-Cola Company. In his ‘spare’ time, Khaled is also a serial investor in several start-ups, an American Environmental Technology Company (Green Source Energy), a Lebanese Private Bank (Cedrus Bank), a Trendy Swedish Beverage Company (Caliente) and is a Co-Founder and CEO of a Global Social Media Company based in Dubai (My-Sign).

Ali Sabkar

Social Media Club, Inc. USA

Global Co-Chair

Ali SABKAR is the Founder & President of Social Media Club Bahrain who was the first to lead the social media activities & events in Bahrain. SABKAR has over 20 years of experience in Marketing, Media, PR, Branding, Production, eCommerce, eMarketing, Social Media & Digital Marketing. He was appointed as the eMarketing Project Manager of Zain Bahrain in 2007 to lead the e-initiatives and to establish the eMarketing functions. Ali SABKAR is an eMarketing Expert & Speaker of Making The Most Out of eMarketing for Organizations. He spoken at many conferences in the Middle East and more than 15,000s participants attended his training workshops in the Middle East. Sabkar is a co-author of a published book “ WHY MARKETING Middle East” with 2 well known international internet marketing experts; it is The Revolutionary Strategy to Attract Ideal Customers. Sabkar was appointed as Board of Director at Social Media Club USA in the capacity of Global New Chapter Management Director as first non USA citizen at the Global Board. Ali Sabkar won outstanding two awards in 2015, locally been awarded as the 2015 Best Social Media Professional by Alkhaldiya Youth Society in Bahrain & internationally awarded as Best 50 Asia most influential digital media professional at the mobile & digital marketing summit in India.

Alex Malouf

Schneider Electric

Corporate Communications Director MEA

Asad Ur Rehman

Unilever MENA

Director Media and Digital Transformation, North Africa & Middle East

Asad manages Unilever’s media investments across the Middle East and North Africa region. He is also responsible for driving digital transformation for Unilever brands across the region. Asad has been in Dubai since August 2013, prior to which he managed Global Media for Unilever’s Foods and Personal Care businesses, based out of Unilever’s HQ in London. Prior to joining Unilever, Asad did various assignments for MindShare/Group M in various parts of the world. He managed local offices in Vietnam and Pakistan for them, did a global role at their HQ in London, and managed regional projects in AsiaPac and LATAM.

Asad is also the founding Chair of The Marketing Society Middle East chapter. The Marketing Society focuses on inspiring bolder marketing leadership in the region. Asad also sits at the board of the IAA UAE office.

A graduate of IBA in Karachi, Asad is a technology enthusiast and an internationalist at heart, and considers himself fortunate to be working in the Middle East. You can find him on most social media platforms as @asadchawla

Hussein Dajani

Nissan

General Manager - Digital and Customer Experience (CX) Transformation - Africa, ME, Turkey, & India

Hussein has over 18 years of solid holistic Omnichannel Marketing Communication experience in the space leading and building seamless Phygital Customer Experience Journeys within multinational agencies (JWT, Leo Burnett, and TBWA) and Fortune 500 companies (Virgin Mobile, Red Bull, Nissan Motor Co.), across the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and India region.
After a 2 years stint with hug digital, as its Chief Digital and Operating Officer, which he grew exponentially till he lead to its sale to WPP, Hussein joins Nissan Motor Co. as General Manager Digital and Customer Experience for Africa, Middle East, India, and Turkey, for Nissan and Datsun brands, to be responsible for its Digital Transformation. Furthermore, Hussein plays an active role in the advisory council of the World Marketing Congress, as a Director with the Customer Institute, and as an expert advisor in ISMA (International Social Media Association).
 

Scott Thwaites

Twitter

EMEA Partner Manager

Scott is responsible for managing Twitter's sales partners across EMEA to deliver healthy growth. Prior to Twitter, Scott worked for Ad Dynamo in South Africa, where he was the head of Twitter's Advertising Operations and played a fundamental role in the setup and running of Ad Dynamo's Twitter Ad Sales Partnership in South Africa. Before that he worked in other roles in Ad Dynamo such as Head of Global Projects and Client Services Director.