1) Menacom chairman and chief executive officer JOSEPH GHOSSOUB resigned in April, taking much of the wider industry by surprise. Also departing Y&R, where he was interim CEO, were Ghossoub’s daughter Nadine, who was Y&R’s managing director and Shahir Ahmed, the agency’s chief creative officer. It was unclear why Ghossoub, one of the region’s most powerful and influential admen, stepped down. WPP’s director for the Middle East and North Africa region, Roy Haddad, oversaw the position until a replacement was found.
2) FILIP JABBOUR returned to the Middle East as the region’s first ever CEO of WPP’s GroupM in June. With the responsibility of leading the media holding group’s operations and driving growth in the MENA region, the former CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group MENA was also charged with developing GroupM’s strategy and accelerating the growth of its media agencies Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom and BPG Maxus across the region. With no predecessor, there are no shoes to fill and arguably no benchmarks of success to be measured against. “And only myself to blame,” he said with a laugh during an interview in September.
3) RAMZY ABOU-EZZEDDINE took over as CEO of Y&R in the MENA region following the departure of Joseph Ghossoub (see number one), who had been the agency’s interim CEO since March 2014. Abou- Ezzeddine’s arrival in September brought to an end a period of uncertainty surrounding the agency’s leadership, with his full remit being to oversee all of Y&R’s operations in the region, including the Intermarkets, Classic Partnership and Labstore agencies. He was previously the group head of marketing and communication for Bank Audi in Lebanon.
4) It was announced in early November that TAREK ABDALLA, Google’s regional head of marketing, was to take over as the CEO of MediaCom MENA. Although the marketing veteran will not take up his new position until January. He replaces former CEO Nick Barron, who suddenly parted company with the agency at the beginning of October.
5) WALID KANAAN moved from Impact BBDO at the tail end of the summer to take on the role of chief creative officer at TBWA\Raad. The appointment formed part of the agency’s wider transformation and represented a bid by the agency to inject new life into its creative output. “Walid is just the creative force we need to ramp up our firepower for clients throughout the MENA region,” said Reda Raad, CEO of TBWA\Raad Middle East.
6) The exodus from JWT Dubai included that of RICHARD HOL, the former regional creative director at JWT, who joined independent agency Nomads as executive creative director. Many others joined too. “We’re striking the right chord at the moment and we’re moving people from our own offices but we’re also bringing in new people who have real experience of Dubai and the region,” said Hans Howarth, the agency’s founder and CEO. “You have to have that combination to survive here.”
7) Following the appointment of Ramzy Abou-Ezzeddine as CEO of Y&R across the Middle East and North Africa, Abou-Ezzeddine went on to name GEORGES BARSOUM as CEO of Y&R in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Barsoum, who was previously regional managing director for Leo Burnett Saudi Arabia, took on responsibility for Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
8) ALEX BRUNORI quit Publicis Middle East, where he was regional executive creative director, in July and took up a new position at Google in August. Although his role as head of creative agencies has existed in other markets for a number of years, it was a first for the region with Google looking to build relationships with creative agencies in the same way it has done with media agencies.
9) Grey Group MENA, which has had something of a low profile over the past few years, appointed MIKE SHACKLE as its chief creative officer in July. Based in Dubai, Shackle filled the position left vacant by the departure of Marc Chalhoub, who had been appointed as the agency’s chief creative officer in March 2012. Prior to joining Grey Shackle was the executive creative director at gyro London.
10) Following a significant reshuffling of Mindshare’s senior management, it was announced in November that RAVI RAO was to head up the agency’s UAE offices. Rao, who also retained his role as the agency’s chief client officer, now leads the Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices following the move of Mazen Fakhoury from managing director of Mindshare UAE to the position of chief growth officer for the network as a whole.
